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2014-03-31 15:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [5069]}

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Invest In The Global Middle Class -- With One Of Buffett's Favorites

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/invest-global-middle-class-buffetts-150000151.html

StreetAuthority Network

http://www.streetauthority.com

By 2030, the global middle class is expected to more than double in size from 2 billion to 4.9 billion. That demographic change is going to have a huge impact around the world. For the people who join the middle class, it's going to mean a significant amount of disposable income for the first time in their lives -- allowing them to purchase the luxuries that Westerners have long taken for granted. For investors, it's important to be aware of not only the fact that the ranks of the middle class are going to swell... but where. Today, half of the 2 billion people in the global middle class are from North America and Europe. By 2030, that share is expected to shrink to 22%. On the other hand, Asia is expected to have 64% of the planet's middle class by 2030. As an investor, I want to make sure that the companies I'm investing in are going to have the wind at their backs for a long time to come. I like companies that benefit from the fact that people are living longer. I like companies that benefit from rising oil prices. And I like companies that are exposed to this burgeoning Asian middle class. One way to get exposure to bigger discretionary spending in Asia is to buy multi-national North American companies that do some of their business overseas. But to get more-direct exposure to this middle-class trend, I would like to own companies that are going to have most of their operations and sales in Asia. [More from StreetAuthority.com: A Value Guru Is Going Against The Short Sellers On This Stock -- Should You? ] The problem with that is that investing in these foreign companies can be daunting. That is why I'm interested in an Asian furniture manufacturer called Nova Lifestyle (Nasdaq: NVFY ) . Nova is listed on the Nasdaq and does a significant amount of business with a company I trust, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B ) . I figure if a company is good enough for Buffett to do business with, it's good enough for me to at least take a look at. Story continues Based in California, Nova LifeStyle designs, builds and distributes modern lifestyle furniture designed to appeal to middle and upper-middle-class consumers -- exactly the type of consumer I'm looking to get exposure to. Nova manufactures its products in a 1.1 million-square-foot production facility in China near Hong Kong. The facility covers every aspect of the manufacturing process, from woodcutting to warehousing and distribution. Sales for the company are split fairly evenly between Europe, the U.S. and China. The exposure to China is what I'm interested in, but I appreciate that the company has established relationships with several U.S. furniture companies, including Rooms To Go and Berkshire's Nebraska Furniture Mart. Nova is already a fast-growing company. Sales were up more than 50% in 2012 and are on pace to be up another 33% in fiscal 2013. [More from StreetAuthority.com: A Modern-Day Buffett Is Jumping On This 'Hated' Company ] Depending on what happens in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2013, it appears that Nova is on pace for record earnings, and at the current share price trades for 18 to 20 times trailing earnings. That price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple is basically in line with the overall market. In other words, Nova has an average valuation. The question that I would ask, then, is whether Nova has better than average long-term growth prospects. Given the expectations for the level of spending by the Asian middle class in the coming years, I would say the answer to that question is a very clear yes. A P/E multiple of 18 to 20 on a slow-growing company is likely expensive. On a company growing at the rates the Nova has been (and likely will continue to be), a price to earnings of 18 to 20 is a different story. If a company is priced at 18 times trailing earnings and then grows by 30% the following year, that P/E shrinks to under 14 (if the share price doesn't rise). Many great investments have been made paying a fair price for a company that grows at a high rate for an extended period of time. As Buffett might say , a good company at a fair price is better than a poor company at a low price. [More from StreetAuthority.com: Collect A 7% Yield While You Wait For This Beaten-Down Stock To Triple ] Nova's balance sheet is conservative and liquid. Current assets stand at $34 million, while current liabilities are $12 million. There is very little long-term debt. Risks to Consider: Furniture sales are a cyclical business. That means that there will be bumps along the road and years when growth slows temporarily. Also keep an eye on cash flows: Over time they should at least equal earnings. Action to Take --> Buy shares in Nova Lifestyle, which is attractively valued relative to its high growth rates. However, take your time and do your own research -- there will likely be opportunities to get in at even better prices if you are patient. Related Articles Invest In The Global Middle Class -- With One Of Buffett's Favorites Is This Iconic Brand The Next Starbucks? Is This Stock The 'Amazon.com of Bitcoin'?

2014-04-01 03:03:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [62, 507, 753, 978]}

{"Bitcoin": [26]}

Square Market now accepts Bitcoins

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2014-03-31-square-market-now-accepts-bitcoins.html

Engadget

https://www.engadget.com/

Square Market's one of the latest e-retailers to realize that Bitcoins might not be too cryptic to be used as a legit payment option, after all. The e-commerce website now accepts payments made using the cryptocurrency, as Square Market Lead Ajit Varma announced in a blog post where he also explained the technical details behind the process. He said buyers will be given a QR code and the info they need to buy anything from massages to biking gear with their virtual wallets. Square, in partnership with Bitcoin processor Coinbase , will then forward the payment to merchants in US dollars -- minus the website's standard processing fee, that is. A spokesperson told Recode that Square Market will take a 2.75 percent cut from each sale, even though Bitcoin processors typically charge 1 percent per transaction. Still, that's not such a bad deal for sellers who get charged the same percentage for credit card payments anyway. And that's certainly great news for folks with Bitcoins to spare... so long as they're cool with recording every purchase for the ever watchful IRS .

2014-04-01 09:32:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [36, 84, 138, 400, 500, 630, 723, 1153, 1385, 2295, 2343, 2392, 2422]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin And Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform Solution For Operators Launched by PFSOFT

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-exchange-platform-solution-093200699.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

In a world first PFSOFT's Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution brings industry grade Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange solutions to both Bitcoin startups and established digital currency exchanges. Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine / ACCESSWIRE / April 1, 2014 / Trading technology leader PFSOFT, which has been offering industry grade exchange solutions since 2003, has announced the launch of the Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution : the world's first end-to-end commercial exchange solution available for Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and derivative trading. The innovative offering provides all the needed components to launch and manage a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange and is available now . On the server side, the Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution includes scalable cluster technology, fully integrated matching engine, a web-based administrative console for accessing back and middle-office functions, easy management of users, trade operations, account operations, commissions plans and reports, and various settlement options. "This is the only solution currently available on the market that includes all the needed components for a full lifecycle Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies exchange. The real strength, however, is the professional front-end suite that includes desktop, web, and mobile trading applications," said Denis Borisovsky, CEO of PFSOFT. The front-end suite provides Bitcoin traders with a comprehensive market view with advanced functionality including customizable market depth, customizable time and sales, advanced charting with overlays, drawing tools, customizable time-frames and indicators, and algorithmic trading. "It's important to mention that this is not a 'box solution.' We provide SOAP and FIX APIs that can be used for integrations with payment systems, websites, CRMs, and even third party software vendors," said Roman Nalivayko, Head of Business Development at PFSOFT. "This will help the market, which is currently offering browser-based low performance trading, to evolve into a trading space that can attract professionals and money managers - not just miners. Exchanges can use this solution to drastically widen their target audience regardless of whether they are start-ups or already established." Story continues In a world first PFSOFT's Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution brings industry grade Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange solutions to Bitcoin startups, established Bitcoin exchanges, and legacy financial institutions worldwide. About PFSOFT: PFSOFT is a B2B technology provider that has been offering its highly customizable Brokerage and Exchange solutions since 2003. PFSOFT is privately owned with offices in Ukraine, China, and Turkey. Visit http://pfsoft.com/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Adam Winiarczyk Organization: PFSOFT Phone: +380 56 740 31 01 Email: [email protected] Address: Mechnikova Street, Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, 49000 SOURCE : PSOFT http://bitcoinprbuzz.com/pfsoft-announces-industry-grade-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-exchange-platform-solution-for-exchange-operators-worldwide/

2014-04-01 09:32:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [36, 84, 138, 400, 500, 630, 723, 1153, 1385, 2295, 2343, 2392, 2422]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin And Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform Solution For Operators Launched by PFSOFT

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-exchange-platform-solution-093200699.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

In a world first PFSOFT's Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution brings industry grade Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange solutions to both Bitcoin startups and established digital currency exchanges. Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine / ACCESSWIRE / April 1, 2014 / Trading technology leader PFSOFT, which has been offering industry grade exchange solutions since 2003, has announced the launch of the Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution : the world's first end-to-end commercial exchange solution available for Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and derivative trading. The innovative offering provides all the needed components to launch and manage a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange and is available now . On the server side, the Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution includes scalable cluster technology, fully integrated matching engine, a web-based administrative console for accessing back and middle-office functions, easy management of users, trade operations, account operations, commissions plans and reports, and various settlement options. "This is the only solution currently available on the market that includes all the needed components for a full lifecycle Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies exchange. The real strength, however, is the professional front-end suite that includes desktop, web, and mobile trading applications," said Denis Borisovsky, CEO of PFSOFT. The front-end suite provides Bitcoin traders with a comprehensive market view with advanced functionality including customizable market depth, customizable time and sales, advanced charting with overlays, drawing tools, customizable time-frames and indicators, and algorithmic trading. "It's important to mention that this is not a 'box solution.' We provide SOAP and FIX APIs that can be used for integrations with payment systems, websites, CRMs, and even third party software vendors," said Roman Nalivayko, Head of Business Development at PFSOFT. "This will help the market, which is currently offering browser-based low performance trading, to evolve into a trading space that can attract professionals and money managers - not just miners. Exchanges can use this solution to drastically widen their target audience regardless of whether they are start-ups or already established." Story continues In a world first PFSOFT's Protrader Bitcoin Exchange Solution brings industry grade Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange solutions to Bitcoin startups, established Bitcoin exchanges, and legacy financial institutions worldwide. About PFSOFT: PFSOFT is a B2B technology provider that has been offering its highly customizable Brokerage and Exchange solutions since 2003. PFSOFT is privately owned with offices in Ukraine, China, and Turkey. Visit http://pfsoft.com/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Adam Winiarczyk Organization: PFSOFT Phone: +380 56 740 31 01 Email: [email protected] Address: Mechnikova Street, Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, 49000 SOURCE : PSOFT http://bitcoinprbuzz.com/pfsoft-announces-industry-grade-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-exchange-platform-solution-for-exchange-operators-worldwide/

2014-04-01 09:45:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1547, 2276, 2350]}

{}

The Internet Scam That Hijacks Your Hard Drive

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/internet-scam-hijacks-hard-drive-094500337.html

The Fiscal Times

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/

Viruses used to be so simple. You’d go online with your dial-up modem, take 25 minutes to naively download an appealing-sounding .exe file, and suddenly a sheep would walk across the screen or an embarrassing e-mail would be sent to your entire address book. Some would even wish you a Happy New Year . Annoying, maybe, but they had their own ‘90s cyber-kiddie sense of charm. Some viruses, of course, were incredibly disruptive. Now, though, viruses and malware have become even more malicious. They’re out for more than just hacker cred – they’re out for your money. For a long time, malware scammers used tactics known as Scareware. The malicious software fraudulently claims that your computer has a serious virus infection then sends you to a page to buy their (useless) anti-virus software. Related: Porn, Drugs, Hitmen, Hackers: This Is the Deep Web While this is certainly still around, many people have gotten wise to the fraud. Now some scammers are playing hardball. Enter Ransomware. Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts files on your hard drives with a highly complicated algorithm then presents you with an ultimatum: Pay up or you lose your files forever. The inherent brilliance in the software is this: While the software can be removed, the files remain encrypted. Paying the ransom is the only chance you have to see your files again. Although this scam has been around since 1989 , only recently has it become widespread due to advancements in cryptography algorithms, the ability to extort via the anonymous currency Bitcoin, and the digitization of once-analog items of sentimental value like family photos and home videos. Some consumers are aware of the latest and most notable iteration of this trend known as CryptoLocker, which encrypts the user’s data with a 2048-bit RSA Algorithm. The scammers weren’t fooling around when they invented this complicated algorithm, which is incredibly difficult – if not impossible – to crack without a key, which will cost victims about $150 to $300. Story continues Cryptolocker has been incredibly successful. Owing to surprisingly good “customer service” — the majority of people who pay the ransom have their files restored — the men behind the Cryptolocker curtain have raked in over $27 million in Bitcoin over a period of three months, according to an examination of the Bitcoin blockchain by ZDNet. Related: Cyber Crime Pays: A $114 Billion Industry Due to the inherent success of the software, it seems only logical that a bevy of copycats would show up. And they have . In droves. One version, which claimed the owner of the computer had been caught with illicit material on his computer, demanded a fine. The ordeal caused a Romanian man to take his own life and that of his son two weeks ago . While Ransomware has evolved as a threat to home computer users, it bears a sizeable risk to the business world as well. After all, the earlier versions of Cryptolocker actually targeted business professionals, hiding itself within emails claiming to be a “ consumer complaint .” McAfee, the prominent maker of anti-virus products, predicts that Ransomware in 2014 will evolve to further target businesses and business owners, and that the software will shift to the mobile realm this year. Scammers will, according to McAfee, use the information gleaned from business owners' mobile devices to gain a “tactical advantage” over the businesses, which could end up costing them untold amounts of money. It's scary stuff certainly, but home users and business owners still have one easy way out – ensuring all their files are backed up using a cloud-based service, untouchable to any scammers. In terms of which service to pick, there are hundreds of them out there. Box for Business is an affordable option, offering a terabyte of storage per user, at a price of $15 a user. Amazon’s S3 offer’s a pay-per-use monthly pricing scale at 10 cents a gigabyte. At $55 a month for 3 users, SugarSync for Business is a slightly pricier option, but boasts a collaborative sharing platform and mobile access. Suffice it to say, regardless of the particular needs of your family or your organization, there’s a service out there’s that caters to them. There’s no excuse to keep only data stored locally. Once everyone does this, Ransomware will seem much less threatening. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Spies Like Us: The NSA Is Intrusive and Incompetent DOD Launches New Offensive in Cyber-Expert Hiring Armies of Nerds Could Fight the Next Electronic War

2014-04-01 13:49:10+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [540, 1312, 1339, 1360, 1472, 1941, 1951]}

{"Bitcoin": [13]}

3 Secrets To Bitcoin Investment Success

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/3-secrets-bitcoin-investment-success-134910594.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

This week the bitcoin ecosystem got a lot of great news – investors are pouring millions into the ecosystem, the IRS clarified the U.S. tax situation , and Stripe announced they will support bitcoin this year. However bitcoin investors got a serious jolt yesterday when bitcoin dropped 20 percent. Quick drops like that can hurt bitcoin investors by causing them to buy high and sell low or sell low and miss big gains. Successful bitcoin investors need to do three things: have a plan, expect drops, and secure their bitcoins. Have a Plan Bitcoin investors need to have a strategy: It could be day trading, trying to pay off student loans, trying to retire, etc. These different strategies will provide a framework to make a risk reward tradeoff decision. For example, a student wanting to pay off loans may decide it makes sense to invest $100 now with the potential to pay off their student loan debt in 4 years, whereas a young software developer may invest $10,000 looking to retire in ten years. If their bitcoin holdings increase to $100,000, the student has realized his goal and knows it makes sense to cash out, whereas the software developer knows $100,000 is not enough to retire on. Without a framework like that, traders can always be questioning: should I get out now? See also: 3 Reasons The IRS Bitcoin Ruling Is Good For Bitcoin Expect Drops Bitcoin's price will drop. It's price will probably drop more and faster than any other investment you've held. Bitcoin is held nearly exclusively by speculators and early adopters making its volatility normal. In fact bitcoin is more stable than it has ever been. No one knows if this nascent technology will disrupt finance with the same magnitude the internet disrupted communications or be displaced and relegated to the dust bins of history like the pager. It is volatile like a tech startup and that is where the potentially massive financial upside comes from. Secure Those Bitcoins! Bitcoin gives owners 100 percent control over their funds. With that great power comes responsibility. Aside from being your own worst enemy by selling low, the next worst way to lose bitcoins are to have them stolen by bad security practices. Too many bitcoin investors have lost small fortunes through poor investment decisions and outright thefts. Story continues Reasonably estimate the root issue for 90 percent of thefts stem from people trusting funds with another party. This is ironic because the bitcoin creator saw the need to remove trust, stating in his white-paper : “What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.” Any time funds are held in an online wallet, online exchange, or business those funds are at an increased level of risk. The company can get hacked, run their business poorly, or have an insider steal the funds. The more users of the service, the larger the prize awarded in a successful heist. When evaluating places to put bitcoins it is important to think of trust factors such as: who owns this company, where is this company located, what security features does this company employ, and how does this business make money? Some bitcoin “businesses” entire business model is just to take users money like the bitcoin savings and trust. Unfortunately storing bitcoins yourself, on your computer or smartphone doesn't eliminate the threat of loss entirely. It does substantially reduce the target, but your computer can be attacked through software flaws, viruses, and phishing attempts. Keep the wallet on the household computer least likely to get infected, ensure it is password protected, and wait for better solutions. Hardware manufacturers like Trezor are rapidly working to make bitcoins much safer for individuals to store. If a bitcoin investment grows into the tens of thousands of dollars it probably makes sense to explore setting up an encrypted offline paper wallet and storing it in a bank safety deposit box. That eliminates the risks outlined above but reduces access to all the funds stored on the wallet. If bitcoin achieves even a fraction of the potential venture capitalists are projecting investors following these three steps: having a plan, expecting drops, and securing those bitcoins are likely to benefit from their early investment in the technology. Disclosure: At the time of this writing David Smith has a long bitcoin position. Related Links Canalys Reports 3D Printing Market to Reach .2B in 2018 -Digitimes Mid-Afternoon Market Update: American Capital Rises as MannKind Shares Take a Hit Why Startups Shouldn't Take A Million-Dollar Investment © 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

2014-04-01 19:45:45+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [91, 279, 416, 600]}

{"Bitcoin": [68]}

Alleged Silk Road Founder Can't Be Guilty Of Money Laundering Since Bitcoin Isn't Money, Argues Lawyer

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/alleged-silk-road-founder-cant-194545725.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Ross Ulbricht with family cat Free Ross Ulbricht Ross Ulbricht The IRS recently ruled that Bitcoin is property , not a "monetary instrument." And now the attorney for alleged Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is arguing that his client must be innocent of money laundering because Bitcoin officially isn't money, reports Wired . Silk Road was the anonymous marketplace for drugs and weaponry favored by the internet's Bitcoin black market. Attorney Joshua Dratel wrote a memo calling for a dismissal of some charges against Ulbricht, stating that "both IRS and FinCEN ha ve categorically declared that Bitcoins are not 'funds.' Thus, an essential element of §1956 — a 'financial transaction' — is absent because a necessary component thereof — either 'funds' or 'monetary instruments' — is lacking. Consequently, it is respectfully submitted that Count Four must be dismissed." Ulbricht was indicted in both New York and Maryland, and these potential dismissals would only slightly alleviate Ulbricht's legal situation as they only apply in New York. Even if they were dropped, there's still one narcotics conspiracy charge, one count of running a criminal enterprise, and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking. Dratel is moving for these to be dismissed as well, citing them as "unconstitutionally vague." More From Business Insider The Toy Car Company That Launched At Apple's Developer Conference Thinks It's Solved 3 Major Problems In Robotics 8 Things You Never Knew Your iPhone's Headphones Could Do How To Instantly Browse The Most Popular Images From All Of Reddit

2014-04-01 21:05:44+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [49, 472, 1279], "BTC": [86, 133, 223, 455, 734, 1007, 1397, 1615, 1740, 1851]}

{"Bitcoin": [0], "BTC": [29]}

Bitcoin derivatives platform BTC gets funding from Seedcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-derivatives-platform-btc-gets-210544884.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin derivatives trading platform BTC.sx has secured funding from Seedcoin Fund, BTC.sx Chief Operating Officer George Samman told Reuters on Tuesday. Samman has provided BTC.sx around $250,000 in funding, which he said was the largest investment by Seedcoin so far. "This is part of the funding we're trying to raise and we are very close to landing additional funding," said Samman. The investment in BTC is the sixth Bitcoin-denominated position from the first SeedCoin fund. The other five businesses are Cryptopay, CoinSimple, MexBT, Hive and zSIM, Seedcoin said in a statement. SeedCoin is a startup "incubator" providing early-stage investment to digital currency companies. BTC, which started with a $150,000 investment, briefly suspended trading on its platform after its bitcoin exchange partner, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, went dark in February following weeks of turmoil. Mt. Gox eventually filed for bankruptcy protection. Prior to the suspension, BTC offered derivatives on Mt. Gox prices. Samman said the platform resumed trading on March 10 and now offers derivatives on BitStamp prices. BitStamp is a bitcoin exchange based in Slovenia and is now considered the world's largest based on trading volume. According to Bitcoin Charts, BitStamp has 30-day U.S. dollar volume of about $290 million. Derivatives volume has been light since BTC resumed trading, Samman said. "It has been picking up slightly. We're nowhere near the volumes we have seen before the collapse of Mt. Gox," Samman said. "I think that's just a bitcoin-wide problem at the moment." BTC has brokered more than $44 million in bitcoin derivative trades since it launched in April 2013. When Mt. Gox collapsed, BTC lost all of the bitcoins it had stored with the failed exchange. However, even before the Mt. Gox failure, BTC had already started withdrawing funds and reducing its exposure to the exchange because of worries about its future. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfus. Editing by Andre Grenon)

2014-04-01 21:05:44+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [49, 472, 1279], "BTC": [86, 133, 223, 455, 734, 1007, 1397, 1615, 1740, 1851]}

{"Bitcoin": [0], "BTC": [29]}

Bitcoin derivatives platform BTC gets funding from Seedcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-derivatives-platform-btc-gets-210544884.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin derivatives trading platform BTC.sx has secured funding from Seedcoin Fund, BTC.sx Chief Operating Officer George Samman told Reuters on Tuesday. Samman has provided BTC.sx around $250,000 in funding, which he said was the largest investment by Seedcoin so far. "This is part of the funding we're trying to raise and we are very close to landing additional funding," said Samman. The investment in BTC is the sixth Bitcoin-denominated position from the first SeedCoin fund. The other five businesses are Cryptopay, CoinSimple, MexBT, Hive and zSIM, Seedcoin said in a statement. SeedCoin is a startup "incubator" providing early-stage investment to digital currency companies. BTC, which started with a $150,000 investment, briefly suspended trading on its platform after its bitcoin exchange partner, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, went dark in February following weeks of turmoil. Mt. Gox eventually filed for bankruptcy protection. Prior to the suspension, BTC offered derivatives on Mt. Gox prices. Samman said the platform resumed trading on March 10 and now offers derivatives on BitStamp prices. BitStamp is a bitcoin exchange based in Slovenia and is now considered the world's largest based on trading volume. According to Bitcoin Charts, BitStamp has 30-day U.S. dollar volume of about $290 million. Derivatives volume has been light since BTC resumed trading, Samman said. "It has been picking up slightly. We're nowhere near the volumes we have seen before the collapse of Mt. Gox," Samman said. "I think that's just a bitcoin-wide problem at the moment." BTC has brokered more than $44 million in bitcoin derivative trades since it launched in April 2013. When Mt. Gox collapsed, BTC lost all of the bitcoins it had stored with the failed exchange. However, even before the Mt. Gox failure, BTC had already started withdrawing funds and reducing its exposure to the exchange because of worries about its future. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfus. Editing by Andre Grenon)

2014-04-01 21:18:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3978]}

{}

Rumored: Yahoo Might Launch Its Own YouTube, Allegedly Snatching Up Viral YouTube Talent

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rumored-yahoo-might-launch-own-211800973.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

Yahoo came first, but Google has YouTube. And, rumor has it , Yahoo has a hankering for its own version of YouTube , or at least something like it. So much so that the struggling Sunnyvale, Calif.-based early internet mammoth is allegedly “cherry-picking” viral YouTube stars away from the world’s most popular video service -- particularly ones who aren’t satisfied with the notoriously skimpy payouts they reportedly receive. According to Re/code, Yahoo “hopes to launch” a strategy “in the next few months” to compete with arch rival Google’s video cash cow. (Maybe they’ll call their attempt YahToobe? Nah, it just doesn’t roll off the tongue right, does it?) Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that Yahoo is in talks to acquire Atlanta-based online video syndication company News Distribution Network (NDN) for approximately $300 to $400 million, adding yet more fuel to rumors swirling around Yahoo’s fight for a bigger slice of the ad-supported online video pie. Related: Your Customers Are Likely More Engaged on YouTube Than on Facebook or Twitter We asked a Yahoo spokesperson if both of the rumors are true -- Yahoo’s alleged YouTube star poaching and a the alleged NDN deal -- to which she simply responded both times, “We don’t comment on rumors or speculation.” It’s no shocker that Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer is reportedly eyeing snagging traffic from YouTube. What doesn’t add up is that Google’s aggressive Employee No. 20 didn’t gun for the holy grail of online video earlier. YouTube is the second most visited website on the internet, second only to Google, of course, and it rakes in more than 1 billion unique users every month. A growing thirst for network content Walter Mossberg’s new indie tech news site, which is a CNBC partner, also reported Yahoo has also recently been in touch with “some of the big networks now on the giant online video service.” Yahoo apparently has quite an appetite for major broadcast network content. Last year the company inked a deal with Broadway Video to exclusively stream the complete 38-year Saturday Night Live catalogue. The catalogue is available through Yahoo's fledgling video-sharing offering Yahoo Screen , though it's not nearly as lucrative as expected. Related: Young Millionaire: Inside the Mind of Yahoo's Teen Sensation Nick D'Aloisio Also almost a year ago, Mayer attempted to land a $300 million majority stake in French video-sharing site DailyMotion, often dubbed “the YouTube of France.” It was a no-go. The French government squashed the deal . Yahoo also tried and failed to scoop up Hulu for $800 million. Story continues But Mayer doesn’t take well to defeat and she’s apparently not throwing in the towel in the battle for online video viewers and, more importantly, ad revenue, not without a fight. Not if the new face of Yahoo, veteran TV anchor Katie Couric can help it. More money and better exposure = A tough carrot not to bite Re/code revealed that Yahoo is allegedly enticing big-draw YouTube-ers by dangling sweeter “economics” and better brand exposure as bait: “The come-on? Yahoo executives have told video makers and owners that the company can offer them better economics than they’re getting on YouTube, either by improving the ad revenue or by offering guaranteed ad rates for their videos. In addition, Yahoo has offered extensive marketing, even on its home page, as well as allowing video producers the ability to sell advertising along with Yahoo’s sales force.” If the rumors about Facebook and Amazon possibly stepping up efforts in the ad-supported online video game are more than just rumors, Yahoo might be biting off a bigger battle than it can chew. Still, as Re/code’s headline hinted, the unflappable and always perfectly coiffed Mayer still looks ready for her closeup. Related: Why You Should Be on Google+ More From Entrepreneur Your Customers Are Likely More Engaged on YouTube Than on Facebook or Twitter Square Market Now Takes Bitcoin Payments Getting Other Sites to Exchange Links View comments

2014-04-01 21:18:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3978]}

{}

Rumored: Yahoo Might Launch Its Own YouTube, Allegedly Snatching Up Viral YouTube Talent

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/rumored-yahoo-might-launch-own-211800973.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

Yahoo came first, but Google has YouTube. And, rumor has it , Yahoo has a hankering for its own version of YouTube , or at least something like it. So much so that the struggling Sunnyvale, Calif.-based early internet mammoth is allegedly “cherry-picking” viral YouTube stars away from the world’s most popular video service -- particularly ones who aren’t satisfied with the notoriously skimpy payouts they reportedly receive. According to Re/code, Yahoo “hopes to launch” a strategy “in the next few months” to compete with arch rival Google’s video cash cow. (Maybe they’ll call their attempt YahToobe? Nah, it just doesn’t roll off the tongue right, does it?) Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that Yahoo is in talks to acquire Atlanta-based online video syndication company News Distribution Network (NDN) for approximately $300 to $400 million, adding yet more fuel to rumors swirling around Yahoo’s fight for a bigger slice of the ad-supported online video pie. Related: Your Customers Are Likely More Engaged on YouTube Than on Facebook or Twitter We asked a Yahoo spokesperson if both of the rumors are true -- Yahoo’s alleged YouTube star poaching and a the alleged NDN deal -- to which she simply responded both times, “We don’t comment on rumors or speculation.” It’s no shocker that Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer is reportedly eyeing snagging traffic from YouTube. What doesn’t add up is that Google’s aggressive Employee No. 20 didn’t gun for the holy grail of online video earlier. YouTube is the second most visited website on the internet, second only to Google, of course, and it rakes in more than 1 billion unique users every month. A growing thirst for network content Walter Mossberg’s new indie tech news site, which is a CNBC partner, also reported Yahoo has also recently been in touch with “some of the big networks now on the giant online video service.” Yahoo apparently has quite an appetite for major broadcast network content. Last year the company inked a deal with Broadway Video to exclusively stream the complete 38-year Saturday Night Live catalogue. The catalogue is available through Yahoo's fledgling video-sharing offering Yahoo Screen , though it's not nearly as lucrative as expected. Story continues Related: Young Millionaire: Inside the Mind of Yahoo's Teen Sensation Nick D'Aloisio Also almost a year ago, Mayer attempted to land a $300 million majority stake in French video-sharing site DailyMotion, often dubbed “the YouTube of France.” It was a no-go. The French government squashed the deal . Yahoo also tried and failed to scoop up Hulu for $800 million. But Mayer doesn’t take well to defeat and she’s apparently not throwing in the towel in the battle for online video viewers and, more importantly, ad revenue, not without a fight. Not if the new face of Yahoo, veteran TV anchor Katie Couric can help it. More money and better exposure = A tough carrot not to bite Re/code revealed that Yahoo is allegedly enticing big-draw YouTube-ers by dangling sweeter “economics” and better brand exposure as bait: “The come-on? Yahoo executives have told video makers and owners that the company can offer them better economics than they’re getting on YouTube, either by improving the ad revenue or by offering guaranteed ad rates for their videos. In addition, Yahoo has offered extensive marketing, even on its home page, as well as allowing video producers the ability to sell advertising along with Yahoo’s sales force.” If the rumors about Facebook and Amazon possibly stepping up efforts in the ad-supported online video game are more than just rumors, Yahoo might be biting off a bigger battle than it can chew. Still, as Re/code’s headline hinted, the unflappable and always perfectly coiffed Mayer still looks ready for her closeup. Related: Why You Should Be on Google+ More From Entrepreneur Your Customers Are Likely More Engaged on YouTube Than on Facebook or Twitter Square Market Now Takes Bitcoin Payments Getting Other Sites to Exchange Links

2014-04-02 11:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [265, 2366, 2654, 3699, 4419]}

{"Bitcoin": [80]}

With $1M in Funding, PayStand Launches Out of Private Beta to Provide One-Click Bitcoin, eCheck and Credit Card Payment Solution

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1m-funding-paystand-launches-private-110000227.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SANTA CRUZ, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 2, 2014) - PayStand , a next generation online payment solution, today launched its service enabling organizations to easily accept multiple payment options online, all without transaction fees to the merchant. By allowing eCash (Bitcoin), eCheck (ACH/Dwolla), and all major credit cards, PayStand is the first and only payments service to easily allow digital currency and more traditional payments all at the same time. PayStand's all-in-one modern checkout works with any website, social network, or mobile application and eliminates the need for extra programming, additional software, or a separate merchant account. An organization can get started in under 5 minutes and can easily integrate payments into their website with custom branding. The company also announced today that it has secured $1 million in seed funding to build out new payment functions and features. Investors include Cervin Ventures, Serra Ventures, Central Coast Angels, and TiE LaunchPad. "The current payments system was not built for the Internet age," said Jeremy Almond, CEO and founder, PayStand. "In the physical world we have lots of payment options -- like cash, check, and credit -- and there are reasons to use each one. PayStand provides these same multiple payment options, while also helping organizations avoid transaction fees altogether. Our checkout technology allows people to pay the way they want to, and accepts the latest digital currency. Ultimately we aim to bring fairness, predictable cost and powerful flexibility to the payments space." PayStand has been in a closed beta since 2013, and has already signed up thousands of merchants as well as established partnerships with two website building services. These services are incorporating PayStand as the payment and eCommerce solution for customers' sites. New business model for online payments With the launch of PayStand, merchants have access to a new business model for payments transactions -- Payments as a Service. Merchants can now pay a fixed monthly fee for the PayStand software and avoid the transaction fees charged by other online payment services. Organizations can save as much as 75% over what they would traditionally pay other payment processors. Designed from the start to accept the disruptive digital currency, PayStand bridges the gap for accepting Bitcoin payments for mainstream businesses. Story continues To provide transparency and flexibility, PayStand gives consumers multiple payment options along with information on the costs for using each choice -- ranging from 2.9% for credit cards to 25 cents for eChecks to no charge for Bitcoin. With a one-click payment process, PayStand eliminates friction inherent in most other payment procedures up to now; consumers do not need to leave a merchant's site to checkout or need to remember additional passwords to pay. Five minutes to accepting payments, donations or full eCommerce PayStand is easy and fast to set up. In minutes an online merchant can be selling products, a service provider can get paid, or any non-profit can accept donations. An all-in-one solution, it provides all the elements needed for accepting online payments: buy or donate now buttons; secure checkout; and payment processing. PayStand also provides a free online store or integrates with any existing websites. There is no need for additional merchant accounts, hosting accounts, programming, order management software, inventory tracking, or any other add-on services. Features of PayStand solution include: Easy setup for merchants allowing an attractive payments system for consumers to use Accepts multiple payment options -- digital currency (Bitcoin), eCheck, and, all major credit cards including foreign currencies Provides merchants with a fixed monthly cost for the service; no transaction costs, no long-term contracts, no set up fees Responsive design is optimized for any device including mobile phones, tablets, social networks, and all web pages Accepts recurring payments and subscriptions for ongoing payments from consumers Funds automatically transferred to merchants' bank accounts Merchants assigned their own customer success rep, including integration assistance with direct telephone support About PayStand PayStand is a next generation online payment solution that enables organizations to quickly and easily accept credit cards, eChecks, and Bitcoin with one monthly fee and no transaction costs, making it extremely convenient for both merchants and buyers. The PayStand business model is fairer to merchants and offers transparency and flexibility to consumers. An all-in-one solution for accepting payments online for merchants, non-profits and service providers, PayStand provides all the elements necessary to set up online commerce in as little as five minutes. For more information, visit PayStand.com . Images available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/96020427@N07/sets/72157643080477844/ PayStand video: http://paystand.me/1jRCeTy

2014-04-02 13:42:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [716]}

{}

Fuelist Launches Pricing & Valuation Platform for Worldwide Classic & Collector Vehicle Market

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/fuelist-launches-pricing-valuation-platform-134200615.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

BERKELEY, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 2, 2014) - Fuelist, Inc., a 51% owned subsidiary of The Chancellor Group ( OTCBB : CHAG ), announces the launch of its pricing and valuation platform enabling consumers and enterprises to find values and track valuations over time while identifying investment and arbitrage opportunities in the collector car and motorcycle markets at http://fuelist.com The Fuelist platform includes data driven tools to help consumers and enterprises to more accurately price classic automobiles. Revenue is targeted in the form of licensing, individual and corporate subscriptions; royalty payments and advertising for prospective partners in the automotive, auction and car insurance industries. Bitcoin enabled payment options are also included for all transactions. The platform is cloud-based and will also include mobile apps and an API (Application Programming Interface) that will enable Fuelist to power large and small partners. Fuelist Co-Founder and MIT data scientist Dr. Thomas Rand-Nash said: "The Fuelist continuously aggregates detailed sales information from across the globe, and leverages deep expertise to intelligently organize and curate this information. "The Fuelist is similar to Zillow.com, but for collector and classic vehicles, in that our extensive proprietary database and tools enable people to properly value vehicles based on verified comparable sales data. From another perspective, anyone using platforms like Ebay Motors or sitting in the audience at a Sotheby's or Bonham's classic car auction should be using the Fuelist. Our data-analysis and visualization tools enable them to ask and answer questions about how much the collector and classic vehicles they are looking at are worth. Not only can they see what they are worth, but they can also identify the factors that drive these valuations, and track market trends over time." ABOUT FUELIST The Fuelist, a subsidiary of The Chancellor Group ( OTCBB : CHAG ) http://www.chancellorgroupinc.com , is a mobile and web platform that leverages deep segment expertise and big data analysis tools to value classic vehicles. These tools enable consumers and enterprises to quickly find values, visualize and track valuations over time while identifying investment and arbitrage opportunities in this market. The Fuelist is based in Berkeley, California. For more information about The Fuelist, please visit: http://www.fuelist.com Safe Harbor Statement: This Media release contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Chancellor Group, Inc., and members of its management as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Important factors currently known to management that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-statements include fluctuation of operating results, the ability to compete successfully and the ability to complete before-mentioned transactions. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes to future operating results.

2014-04-02 16:00:10+00:00

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{"Bitcoin": [50]}

Why Western Union and PayPal Better Watch Out for Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/why-western-union-paypal-better-160010663.html

24/7 Wall St.

http://247wallst.com

Bitcoin remains a mystery to much of the public, even while it has fought for its life as a currency and method of payment. Now a new angle has surfaced, with Fitch Ratings issuing a report on the virtual currency. Fitch's take is that Bitcoin remains small in comparison to payment processors and currencies. The report actually goes much further than that, because we now know how much Bitcoin is being used each and every day -- and Western Union Co. ( WU ) and eBay Inc. ( EBAY ) better not take their eyes off of Bitcoin. Fitch maintains that despite Bitcoin's growing use as a payment system and the attention in the marketplace, the virtual currency is small relative to both traditional payment processors and global currencies. As a reminder, there are currently about 12.1 million bitcoins in circulation versus a maximum of 21 million bitcoins. ALSO READ: States With the Highest (and Lowest) Taxes Another issue identifies exactly how widespread Bitcoin use is. Fitch indicates that total Bitcoin transactions averaged some $68 million per day in February 2014. That is up more than tenfold when compared to February 2013. By comparison, Western Union Co. ( WU ) averaged $225 million in transaction volumes per day during 2013. PayPal, under eBay Inc. ( EBAY ), was shown to average some $492 million in its transaction volumes per day during 2013. Wednesday's report showed that Bitcoin's transaction volumes are less significant compared to the major credit card companies. Fitch said: From a trading perspective, Bitcoin transaction volumes relative to the stock of outstanding Bitcoins resemble those of equity securities. There was about $68 million in average daily transaction volume in Bitcoin in February 2014 relative to its $6.75 billion money supply, or approximately 1% of total market capitalization was traded per day. Over the same period, an analysis of a sample of the largest U.S. equity securities shows that daily trading volumes were approximately 0.6% of total market capitalization. Story continues Fitch further said that Bitcoin's market capitalization is less than 1% of total U.S. dollars, and is closer in size to smaller currencies such as the Guatemalan quetzal. Those figures may be true, but the daily transaction volume is impressive when you consider the other companies out there. The impetus of the Fitch report is that Bitcoin remains at risk, and the subtitle of the "Sizing Up Bitcoin" report is "Why Is the Future of Bitcoin Uncertain?" Fitch says: Bitcoin has received significant attention because of its dramatic price appreciation, use in illicit transactions, the closure of the once-largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, and recent tax guidance on virtual currencies issued by the IRS. The future of Bitcoin is difficult to project. Its utility may remain limited to those users that desire a degree of anonymity, or it could grow to become a globally accepted alternative to conventional money or an investment product. ALSO READ: How Intel Plans to Move On From PCs What probably should stand out the most is not how small Bitcoin is versus real currencies, but that this $68 million in daily transaction volumes was taking place during a period of severe uncertainty, and that Bitcoin was represented independently by Fitch as being right at 30% of Western Union's daily transactions and almost 14% of PayPal's transaction volumes per day. One caveat with Fitch's figures is that they may change and fluctuate wildly through time. And for what it's worth, Warren Buffett does not like Bitcoin. Still, the Fitch report signals that Bitcoin's adoption is currently standing up to much uncertainty, even as regulations and taxation begin to take form. Related Articles Nine Cities Where Wealth Is Soaring The Nine Most Counterfeited Products in America The 15 Highest-Paying Companies in America

2014-04-03 11:17:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2369]}

{}

10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-things-know-opening-bell-111722450.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

chile earthquake tsunami boat sink REUTERS/Francisco Alcayaga Motta Fishermen try to salvage their boats in the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami that hit the northern port of Iquique, April 2, 2014. Good morning! Here's what you need to know. ECB decision. The European Central Bank will announce the outcome of its latest policy meeting at 7:45 a.m. Expectations are for no change to rates. " Many believe persistent low inflation will force the ECB to ease further this year, but only three of the 57 economists polled by Bloomberg expect such an announcement to come out of Thursday's meeting," reported BI's Matthew Boesler. China stimulus. China has unveiled what's being called a "mini-stimulus" to boost consumption. Its scope remains limited. It includes " additional spending on railways, upgraded housing for low-income households and tax relief for struggling small businesses," WSJ says. Euro zone's strong quarter. Theeuro zone's Markit PMI fell slightly to 53.1 from 53.3, but businesses nevertheless logged its busiest quarter in three years. However, they did so mostly by slashing prices, "underscoring fears that deflation may soon afflict the region." Three dead in Ft. Hood shooting. Five years after 13 people were killed at Ft. Hood in Texas in a mass shooting incident, an army specialist opened fire at the same military post, killing three before taking his own life. " The gunman, who served in Iraq for four months in 2011, had been undergoing an assessment before the attack to determine if he had post-traumatic stress disorder," the AP reported. "Cuban Twitter" was U.S. project. The U.S. covertly built a Twitter-like social network in Cuba to help foment unrest, the AP reports. " The project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to evade Cuba's stranglehold on the Internet with a primitive social media platform. First, the network would build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then, the plan was to push them toward dissent." Food prices soaring. Global food prices hit their highest level in almost a year in March, climbing 2.3% MOM. The surge was caused by severe weather and geopolitical tensions, the UN said. Markets. Stocks in Asia were mostly higher, led by the Nikkei at 0.8%; while in Europe they were mostly lower. U.S. futures were up. The euro was going nowhere. Bitcoin fell to $440. Jobless claims. Weekly jobless claims hit at 8:30 a.m. Expectations are for a slight uptick from last week's 311,000 figure. Trade. Also at 8:30 a.m. we get U.S. trade data. Expectations are for the trade deficit to narrow to $38.8 billion from $39.1 billion prior. Story continues Services and ISM data. At 9:45 a.m. we get PMI services data from Markit. It's expected to be up slightly from the prior reading of 53.3. And at 10 a.m. we get the Institute for Supply Management's survey of non-manufacturing sectors. Expectations are for a gain of nearly 2 points from last month's 51.6 reading. "The ISM non-manufacturing headline index declined in February as the business activity and employment indexes fell," said Nomura economists. "However, the more optimistic reading on business activity in the Northeast Region implied by the New York Fed’s business leaders’ survey suggests that we could see an increase in the ISM non-manufacturing index in March." More From Business Insider 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning Rebuilding America's Drought-Depleted Cattle Head Count Could Take The Rest Of The Decade Everyone's Missing The Connection Between The Tech Boom And Low Inflation 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning View comments

2014-04-03 12:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [194, 1688]}

{}

WPCS Enters Into Definitive Agreement to Sell Its Seattle Operations

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/wpcs-enters-definitive-agreement-sell-120000733.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EXTON, PA--(Marketwired - Apr 3, 2014) - WPCS International Incorporated ( NASDAQ : WPCS ), which specializes in contracting services for communications infrastructure and the development of a Bitcoin trading platform, today announced that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement with EC Company ("EC") for approximately $2.7 million. The agreement proposes that EC, an Oregon-based electrical contracting company, purchase substantially all of the assets and assume certain liabilities of WPCS International- Seattle, Inc. (the "Seattle Operations"), in an all-cash transaction, at a target sales price of approximately $2.7 million, subject to adjustment based on the closing date balance sheet of the Seattle Operations. The closing is anticipated for May 31, 2014 and is subject to certain conditions to be fulfilled prior to closing, including WPCS shareholder and NASDAQ approval. According to Interim CEO Sebastian Giordano, "We are pleased to enter into this agreement to sell the Seattle Operations, which will provide additional liquidity and working capital of approximately $2 million to the Company. We remain focused on stabilizing cash flow and restructuring our debt while remaining opportunistic about non-dilutive transactions such as this with EC. We will continue to improve our remaining operations and reduce corporate overhead while we move closer towards monetizing the BTX trading platform." About WPCS International Incorporated: WPCS operates in two business segments including: (1) providing communications infrastructure contracting services to the public services, healthcare, energy and corporate enterprise markets worldwide; and (2) developing a Bitcoin trading platform. For more information, please visit www.wpcs.com and www.btxtrader.com . Statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenue and earnings and all other statements in this press release, other than historical facts, are "forward-looking" statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. The company's actual results could differ materially from expected results. In reflecting subsequent events or circumstances, the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements.

2014-04-03 12:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [194, 1688]}

{}

WPCS Enters Into Definitive Agreement to Sell Its Seattle Operations

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wpcs-enters-definitive-agreement-sell-120000733.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EXTON, PA--(Marketwired - Apr 3, 2014) - WPCS International Incorporated ( NASDAQ : WPCS ), which specializes in contracting services for communications infrastructure and the development of a Bitcoin trading platform, today announced that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement with EC Company ("EC") for approximately $2.7 million. The agreement proposes that EC, an Oregon-based electrical contracting company, purchase substantially all of the assets and assume certain liabilities of WPCS International- Seattle, Inc. (the "Seattle Operations"), in an all-cash transaction, at a target sales price of approximately $2.7 million, subject to adjustment based on the closing date balance sheet of the Seattle Operations. The closing is anticipated for May 31, 2014 and is subject to certain conditions to be fulfilled prior to closing, including WPCS shareholder and NASDAQ approval. According to Interim CEO Sebastian Giordano, "We are pleased to enter into this agreement to sell the Seattle Operations, which will provide additional liquidity and working capital of approximately $2 million to the Company. We remain focused on stabilizing cash flow and restructuring our debt while remaining opportunistic about non-dilutive transactions such as this with EC. We will continue to improve our remaining operations and reduce corporate overhead while we move closer towards monetizing the BTX trading platform." About WPCS International Incorporated: WPCS operates in two business segments including: (1) providing communications infrastructure contracting services to the public services, healthcare, energy and corporate enterprise markets worldwide; and (2) developing a Bitcoin trading platform. For more information, please visit www.wpcs.com and www.btxtrader.com . Statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenue and earnings and all other statements in this press release, other than historical facts, are "forward-looking" statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. The company's actual results could differ materially from expected results. In reflecting subsequent events or circumstances, the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements.

2014-04-03 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [49, 268, 1790, 1810, 2061, 2272]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Shop Begins Accepting Dogecoin on Digital Currency Ecommerce Platform

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-shop-begins-accepting-dogecoin-130000672.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SILVER SPRING, MD--(Marketwired - Apr 3, 2014) - Bitcoin Shop, Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) (the "Company"), the virtual currency ecommerce marketplace www.bitcoinshop.us , today announced that it has begun accepting dogecoin on its ecommerce platform. Charles Allen, CEO of Bitcoin Shop, commented, "Increasing the number of cryptocurrencies our ecommerce platform is capable of accepting has been an ongoing strategy of ours. Our recent partnership with GoCoin, www.gocoin.com , a leading international payment-processing platform, has allowed us to further pursue this goal. In doing so we not only diversify the risk associated with relying on one cryptocurrency, but also attract a broader consumer base. According to DogeChain ( http://www.dogechain.info ), by the end of 2014 approximately 100 billion dogecoins will be mined. We look forward to continuing to enhance the shopper and vendor experience on our platform going forward." The partnership with GoCoin helps extend the link between virtual currencies like dogecoin and online shoppers. "It's exciting to see one of the first publicly traded bitcoin companies embrace the dogecoin community," remarked Steve Beauregard, Founder and CEO of GoCoin. "Until now, dogecoin has been used largely as a tipping coin, it will be exciting to see physical goods delivered to our user's front doors." Introduced in December 2013, dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. According to CoinMarketCap ( http://www.coinmarketcap.com ), today, dogecoin is the sixth largest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market capitalization and, as of March 30, 2014, there were over 65 billion dogecoins that have been mined with an estimated 100 billion by the end of 2014. For more information please visit http://dogecoin.com . About Bitcoin Shop, Inc.: Bitcoin Shop, Inc. operates an ecommerce website ( www.bitcoinshop.us ) where consumers can purchase products using virtual currency such as bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin, by searching through selection of over 400 categories and over 140,000 items. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin are virtual currencies that use peer-to-peer networks to facilitate instant payments. They are all categorized as cryptocurrencies, as they use cryptography as a security measure. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin issuances and transactions are carried out collectively by the network, with no central authority, and allow users to make verified transfers. Forward Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its bitcoin business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

2014-04-03 17:20:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [805, 975, 1279, 1638, 1743], "BTC": [821]}

{"Bitcoin": [49]}

Microelectronics Technology Corporation Acquires Bitcoin Cyber Currency Digital Mining Company

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microelectronics-technology-corporation-acquires-bitcoin-172000883.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

MONARCH BAY, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 3, 2014) - Microelectronics Technology Corporation ( OTCBB : MELY ) ( OTCQB : MELY ), is pleased to announce the Company has entered completed negotiations for the acquisition of an established digital mining company and its digital mining assets. The acquisition is now subject to final formal documentation to be completed by April 18, 2014. The acquisition includes the existing operational digital mining servers and support software. The Digital Currency Mining servers are currently being transitioned to the Dynamo Server co-location facilities with the transition expected to be completed by month's end. This transition will allow for peak efficiency utilizing the state of the art server facility and seamless expansion capability Dynamo servers can provide. Bitcoin Mining: BTC Upon the completion of the Digital Mining Server installation at the Dynamo Server co-location facilities, the company will begin to offer fractional Bitcoin Digital Currency Mining server rentals to interested third parties for an annual fee based upon the hash rate available for partitioning. It is anticipated that the partitions will be available for lease in minimum 20 Gh/s hash rates with any multiple of 20 Gh/s available. "The acquisition of a Bitcoin Digital Currency Mining Corporation is an exciting development for Microelectronics Technology Co for several reasons," states company president Brett Everett. "With this acquisition the company is acquiring a new customer for the Dynamo Server division creating a vertical with significant growth potential at the same time entering into the dynamic Bitcoin arena with a business model that creates opportunity for entry level investors to participate in Bitcoin mining with limited financial exposure." The company expects to announce the completion of formal documentation by April 18, 2014. The Dynamo Servers platform was built from the ground-up to accommodate the needs of modern dedicated server customers, with features that are unique to the market. A simplified pricing model was applied to an expansive configuration system, allowing for predictable pricing without the customization limitations or penalties that are common among providers. An API was built to allow for integration with custom software and 3rd-party services. Social features were added to enable a dialogue among customers and a level of transparency unheard of in the industry. As long-time dedicated server customers, the people behind Dynamo Servers built a platform that they would want to use themselves. Story continues About Dynamo Servers Dynamo Servers provide dedicated servers to clients through our point of presence in Vancouver, Canada inside a carrier neutral facility owned and operated by Cologix Inc. www.dynamoservers.com About Cloud Data Corp Cloud Data, a Nevada Corporation provides high availability dedicated web servers to small, medium and large companies under its brand www.dynamoservers.com . www.clouddatacorp.com www.melypk.com www.dynamoservers.com Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; MELY's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital. Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements

2014-04-04 14:15:52+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [536]}

{}

Have Precious Metals Seen Their 2014 Peak?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/precious-metals-seen-2014-peak-141552727.html

ETFguide

http://www.etfguide.com/

After posting its first monthly decline of 2014, gold now trades near 7-week lows and the charts are looking ugly. As readers familiar with our research know, last year we were consistently bearish on gold ( GLD ) and precious metals ( SL.V ) along with mining stocks ( GDX ). Last year, our largest ETF gainer was the Feb. 2013 alert to buy GDX JUN 2013 $40 put options at $190 per contract. As we expected, GDX collapsed and we exited the GDX put trade with a 525% gain, selling our remaining position at $1,200 per contract. LISTEN: Bitcoin Tulips & Ron’s interview with Tim Knight, Author of Prosperity, Panic, and Progress: Five Centuries of Market History Market extremes within the gold market ( NUGT ) are common. And when market sentiment towards gold and mining stocks ( NEM ) became overly bearish as it did in December 2013, we took that as an opportunity to pounce. Our Weekly ETF Picks published on 12/26 said: “This year will be the third consecutive year of losses for gold mining stocks. But once year-end tax loss selling is over, we’re anticipating a bounce in beaten down gold miners in January. It remains to be seen whether this bounce will become a bigger trend change for GDX from down to up, but it’s nevertheless a short-term profit opportunity. We’re buying the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) at $21 and we’re also buying GLD MAR 2014 $112 call options at $640.” GDX April Chart We sold the final leg of our GLD calls on Feb. 11 for a 100% gain at $1,225 per contract and our GDX traded ended with a three-month gain of 14% when our long position got stopped out. (See chart above.) After being crushed 57% from Jan. 1 to Mar. 14, the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bear 3x Shares ( DUST ) is now up 45% in just a matter of 2- weeks. The unfortunate part for investors that buy gold bullion at the wrong price is they don’t get paid any dividends while they wait for it to go back up. GLD hit its yearly closing high of $133.10 on March 14 and it’s been all downhill since then. Interestingly, that peak came just as bullish sentiment toward gold high. Another great setup is coming. Story continues The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter and Technical Forecast uses fundamental and sentiment analysis along with market history and common sense to keep investors on the right side of the market. We cover gold along with other major asset classes like stocks, bonds, and currencies. In 2013, 70% of our weekly ETF picks were winners. Follow us on Twittter @ ETFguide Related Posts: Gold vs. Silver: Is the Ratio Bullish or Bearish? How Much Upside Do Precious Metals Have? How to Use Gold’s Sentiment Extremes to Your Advantage Gold Miners Are Beating the S&P 500 Will Gold’s Latest Rally Stick?

2014-04-04 15:46:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2355]}

{}

Google Offers Sneak Peek at Project Ara, Its Build-Your-Own Smartphone

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-offers-sneak-peek-project-154607761.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

Though Google sold Motorola at a massive financial loss earlier this year, we reported that the tech giant kept what it really wanted all along . In addition to tens of thousands of patents, Google also integrated Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group -- perhaps best known for a modular smartphone initiative dubbed Project Ara. With different block components that users can affix and detach from a basic frame -- such as keyboards, cameras, batteries and speakers, for instance -- Project Ara allows radical personalization in terms of both functionality and aesthetics. Democratization via disassembly is a theme. Google will sell a startup kit comprising a frame called an “endo” (for endoskeleton) in three total sizes as well as a few basic modules for just $50 -- though its retail model thereafter will largely hinge upon a community of developers. Related: 4 Ways to Stop People From Using Their Phones During Meetings Not unlike an app store, developers will be able to sell their inventions both in and out of the Google Play Store. Project Ara’s first-ever Developers Conference will be held on April 15 and 16 at the Computer History Museum in California, as well as live streamed with an interactive Q&A. And now, in a new video, Google is introducing the team behind Project Ara while offering a glimpse into the project’s breaking developments. Technical leads Ara Knaian (for whom the project is named) and Seth Newberg explain how they developed a way to affix various modules with electro-permanent magnets. In terms of design, Daniel Makoski shares that the phone will have no cover in an attempt to embrace its block aesthetic. Related: Google May Open a Retail Store in NYC The video also featured Jeff Blank of 3-D printing company 3D Systems, who discussed how an outer case for each module can be 3-D printed and therefore customized in terms of color, texture and design. Finally, Eric Gunther of interactive design studio Sosolimited will be designing an app that lets users try out different module configurations. Story continues Check out the video in full below: Related: Google Unveils 'Project Tango': A Smartphone That Sees in 3-D More From Entrepreneur Why Microsoft Is Thankful for a 5-Year-Old Xbox Fan Stop, Drop and Apologize: Nest Halts Sales of Smoke Alarm Over Serious Flaw What the Heck Is a Bitcoin Anyway?

2014-04-04 16:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1548]}

{}

Auto Dealership Accepts Litecoin for Tesla Purchase

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/auto-dealership-accepts-litecoin-tesla-160000934.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TUSTIN, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 4, 2014) - Benz and Beamer auto dealership today announced it sold a Tesla Model SP85 to an anonymous customer for 5,447 litecoin, an equivalent of $90,000 at the time of purchase. The dealership processed the transaction in partnership with GoCoin , the first international payment platform to accept the alternative currency market with litecoin support. "GoCoin makes it extremely easy for us to accommodate new customers looking to pay with bitcoin and other emerging digital currencies like litecoin," said the dealer, Naresh Shah. "Their platform secures the coin exchange for cash within minutes, creating a real win/win for my dealership and my customers." With over 25 million coins in circulation and a total market cap of $615 million, litcoin has quickly gained ground as a popular crypto currency like bitcoin. "When you consider transactions like this one approaching six figures, litecoin is proving there is room in the market for digital currencies beyond bitcoin," said Steve Beauregard, founder and CEO of GoCoin. "We're confident that we'll see dogecoin and other alt-currencies emerge to these levels as the markets mature." About GoCoin GoCoin is an international digital currency payments platform enabling merchants to accept bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin and other digital currencies with key benefits such as eliminating high fees, costly chargebacks and inherent credit card payment friction. Our service replaces the need for the likes of PayPal or Authorize.net, instead customers pay with Bitcoin, opening up the global market of shoppers and gamers to participate for the first time in eCommerce, Internet gaming, Internet entertainment and charitable giving. Founded in July 2013, GoCoin is an international group of companies with a presence in Asia Pacific, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe. For more information, please visit http://www.gocoin.com .

2014-04-07 04:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [642, 2344, 3075]}

{}

New Cryptocurrency Einsteinium Supports Ground Breaking Scientific Research

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cryptocurrency-einsteinium-supports-ground-breaking-040000385.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

The Einsteinium Foundation was founded to help raise funding for cutting edge scientific research. The Foundation recently launched Einsteinium: a new cryptocurrency to gather funds that can be distributed to projects the community chooses. April 7th, 2014 / Dedicated to raising funding for cutting edge scientific research worldwide, The Einsteinium Foundation has just released an unprecedented digital currency: Einsteinium (EMC2) . With EMC2 the Foundation aims to finance important world changing scientific research worldwide, with projects receiving monthly donations – determined by a community based voting system. EMC2, similar to Bitcoin, is an emerging scrypt based cryptocurrency with no premine, based on a proof-of-work algorithm. The Einsteinium Foundation pledged their first financial contribution on the 29th of March to an important scientific research program: Walter Moss, a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Prof. Joan A. Steitz at Yale University, received 526314.56 EMC2 (approx. $1,000 in USD) for his work researching if viral molecular structures can cause cancer. The Einsteinium Foundation will deliver the funds to Walter Moss via crowd funding site Experiment.com: more information on his important work can be seen at https://experiment.com/projects/can-viral-molecular-structures-cause-cancer. To help Walter Moss reach his funding goal, the Foundation also raised an additional 300 000 EMC2 – approximately $600 USD. Each month, scientific research programs and science education programs are nominated worldwide by EMC2 users – the EMC2 community then votes online at Einsteinium.org. The Einsteinium Foundation is currently seeking more world changing scientific projects to sponsor: nominations can be submitted at http://einsteinium.org/submit-a-project/ . To be eligible for funding the scientific project must be pushing humanity’s understanding forward and helping everyone build a better, safer future. EMC2 automatically donates 2% of every block mined to the Foundation Fund to be used for donations. The mining of Einsteinium is divided into Epochs: each Epoch mines 36000 blocks of coins and is targeted to last approximately 25 days. Every 25 days, at the end of each Epoch, a new ground breaking scientific cause is selected to receive Einsteinium Foundation funding. Story continues Like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin, Einsteinium is a distributed peer-2-peer digital currency released without any premine. EMC2 implements the primary innovation of Wormhole Mechanics. To reward long term miners each Wormhole Event occurs randomly during each epoch and is 180 blocks long; with a reward of 2970 EMC2 per block. With the unprecedented launch of EMC2, The Einsteinium Foundation will continue to offer support to ground breaking scientific projects across the globe. With Einsteinium’s innovation of Wormhole Mechanics, and its unique mission to raise funding for cutting edge scientific research worldwide with every block mined; EMC2 really is “Funding the Future with the Future of Currency”. Einsteinium’s official Bitcointalk thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=494708.0 This Press Release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Visit http://einsteinium.org/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Ryan Wright – Marketing and Communications Officer Organization: The Einsteinium Foundation Email: [email protected]

2014-04-07 08:39:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [84, 513, 718, 905, 1195, 2541, 2785, 2881, 3094, 3153, 3166, 3197]}

{"Bitcoin": [39]}

Fed Economist Explains Something About Bitcoin That Almost Nobody Understands

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/fed-economist-explained-something-bitcoin-083920085.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Screen Shot 2014 04 06 at 7.33.50 PM David Andolfatto One of the funny things about Bitcoin is the way its terminology seems rooted in ancient monetary history. First of all, there's the fact that it has "coin" in its name, harkening back to an increasingly irrelevant aspect of the monetary system. And then there's the fact that to obtain coins you have to "mine" them by having your computer expend tons of electricity on seemingly pointless tasks. It seems very barbaric and ancient. And it's one reason that Bitcoin has gotten a lot of criticism. But maybe the terminology is bad and the criticism is unwarranted. David Andolfatto is an economist with the St. Louis Fed who recently made a presentation all about Bitcoin. Our Rob Wile interviewed him , and at one point, Andolfatto articulated something on the above matter better than pretty much anyone we have heard: BI: How have your opinions on Bitcoin evolved since that first post? DA: Early on, I thought, 'This was kind of silly,' and I kind of questioned the role of the miners, these miners who are mining bitcoin. And it led to the analogy of people mining for gold. I recall reading a blog post by Paul Krugman, who criticized Bitcoin. He was saying exactly what I was thinking: that this intensive effort to mine for gold ...We don't need more physical commodities. All that has to happen is the price level has to adjust. Economic theory says that kind of mining is inefficient. I shared in that opinion, but I continued to read about it, and it struck me that that analogy was incorrect — that in fact what these miners were, was mislabeled. They were performing a communal service, a record-keeping service which is critical to any money system. Mining was a red herring, it's just one way to reward record keepers for their service, and that protocol could function even with constant supply. This is really deep on multiple levels. First of all, he's correct that mining is a flawed analogy. "Miners" are being rewarded for performing a task of network administration and transaction verification. One beauty of the system is that it doesn't need a centralized authority to confirm transactions because the computers on the seem are incented to take on that role. Story continues And the last point is key too: There's actually no need for "more" coins. The creation of coins serves as a way of giving a fee to the miners (transaction verifiers) but it's not like a real commodity where you could ever have a true shortage that would require you to dig up some more. Bitcoins are infinitely divisible, and the price could rise infinitely, so there's plenty to work with. The only limiting factor is the amount of outside money people are willing to devote to it. Bottom line: Andolfatto doesn't just understand Bitcoin well for a mainstream economist. He gets it and can articulate it better than even many Bitcoin advocates. NOW WATCH: We Did The Math: Should You Buy Or Rent In These Major Cities? Please enable Javascript to watch this video More From Business Insider China May Be Preparing Harsh New Regulations On Bitcoin A St. Louis Fed Official Made A Presentation About Bitcoin That Bitcoin Fans Are Going To Love Bitcoin Has Been Getting Creamed

2014-04-07 10:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [90, 258, 753, 879, 1310, 1516, 1647, 1701, 1902, 1949, 1987, 2108, 2670, 3096, 3380]}

{"Bitcoin": [33]}

Cryptex Card Debuts First Global Bitcoin-to-Cash ATM and Payment Card

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/cryptex-card-debuts-first-global-100000730.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Apr 7, 2014) - INSIDE BITCOINS -- Cryptex , the first global Bitcoin-to-cash ATM and debit card, has announced it will begin shipping personalized cards within four to six weeks to approved applicants, filling a huge hole in the Bitcoin and digital currency infrastructure: the ability to turn cryptocurrency into cash at hundreds of thousands of ATMs and millions of merchants' point-of-sales (POS) worldwide, regardless of whether the merchants or banks accept cryptocurrency. This will include any merchant who accepts the Discover™ card. The card is useable in 80 countries and is supported on over 90 percent of the ATMs in the United States alone. Cryptex Card will also vastly expand the limited reach of the nascent Bitcoin ATM industry, by providing an existing secure global network and infrastructure through which users can convert their Bitcoins into cash. The company is based in Hong Kong, but its seed investors include a premier list of global technology investors, including Tero Ojanperä, managing partner, Vision+ Fund and ex CTO and past member of the executive board of Nokia; Ken Hertz, senior partner at Hertz Lichtenstein Young Media Law and early investor in Spotify, Uber and Basis; and Michael Terpin, co-founder of BitAngels and founder of Marketwire. Bitcoin is transforming the way money is sent across the world, by reducing transaction speeds from a few days to a few seconds. However, one of the major hurdles for the currency is the ability to convert Bitcoins into local currencies after receiving them. Cryptex Card solves this problem. This marks the first time in the history of Bitcoin that someone can load a debit card from their Bitcoin wallet, then go out and buy pretty much any goods or services globally in their local currency -- using the local ATM and merchant systems already in existence. "This is a huge development for Bitcoin," said co-founder Jamon Rahn, "because Bitcoin ATMs are sparsely located and Bitcoin exchanges make withdrawal a burdensome affair. We are vastly increasing liquidity and convenience for holders of Bitcoin." Story continues Cryptex Inc. is a new cryptocurrency financial services company founded by payment veterans based in Hong Kong and Singapore. Co- founder Andy Cheung has over 15 years of experience in payment solution systems, working for well-known payment companies and financial institutions such as DataCash, NPS, Transact24, Payment Network International, Focal Payments, and China Payment Services. Cryptex plans to launch other cryptocurrency card offerings and payment solutions. Consumers will order their Cryptex Card online and load it with Bitcoin, which then gets physically shipped like any other credit or debit card. Cryptex will have the requisite AML/KYC processes for each nation it serves built into this ordering process. Once in the user's hands, it can be reloaded online. When there is an active account balance, using the card is as fast as any prepaid debit card because the balances are already in cash. When it comes time to reload the card with new Bitcoins from the user's wallet, this process can be done end-to-end in less than 24 hours, with a goal of bringing this process down to less than one minute by this summer. James Foster, the company's Asia-based vice president of business development, will be speaking at the Inside Bitcoins conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Tuesday, April 8. VIDEO: http://youtu.be/0VAw2sCgzFQ

2014-04-07 12:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [192, 310, 961, 1072, 1347, 1747]}

{}

WPCS Announces Launch Date for BTX Trader Platform

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/wpcs-announces-launch-date-btx-120000862.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EXTON, PA--(Marketwired - Apr 7, 2014) - WPCS International Incorporated ( NASDAQ : WPCS ) which specializes in contracting services for communications infrastructure and the development of a Bitcoin trading platform, today announced April 18, 2014 as the official launch of its web and desktop multi-exchange Bitcoin trading platform, BTX Trader. According to Interim CEO, Sebastian Giordano, "Our BTX team, led by Chief Operating Officer Ilya Subkhankulov and Chief Technology Officer Divya Thakur have done an exemplary job to ensure that we delivered on our promise to launch the BTX Trader platform in the second quarter of 2014." Elaborating on the launch of BTX Trader, Mr. Subkhankulov indicated that, "BTX Trader is launching as a freemium-based product, where the main features of the platform, such as charts, market data, and simple orders to exchanges, will remain free to all users. Meanwhile, BTX Trader's advanced order types will be offered to Bitcoin traders worldwide at 0.2% of the notional trade value executed, with all fees collected in the form of Bitcoin from the user's balances prepaid to BTX Trader. In addition to the stop limit order type, we will be offering stop market, market hidden, trailing stop limit, and trailing stop market order types." Mr. Thakur indicated that, "BTX Trader will be attending the "Inside Bitcoin" conference at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City on April 7 - 8. Interested parties can visit us at Booth #309." About WPCS International Incorporated WPCS operates in two business segments including: (1) providing communications infrastructure contracting services to the public services, healthcare, energy and corporate enterprise markets worldwide; and (2) developing a Bitcoin trading platform. For more information, please visit www.wpcs.com and www.btxtrader.com . Statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenue and earnings and all other statements in this press release, other than historical facts, are "forward looking" statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. The company's actual results could differ materially from expected results. In reflecting subsequent events or circumstances, the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements.

2014-04-07 12:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [192, 310, 961, 1072, 1347, 1747]}

{}

WPCS Announces Launch Date for BTX Trader Platform

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wpcs-announces-launch-date-btx-120000862.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EXTON, PA--(Marketwired - Apr 7, 2014) - WPCS International Incorporated ( NASDAQ : WPCS ) which specializes in contracting services for communications infrastructure and the development of a Bitcoin trading platform, today announced April 18, 2014 as the official launch of its web and desktop multi-exchange Bitcoin trading platform, BTX Trader. According to Interim CEO, Sebastian Giordano, "Our BTX team, led by Chief Operating Officer Ilya Subkhankulov and Chief Technology Officer Divya Thakur have done an exemplary job to ensure that we delivered on our promise to launch the BTX Trader platform in the second quarter of 2014." Elaborating on the launch of BTX Trader, Mr. Subkhankulov indicated that, "BTX Trader is launching as a freemium-based product, where the main features of the platform, such as charts, market data, and simple orders to exchanges, will remain free to all users. Meanwhile, BTX Trader's advanced order types will be offered to Bitcoin traders worldwide at 0.2% of the notional trade value executed, with all fees collected in the form of Bitcoin from the user's balances prepaid to BTX Trader. In addition to the stop limit order type, we will be offering stop market, market hidden, trailing stop limit, and trailing stop market order types." Mr. Thakur indicated that, "BTX Trader will be attending the "Inside Bitcoin" conference at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City on April 7 - 8. Interested parties can visit us at Booth #309." About WPCS International Incorporated WPCS operates in two business segments including: (1) providing communications infrastructure contracting services to the public services, healthcare, energy and corporate enterprise markets worldwide; and (2) developing a Bitcoin trading platform. For more information, please visit www.wpcs.com and www.btxtrader.com . Statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenue and earnings and all other statements in this press release, other than historical facts, are "forward looking" statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. The company's actual results could differ materially from expected results. In reflecting subsequent events or circumstances, the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements.

2014-04-07 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [49, 374, 658, 1180, 1200, 1451, 1662]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Shop Appoints Marcum LLP as Its New Independent Public Accounting Firm

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-shop-appoints-marcum-llp-130000495.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SILVER SPRING, MD--(Marketwired - Apr 7, 2014) - Bitcoin Shop, Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) (the "Company"), the virtual currency ecommerce marketplace www.bitcoinshop.us , today announced that it has appointed Marcum LLP ("Marcum") as its new independent registered public accounting firm for its fiscal year ending December 31, 2014, effective immediately. Charles Allen, CEO of Bitcoin Shop, commented, "As we continue to make progress within the high growth digital currency ecommerce industry, it was of critical importance to engage a nationally known auditing firm with a strong reputation for their expertise in auditing financial reports with accuracy. At Bitcoin Shop, we are committed to providing our shareholders with the highest level of transparency, financial reporting standards and corporate governance." Based in New York City, with over 60 years of experience serving middle market companies, Marcum is one of the largest independent public accounting and advisory services firms in the country. Ranked 15 th nationally, Marcum offers the resources of 1,300 professionals, including over 160 partners, in 23 offices throughout the U.S., Grand Cayman and China. About Bitcoin Shop, Inc.: Bitcoin Shop, Inc. operates an ecommerce website ( www.bitcoinshop.us ) where consumers can purchase products using virtual currency such as bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin, by searching through selection of over 400 categories and over 140,000 items. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin are virtual currencies that use peer-to-peer networks to facilitate instant payments. They are all categorized as cryptocurrencies, as they use cryptography as a security measure. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin issuances and transactions are carried out collectively by the network, with no central authority, and allow users to make verified transfers. Forward Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its virtual currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

2014-04-07 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [49, 374, 658, 1180, 1200, 1451, 1662]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Shop Appoints Marcum LLP as Its New Independent Public Accounting Firm

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-shop-appoints-marcum-llp-130000495.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SILVER SPRING, MD--(Marketwired - Apr 7, 2014) - Bitcoin Shop, Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) (the "Company"), the virtual currency ecommerce marketplace www.bitcoinshop.us , today announced that it has appointed Marcum LLP ("Marcum") as its new independent registered public accounting firm for its fiscal year ending December 31, 2014, effective immediately. Charles Allen, CEO of Bitcoin Shop, commented, "As we continue to make progress within the high growth digital currency ecommerce industry, it was of critical importance to engage a nationally known auditing firm with a strong reputation for their expertise in auditing financial reports with accuracy. At Bitcoin Shop, we are committed to providing our shareholders with the highest level of transparency, financial reporting standards and corporate governance." Based in New York City, with over 60 years of experience serving middle market companies, Marcum is one of the largest independent public accounting and advisory services firms in the country. Ranked 15 th nationally, Marcum offers the resources of 1,300 professionals, including over 160 partners, in 23 offices throughout the U.S., Grand Cayman and China. About Bitcoin Shop, Inc.: Bitcoin Shop, Inc. operates an ecommerce website ( www.bitcoinshop.us ) where consumers can purchase products using virtual currency such as bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin, by searching through selection of over 400 categories and over 140,000 items. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin are virtual currencies that use peer-to-peer networks to facilitate instant payments. They are all categorized as cryptocurrencies, as they use cryptography as a security measure. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin issuances and transactions are carried out collectively by the network, with no central authority, and allow users to make verified transfers. Forward Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its virtual currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

2014-04-08 10:21:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [144, 1159, 2009]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin And Cryptocurrency Conversion Tools, Market Cap Data Offered by Bravenewcoin.com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-conversion-tools-market-102100971.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

New Zealand based Techemy Ltd’s new website http://bravenewcoin.com offers badly needed accurate price and conversion data for the followers of Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies. NEW ZEALAND / ACCESSWIRE / April 8th, 2014 - In a market that has exploded in recent months, nobody has been able to put together a truly accurate price index, combined with market information for the vast amount of cryptocurrencies traded around the world. Bravenewcoin.com provides users with constant cryptocurrency price and conversion tools : with plans for industry grade digital currency portfolio management tools to be offered in the near future. The currency conversion tool at Bravenewcoin.com accumulates accurate data from a vast majority of the most trusted global cryptocurrency exchanges and business sources. Similar to coinmarketcap.com, Bravenewcoin also displays up to date key indicators for cryptocurrencies such as global trade volume, market cap, total supply and weighted price in USD. Bravenewcoin.com pulls data from every exchange on the planet and offers a global and market weighted average or ‘spotprice’ for the top 50 (and growing) notable Bitcoin type currencies . Embeddable price tickers are also available for for each currency. The app calculates the market weighted average of over 50 cryptocurrencies including newer coins such as Dogecoin. The user simply types in the value, chooses a fiat currency or cryptocurrency, selects the currency to convert to and clicks the convert button. New currencies are being added constantly and Bravenewcoin pulls exchange rates from up to 41 global digital currency exchanges. Over the next 3 months they will continue to add coins but more importantly offer the badly needed service of cryptocurrency portfolio management. Saving retailers, accountants, fund managers and individuals the headache of figuring out what their digital transactions and holdings are worth. Currently, there are approximately 2.5 million individuals involved in the Bitcoin community, a number that has drastically increased just over the last year. Alternative cryptocurrencies have also skyrocketed in popularity over the same period, increasing the demand for easy access to vital market information. Visionary Techemy Ltd has identified these needs with Bravenewcoin.com: providing an unparalleled cryptocurrency market data and information service to the world’s fastest growing financial audience. Story continues Visit http://bravenewcoin.com for more information. Contact Info Name: Fran Strajnar Organization: Brave New Coin Email: [email protected] SOURCE: Brave New Coin

2014-04-08 13:13:45+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2353]}

{}

Mobile Users Ditching the Mobile Web in Favor of Apps

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/mobile-users-ditching-mobile-favor-131345987.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

Everybody talks about how people are ditching their “computers” for mobile devices, but there’s more to the switch than trading devices. Another mobile stat that proves the traditional Internet is dying just as fast. According to new data from analytics company, Flurry , U.S. consumers are spending about 22 minutes on mobile websites each day—down nearly 25 percent from 31 minutes in March of 2013. In contrast, those same users are spending a bit more time on their phones—2 hours and 42 minutes in March 2014 versus 2 hours and 38 minutes in March 2013. Declining mobile web use coupled with increasing phone time signals a shift to apps. And in fact apps now command 86 percent of peoples’ phone use—up from 80 percent the year prior, according to ComScore. The mobile web's in decline. Related: Google Taking Another Stab at Controlling Your TV As 4G technology and supercharged phones took over, HTML5 websites were supposed to take over the web. That hasn’t happened. Instead, users like the ease of mobile apps over browsing in a mobile browser. However, for those who still use traditional computers, everything is opposite. Users prefer the openness of the Internet and generally ditch apps. The failure of Microsoft Windows’ tile screen is proof of this. Shift To Apps Poses Tech Challenge But why does any of this matter? Because much of the technology companies use to interact with customers through mobile interfaces is still based on web technology. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ), a company that relies largely on ad impressions, can’t easily track users’ behavior when they’re functioning inside of apps, for example. And mobile apps don’t breed the loyalty that Google has relied on through a web environment. According to the Flurry report, "Both Google and Facebook have very well established franchises on mobile, but the market is still very fragmented. In fact, Google and Facebook combined probably command less than 25% of the total time spent by the average US mobile consumer.” Story continues The study also found that 32 percent of mobile use involves games with everything else being equally spread throughout the many different categories. In other words, if you’re not a game developer, you have no real foothold on mobile. Finally, some tech bloggers point out that apps act as gatekeepers. Apple, for example, doesn’t allow Bitcoin apps on its app store. What if there were gatekeepers in the early days of the Internet and companies like Google, Facebook, and others were denied a presence? Saying that the web as people know it today is dying is premature but it’s safe to say that the death of the PC isn’t the only online behavior stat worth watching. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Tim Parker had no position in the companies mentioned. Related Links Tesla Announces Business Leasing Economic Daily News Reports Apple to Launch iWatch in Q3 2013 -Digitimes Industry Sources Report Apple R&D Team to Develop Baseband Chips for iPhones in-House -Digitimes © 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

2014-04-08 13:30:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [4914]}

{}

These Plugins Can Boost Traffic to Your Blog

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/building-traffic-blog-133000271.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

In his book Ultimate Guide to Optimizing Your Website , SEO and online marketing expert Jon Rognerud shows you how to build a high-performance website and get top ranking on all search engines. In this edited excerpt, the author explains why starting a blog can help you bring in the traffie you're seeking. One of the fastest ways to build traffic to your site with minimal effort is to create a blog. You should also learn to optimize your blog using custom plugins. They're easy to use and very powerful. You can start a blog for free by visiting WordPress.com , or if you're self-hosting, which is recommended, install the free version from WordPress.org . You can then build content yourself or outsource the writing to a ghostwriter. The content doesn't have to be long. A short post of 100 to 200 words is acceptable to start. Try to make it useful, link to other resources, and show attribution with a link where obvious. Testing and monitoring is key. Blogs are a great way to naturally attract search engine traffic. Most of the time, blogs already have optimized site architecture, clear navigation and the innate potential for good linking. Intelligently linking your site to a well-created blog can increase your traffic. In fact, blogs can get so well indexed that you have the potential to show up for any number of four-word phrases relevant to your industry, if done correctly. Try to use a keyword for each of your posts that gets a moderate level of targeted traffic. If you're already inside your blog post, you can use the SEO Blogger tool from the makers of Wordtracker. It installs quickly into your Firefox browser, and you launch from an icon directly on the browser. The tool will show you how many times a word is used, percentages, and more. It's easy to use. It might not bring the most traffic, but it often brings the most profit through more subscribers and sales. If possible, narrow the scope of your blog discussion to a two- or three-word phrase that has a high yield of traffic yet little competition. Set up your blog to repeat keywords that you want to target just enough times to establish a theme. You can take full advantage of this in your post titles, category names and the pages' URL names. All those link-backs will contain the keyword term you want the most attention for. This can work like magic, and with the updated speed of indexing, you'll likely see your post show up in search results quickly. Be sure to post in a timely fashion. You can get better results by updating or sharing socially just once during one of the three best times of the day: early in the morning, at least before noon or late at night. Monitoring when the search engine's crawlers visit your site can help as well. You can increase the number of crawler visits by blogging on the time or period they come to your site. The more you post, the more the crawlers have to go through your content. This could cause the crawler to split its job into several visits, whereupon you have even more content. Story continues Using Plugins Listed below is the ultimate plugin list for maximum traffic and search-friendly blogs. Just search for these in Google, and add the "wordpress plugins" to the query. Log in to your WordPress admin area, expand the "Plugins" section, and add them via the "Add New" button. All-In-One SEO: must have for search-friendly SEO sites All-In-One Webmaster: central place to manage the top three Akismet: get API key from WordPress.com Broken Link Checker: manage/track broken links CBnet Ping Optimizer: manage ping systems naturally Google XML Sitemaps: automatically generate XML sitemaps Fast and Secure Contact Form: easy form for contact forms, etc. Simple Captcha: challenge/response test tool for varied uses WordPress Database Backup: say no more! WP Super Cache: generate static HTML pages for fast loading FBShare: Facebook share button Socialize: actionable social bookmarks to your posts WP Security Scan: make sure you're compliant RSS Footer: add small text to the bottom of each RSS Disqus Comment System: powerful commenting system and management Cookies for Comments: spam checker for comments Google Analyticator or Ultimate Google Analytics: enabling javascript tracking for Google Analytics You should engage in the blog communities that you are promoting within, but do not push too hard. You can find blogs that very likely have links that follow back (no rel=nofollow) at: CommentHunt.com FollowList.com Find more information about who to connect with on Twollow.com, Twibs.com and Twellow.com (the Twitter Yellow Pages). Reach out and comment; make intelligent posts. Eventually, ask to guest post, and continue the conversation. That's what blogging and social media is about: listening, engaging, and sharing. More From Entrepreneur 5 Must-Watch San Francisco Tech Startups in 2014 Meet the College Students Who Are Driving the Future of Bitcoin Is Competition a Catalyst for Innovation? View comments

2014-04-08 20:00:22+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [327, 889, 1471, 2154]}

{"Bitcoin": [5]}

Will Bitcoin Be A Champion Like The Connecticut Huskies?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-champion-connecticut-huskies-200022835.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

Monday night the Connecticut Huskies defeated the Kentucky Wildcats to take the NCAA championship trophy. The Huskies won by forcing turnovers, hitting their free throws and using their experience. A 7th seed in the tournament, the Huskies were an underdog. Only the most loyal of fans understood the team's winning potential. Bitcoin is in a similar position. Experts like Warren Buffett , Paul Krugman and Alan Greenspan have dismissed bitcoin's potential for changing the financial system as we know it. However, like the Huskies, bitcoin has loyal fans like Marc Andreessen , Patrick Byrne and Bill Miller -- who think the digital currency is going to prove the doubters wrong. Others believe bitcoin will upend the financial system as we know it. It is a revolutionary technology with many ways to win -- including low fees, consumer demand and serving the unbanked. Related: Signs A Bitcoin Tidal Wave Is Forming To Disrupt Business Low Fees The obvious way for bitcoin to win is through low fees. Currently bitcoin is the fastest, safest and cheapest way to accept payment. Companies like Amazon and Apple would save billions if transactions were performed with bitcoin instead of credit cards. Just having low fees could be enough to let bitcoin win. Consumer Demand One of the most surprising ways for bitcoin to win would be an app that everyone has to have, that relies on bitcoin. For the PC it was the spreadsheet, for the Internet, a web browser and email. Bitcoin gives creative app developers many ingredients to make a must-have app that would drive bitcoin demand. And today apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat are developed by a few people -- and have hundreds of millions of users. An app that requires or provides bitcoin to users that gets that kind of adoption would be start a virtuous cycle, making bitcoin win. The Billions of Unbanked Some developing nations skipped landline phones and went straight to cellphones. The same thing could happen with developing nations skipping credit cards and banks, and going straight to bitcoin. Story continues McKinsey estimates there are 2.5 billion unbanked adults in the world. Bitcoin can win by becoming the unit of account for a fraction of these people. Think it can't happen? M-Pesa is a mobile payment service that is used by Kenyans to transfer 0 million per month. Like they dismissed UConn, naysayers are underestimating the many ways bitcoin can win. The low fees, potential for massive consumer demand and opportunity to serve billions of unbanked people are just three ways bitcoin can end up on top. Connecticut proved even an unlikely underdog can win. Time will tell if bitcoin has enough strength to vanquish its competitors and become a champion. Disclosure: At the time of this writing David Smith has a long bitcoin position. Related Links Bulls In Rackspace Cheer As IBM Takeover Chatter Remains, Analysts Quiet On Rumor Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Markets Recover Slightly as Coal Shows Strength ChannelAdvisor Reports Amazon and eBay Same-Store Sales; Analysts Weigh In © 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

2014-04-08 20:02:31+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3897]}

{}

Bazaarvoice Enters Into Letter of Intent With Viewpoints to Divest PowerReviews Business; Terms Undisclosed

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bazaarvoice-enters-letter-intent-viewpoints-200231174.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

Bazaarvoice, Inc. (Nasdaq: BV ), the network connecting brands and retailers to the authentic voices of consumers wherever they shop, and Viewpoints, LLC, a consumer reviews platform, today announced the companies have entered into a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) whereby Viewpoints would acquire the Bazaarvoice subsidiary that holds substantially all assets associated with Bazaarvoice's June 2012 acquisition of PowerReviews. Specific terms of the proposed agreement are not being disclosed. "Since the district court issued its ruling in favor of the Department of Justice, we have been engaged in a thoughtful process to identify and reach agreement with an appropriate entity to which we could divest the PowerReviews business consistent with the Court's decision and views expressed by the DOJ," said Gene Austin, CEO and president, Bazaarvoice. "Viewpoints is an established, committed ratings and reviews provider with experience serving both the consumer and business markets. After a thorough assessment, we believe this divestiture proposal achieves the best possible outcome for our clients, shareholders, and employees." Matt Moog, founder and CEO of Viewpoints stated, "The PowerReviews technology platform and team are world-class. Together they provide a scalable and easy to manage platform to hundreds of leading brands and retailers. The opportunity to add the PowerReviews platform alongside our recently-launched Viewpoints Pulse service will extend our ability to serve the enterprise market, which promises to create significant additional value for brands and their end customers as we scale our ability to collect reviews of their products and services." The proposed transaction is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (the "Court") and customary closing conditions, including completion of due diligence, negotiation, and execution of a definitive agreement. The sale is expected to be completed within the first quarter of Bazaarvoice's 2015 fiscal year but there can be no assurance that the proposed transaction will be completed. Story continues About Viewpoints Viewpoints is the only consumer review platform where in-market shoppers engage directly with brands and with each other to gain insights that help them discover the best products to meet their specific needs. Viewpoints has collected millions of reviews across more than 50,000 products from 9,000 brands while helping more than 130 million shoppers make more informed decisions. Viewpoints offers three solutions for brands and retailers: a) Viewpoints Pulse ( http://www.viewpoints.com/about-pulse/ ) is a review management tool to help brands collect, manage and syndicate consumer reviews, b) Viewpoints Connect syndicates reviews to retailers and c) Viewpoints.com makes it easy for brands and retailers to reach more than ten million in-market shoppers who are actively considering what brands and retailers to choose for their purchase. About Bazaarvoice Bazaarvoice is a network that connects brands and retailers to the authentic voices of people where they shop. Each month, more than 400 million people view and share authentic opinions, questions and experiences about 70 million products in the Bazaarvoice network. The company's technology platform amplifies these voices into the places that influence purchase decisions. Network analytics help marketers and advertisers provide more engaging experiences that drive brand awareness, consideration, sales and loyalty. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Bazaarvoice has offices across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. For more information, visit http://www.bazaarvoice.co.uk read the blog at www.bazaarvoice.com/blog, and follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bazaarvoice. Related Links Measurement Specialties Announces Appointment of Joe Gleeson as Chief Operating Officer Will Bitcoin Be A Champion Like The Connecticut Huskies? Bulls In Rackspace Cheer As IBM Takeover Chatter Remains, Analysts Quiet On Rumor © 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

2014-04-08 20:07:29+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [4988]}

{}

UPDATE: Relypsa Announces Proposed Public Offering of Common Stock

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/relypsa-announces-proposed-public-offering-200729995.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

Relypsa, Inc. (Nasdaq: RLYP ), a biopharmaceutical company, today announced it has commenced an underwritten public offering of shares of its common stock to raise aggregate proceeds of $80 million. All of the shares of the common stock to be sold in the offering will be offered by Relypsa. In addition, Relypsa intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15 percent of the number of shares sold. The offering is subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering. Relypsa intends to use the net proceeds of the offering to fund the ongoing development and preparation for potential commercialization of patiromer, including the preparation and submission of its New Drug Application for patiromer, to support its activities during the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's review and approval process and pre-commercialization marketing activities for patiromer, and any remaining proceeds for working capital and general corporate purposes, including research and development. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, BofA Merrill Lynch and Cowen and Company are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Stifel and Wedbush PacGrow Life Sciences are acting as co-managers. The offering will be made solely by means of a prospectus, copies of which may be obtained from Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014, or by calling 866-718-1649, or by emailing [email protected]; or BofA Merrill Lynch, 222 Broadway, New York, NY, 10038 Attention Prospectus Department, by email at [email protected]; or Cowen and Company, LLC (c/o Broadridge Financial Services, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY, 11717, Attn: Prospectus Department, Phone: 631-274-2806, Fax: 631- 254-7140). A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction. Story continues About Relypsa, Inc. Relypsa, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of non-absorbed polymeric drugs to treat disorders in the areas of renal, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The company's two-part pivotal Phase 3 trial of its lead product candidate, patiromer, for the treatment of hyperkalemia, a life-threatening condition defined as abnormally elevated levels of potassium in the blood, has been completed and the primary and secondary endpoints were met. Relypsa has global royalty-free commercialization rights to patiromer, which has intellectual property protection in the U.S. until at least 2030. More information is available at www.relypsa.com. Forward Looking Statements To the extent that statements contained in this press release are not descriptions of historical facts regarding Relypsa, they are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding completion, timing, size and use of proceeds of the proposed public offering that involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, risks and uncertainties related to market conditions and the satisfaction of closing conditions related to the proposed public offering. Such forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties that relate to future events and the actual results could differ significantly from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Relypsa undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties relating to the business of the Company in general, see Relypsa's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 19, 2014 and the preliminary prospectus for this offering included as part of the Registration Statement on Form S-1/A related to the proposed offering filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 7, 2014, and its future periodic reports to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Related Links Bazaarvoice Enters Into Letter of Intent With Viewpoints to Divest PowerReviews Business; Terms Undisclosed Measurement Specialties Announces Appointment of Joe Gleeson as Chief Operating Officer Will Bitcoin Be A Champion Like The Connecticut Huskies? © 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

2014-04-09 11:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2773, 2803]}

{}

A Look at Google Now, the Predictive Personal Assistant for Android and iOS

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/look-google-now-predictive-personal-110000233.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

By now, some of you may already be familiar with Google Now , a predictive personal assistant for our mobile devices. Whether you have or haven't, though, do you really know what it is and how it works? The premise behind Google Now was as cool back when it launched as it was creepy: Let Google track everything you do on the web and in return your phone will be graced with a voice-activated assistant and a steady stream of “cards” full of personalized, pertinent information. When the service launched it was only available to Android smartphone users. Today, Google Now is available on iOS as well as desktop implementations of Google’s Chrome browser. Related: Wearable Wars: 3 Reasons Why 'Android Wear' Will Rule the Wrist Leveraging Now’s full strengths requires using Gmail, using Google Chrome as your primary browser on as many devices as possible, and allowing Google to track your web activity. In exchange, the system learns where you live, work, and frequently travel, what stocks and sports teams you track, what TV shows, movies and music you’re interested in, what packages you’ve sent and are expecting, and so on. Sound a little creepy? We agree, but Now can provide timely updates on traffic and weather conditions, stock prices and sports scores, movie and TV listings, and package tracking info. It also suggests web content based on your recent search and browsing history and -- of course -- offers voice-activated web search and control over select smartphone functionality. And that’s just for starters. Google Now is constantly being expanded to keep tabs on new types of information. Related: Does Anybody Really Need a '2K' Smartphone? For my money, Now really shines in its Android implementation. Now’s bite-size bits of information are custom tailored to the mobile OS’s widget system, and many recent Android phones offer easy access to the Google Now app itself via a swipe or gesture. Now’s user interface allows for easy dismissal of information you’re not interested in and tweaking of settings to sharpen the service’s utility. The app also integrates quite well with Google Maps for Android, offering turn-by-turn navigation with real-time traffic updates. Story continues The next frontier for Google Now is your wrist. Google’s recently announced “Android Wear” software will power a new wave of smartwatches and other wearable computers set to debut later this year. The technology’s called Android Wear, but it’s clear to anyone who’s seen the demo video that this is essentially Google Now for your wrist. The personal assistant is about to get even more personal. Related: How the HTC One M8 Smartphone Stacks Up to the Competition More From Entrepreneur The Year Ahead: 5 Social Media Trends Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know Bitcoin Owners: There's Now a Bitcoin-to-Cash ATM Card New Breed of Products Aims to Improve Users' Lives

2014-04-09 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [923, 1737]}

{}

Alternet Systems Supports Digital Asset Transfer Authority (DATA) Annual Meeting on April 9th - 11th, Washington, DC

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alternet-systems-supports-digital-asset-130000204.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Apr 9, 2014) - Alternet Systems, Inc. ( OTCQB : ALYI ) ("Alternet" or the "Company"), an accelerator of high growth opportunities in Digital Currency and Mobile Commerce services, today announced support of the Digital Asset Transfer Authority (DATA) Annual Meeting on April 9 th through the 11 th in Washington, D.C. Alternet Systems is the first publicly listed company to secure full DATA membership. Since November 2013 DATA has been working on a bilateral basis with influencers and regulators in the digital asset space to outline opportunities, to better understand, and to unite the industry around sensible outcomes for development of digital asset technologies. DATA is tasked with leading regulatory, best practices and consumer protection initiatives for companies in the emerging field of digital assets. Digital assets include digital, asset-backed and cryptographic currencies like Bitcoin, Ripple and Ven, along with the emerging ecosystem of payment innovations, fiscal tools, and P2P products enabled by these new Internet technologies. In addition to a VIP hosted table at the DATA Annual Dinner and the introduction of strategic relationships, Alternet Systems worked with Hub Culture and the Ven Currency to secure donation items to be priced in digital currency for the DATA Annual Dinner on April 10, 2014. DATA Annual Meeting Details: When: April 9-11, 2014 Where: 1777 F. Street, NW Washington, DC 2006 Website: www.datauthority.org Speakers for the event include keynotes from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis David Andolfatto and New York State Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky, who recently announced intentions of the state of New York to evaluate licensing for Bitcoin, Ven and other digital currency related businesses. Other speakers from the policy world include Stuart Tryon of the US Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security , Mike Stevens of the Conference of State Banking Supervisors , John Collins, from Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security Senator Tom Carper's office, Valerie Szczepanik of the Securities & Exchange Commission , Rochelle Hodes from the Office of Tax Policy Department of the Treasury (IRS) and Pat O'Brien, former Assistant Secretary, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes and Chip Poncy, of the Office of Strategic Policy for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes. Story continues DATA is also working to reach out to Washington influencers and international guests, timing the meeting to the eve of the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington, DC, with invitations sent to Senate and House finance committee members, NGOs, think tanks, and other government agencies interested in the subject of digital currencies. Expected guests include representatives from the US Treasury, FinCEN, the US GAO, and both sides of Capitol Hill as well as a wide variety of companies, banks and financial institutions, and NGOS including the UN Foundation and Gates Foundation. From the digital currency world, a number of bold faced participants are also attending, including Bitpay Founder Tony Gallipi, John Beccia of Circle Internet Financial , Stan Stalnaker, Founding Director of the Ven Currency, Jesse Powell, CEO, Payward Inc ., Ripple cryptographer David Schwartz, and Wences Cesares, founder of Xapo . Global views from representatives including the Mercatus Institute , TechFreedom and others as well as scholars, economists and security experts from a wide swath of sources. Moderators from American Banker , Bloomberg , Politico , and others will lead the conversation. The DATA Annual Meeting provides an opportunity for digital asset companies and related organizations to chart the year ahead in digital currency and other areas. Sessions and workshops will focus on issues pertinent to the digital asset industry, including development of best practices, standards and regulatory issues, economic development opportunities, industry leadership, and international considerations. About Alternet Systems Inc.: Alternet Systems Inc . ( OTCQB : ALYI ), headquartered in Miami, Florida, is an enterprise accelerator company focused on the complimentary, high-growth markets of Digital Currency, Mobile and Internet Commerce and Cyber-Security products and services. Through its subsidiaries, Alternet captures and converts extraordinary growth opportunities surrounding the explosion of newly adapted Internet technologies and platforms. More information about Alternet and its subsidiaries can be found at www.alternetsystems.com and by following the company on Twitter www.twitter.com/alternetsystems .

2014-04-09 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [926, 1051, 1690, 1860], "BTC": [566, 1706]}

{}

Microelectronics Technology Corporation Plans Phase One 100 TH/s Mining Center

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microelectronics-technology-corporation-plans-phase-130000150.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

MONARCH BAY, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 9, 2014) - Microelectronics Technology Corporation ( OTCBB : MELY ) ( OTCQB : MELY ) is pleased to announce the Company has initiated negotiations with Institutional Investment Funds for equipment acquisition financing. The company is in negotiations for a NON-DILUTIVE credit facility of five million dollars for the acquisition and development of the digital currency mining center the company is developing through its Dynamo Server division. The company is in the planning stages for the development of a first phase 100 TH/s BTC mining center. The company will be investing in the required hardware needed to provide the targeted 100 TH/s rate over the period of six to eight months. The company will be operating this cyber currency mining center in an open pool configuration allowing other miners to join the pool for a proportional percentage share of the mining pool production. "Bitcoin mining is a very competitive arena that requires the application of significant financial resources to the mining of Bitcoin as quickly as possible," states company president Brett Everett "upon the completion of the current acquisition closing April 18, the company will be introducing its plans for the roll out of phase one and timelines for completion." The acquisition remains on schedule with the closing date of April 18, 2014. The installation of the digital mining servers is also on schedule with the first transitioned servers to the Dynamo Servers co-location facility by April 30, 2014. This transition will allow for peak efficiency utilizing the state of the art server facility and seamless expansion capability Dynamo servers can provide. Bitcoin Mining: BTC Upon the completion of the Digital Mining Server installation at the Dynamo Server co-location facilities, the company will begin to offer fractional Bitcoin Digital Currency Mining server rentals to interested third parties for an annual fee based upon the hash rate available for partitioning. Story continues It is anticipated that the partitions will be available for lease in minimum 20 Gh/s hash rates with any multiple of 20 Gh/s available. About Dynamo Servers The Dynamo Servers platform was built from the ground-up to accommodate the needs of modern dedicated server customers, with features that are unique to the market. A simplified pricing model was applied to an expansive configuration system, allowing for predictable pricing without the customization limitations or penalties that are common among providers. An API was built to allow for integration with custom software and 3rd-party services. Social features were added to enable a dialogue among customers and a level of transparency unheard of in the industry. As long-time dedicated server customers, the people behind Dynamo Servers built a platform that they would want to use themselves. Dynamo Servers provide dedicated servers to clients through our point of presence in Vancouver, Canada inside a carrier neutral facility owned and operated by Cologix Inc. www.dynamoservers.com Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; MELY's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital. Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements.

2014-04-09 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [192, 1342]}

{}

WPCS to Host Shareholder Update Conference Call on April 16th at 4:30 p.m. ET

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wpcs-host-shareholder-conference-call-130000139.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EXTON, PA--(Marketwired - Apr 9, 2014) - WPCS International Incorporated ( NASDAQ : WPCS ) which specializes in contracting services for communications infrastructure and the development of a Bitcoin trading platform, today has announced that it will conduct a shareholder update conference call on Wednesday, April 16 th , at 4:30 p.m. ET. During the call management will discuss its financial results for the FY2014 third quarter ended January 31, 2014 and recent developments, including the pending sale of its Seattle operations and the upcoming launch of BTX Trader. To participate on the conference call, please dial 800-875-3456 for calls within the U.S. and 302-607-2001 for calls from outside the U.S. Upon reaching the operator, use VH71326 as the verbal pass code. When the overview concludes, you can be placed into the queue for questions by pressing *1 and can be removed from the queue by pressing the # sign. Replays of the conference call will be available for a period of five days by dialing 402-220-2946 and entering 20353 as the program identification number. About WPCS International Incorporated WPCS operates in two business segments including: (1) providing communications infrastructure contracting services to the public services, healthcare, energy and corporate enterprise markets worldwide; and (2) developing a Bitcoin trading platform. For more information, please visit www.wpcs.com and www.btxtrader.com . Statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenue and earnings and all other statements in this press release, other than historical facts, are "forward looking" statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. The company's actual results could differ materially from expected results. In reflecting subsequent events or circumstances, the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements.

2014-04-09 18:49:50+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [284]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin-The Worst Investment in the World?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-worst-investment-world-184950251.html

Zacks

http://www.zacks.com/

After a spectacular performance in 2013, bitcoin’s fortunes have nosedived this year. The virtual currency was the worst investment in the world during Q1, with more than 38% loss, far ahead of its closest competitor—Argentina Peso—which was down more than 18% against the US dollar. Bitcoin world has seen many twists and turns this year; including claims regarding the “identification” of the founder, theft at a major exchange by hackers, exchange bankruptcy etc. Further, IRS ruling regarding treatment of bitcoin as a property subject to capital gains tax has added to worries of investors interested in virtual currencies. There have been some positive developments too..more and more establishments have started accepting the bitcoin. You can even buy space travel tickets using bitcoin. Do you think that the bitcoin (or any other virtual currency) has the potential to ever become a global currency? Why do some investors trust a “currency” that is not backed by any government or central bank ? Read the analyst report on SPY Read the analyst report on BOND Read the analyst report on QQQ Read the analyst report on DIA Read the analyst report on GLD Zacks Investment Research

2014-04-10 18:11:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1535]}

{}

Sriracha Factory Given 90-Day Ultimatum as Spicy Fumes Declared a 'Public Nuisance'

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sriracha-factory-given-90-day-181120942.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

A Southern California community is feeling the Sriracha heat -- so much so that its city council has unanimously declared a local factory that churns out the cult-favorite hot sauce a “public nuisance.” With residents of Irwindale claiming that the factory's spicy fumes are burning their eyes and throats, the ruling states that Huy Fong Foods, which produces Sriracha, must submit a mitigation plan within 10 days and have the issue resolved by June 1. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, a pollution control agency, has offered to help craft a solution that involves the use of active carbon filters , reports The Los Angeles Times . Related: Listen Up: How to Respond to Customer Complaints This isn’t the first time that spicy Sriracha vapors have irritated Irwindale residents. Last October, the city sued Huy Fong Foods and asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to completely halt production on the sauce. At the time however, the annual pepper-grinding season, which runs from August to October, had ended. That trial is set for later this year. Huy Fong Foods opened its $40 million plant two years ago in Irwindale -- an industrial city of 1,400 residents. The privately company took in about $85 million last year , according to Fox News . Related: How to Calculate and Reduce Your Business's Carbon Footprint More From Entrepreneur Is It Time to Call Tesla the Future of Made In America? Not Quite. 7 Damaging Myths About Customer Engagement to Promptly Discard GOP Congressman Introduces First Bill to Tax Bitcoin

2014-04-10 20:30:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3332]}

{}

Is It Time to Call Tesla the Future of Made In America? Not Quite.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/time-call-tesla-future-made-203000543.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

When you think car and you think America, what comes to mind? If it was Ford's F-150 pickup truck, than you're on the money. (I mean, check it out : pretty darn American looking). In addition to being the country's top selling vehicle last year, the pickup truck also landed in the top spot on Cars.com's American-Made index , which measures how "American" a car is based on factors like where the car's parts come from, whether the car is assembled in the U.S. and if it is bought in large numbers by American consumers. But according to a recent report by Morgan Stanley, Ford F-150 better watch its tail lights. Why? Tesla is fast approaching. The report predicts that once the Elon Musk-led company opens its $6 billion battery factory , Tesla vehicles will zoom into the top spot . Related: Elon Musk Admits to 'Conversations' With Apple About Tesla Does this mean the future of Made in America, as Quartz reports, lies in Musk's hands? It all depends on how you define "Made in America." If the motivation behind the Made in America movement is job creation -- that American manufacturers need to keep and create more jobs here -- then the answer is no, probably not. At least not for a while. That’s because, despite the amount of press Tesla and Elon Musk get, it’s still a fringe player in the automotive industry. Sales of Tesla's battery-powered vehicles, priced from about $70,000, totaled around 22,450 last year. “With 6,900 deliveries in the [fourth] quarter [Tesla's Model S sedan] is still a niche vehicle,” Kevin Tynan, an auto analyst for Bloomberg Industries told Bloomberg . According to the company's annual report , as of December 31, 2013, it had 2,964 full-time employees world-wide. (The percentage of those employees who work in the U.S. was not released in the report. An inquiry to Tesla was not immediately returned). Related: Can Consumers Bring Manufacturing Jobs Back to the U.S.? Meanwhile, Ford sold a total of 6.3 million vehicles last year , with 3.1 million in North America alone. The company employed 181,000 people globally, with 84,000 of those employees working in North America (while the report did not specifically list the number of American employees, a 2011 estimate put the automotive maker at employing 65,000 Americans, a number that has surely grown as the auto industry has continued to recover since the recession). Story continues Once Tesla sets up its so-called "gigafactory," the company predicts that it will employ an additional 6,500 Americans. But that's not slated to happen until 2020, by the company's own estimate (Tesla has yet to narrow down the factory's location to a single state). All of this is to say that even if Tesla eventually does manage to nab the top spot on Cars.com's "American-Made index," let's not get ahead of ourselves. Larger, if admittedly less flashy, auto makers are still embodying the term "made in America" to the fullest. Which, in our estimation, rests less on the concept that their car parts are assembled in the U.S. and more on the fact that they continue to employ a whole ton of Americans. Related: Secrets of the 10 Most-Trusted Brands More From Entrepreneur Staples Rolls Out 3-D Printing Program Sriracha Factory Given 90-Day Ultimatum as Spicy Fumes Declared a 'Public Nuisance' GOP Congressman Introduces First Bill to Tax Bitcoin

2014-04-10 21:23:18+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9, 416, 2215]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plunges below $400 as Chinese exchanges halt bank transfers

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/what-s-up-with-bitcoin-171109803.html

Yahoo Finance

http://finance.yahoo.com/

April 10 Bitcoin prices fell below $400 on major exchanges Thursday after it was confirmed two major Chinese exchanges were ordered to stop bank transfers from customers . The Chinese government issued a statement last month, requiring banks to close accounts of bitcoin exchanges by April 15. While the deposit halt had been expected, this didn't stop the slide that put the sell price at $390 as of late Thursday. Bitcoin bulls still remain, however. Although he has taken a 20% hit in his investment, Legg Mason's Bill Miller still believes the potential rewards of bitcoin outweigh the risks. April 6 Florida has become the first state to bring criminal money laundering charges in a case involving the virtual currency bitcoin. March 31 The price of bitcoin dropped under the $500 mark since the IRS's notice on its policy of deeming bitcoin as property, not currency. Users of bitcoin will now have to keep a strict record of purchases made with bitcoin, then perform calculations to account for the change in value  to extract taxes from any gains. This has made the usage of bitcoin more complicated for average users. Rumors of China's intent to make bitcoin illegal may also be a contributing factor for the price drop. March 25 The Internal Revenue Service announced that bitcoin and other virtual currencies will be treated like property, not currency. The IRS will treat bitcoin like stock, and gains from investment will be treated as capital gains for taxation purposes. March 20 Mt. Gox, the collapsed bitcoin exchange, says it has discovered 200,000 bitcoins valued at around $114 million. "We believed there were no bitcoins left in old wallets, but found 199,999.99 bitcoins on March 7," said former Mt. Gox chief executive, Mark Karpeles. Mt. Gox said it reported the discovery of the coins to the bankruptcy court on March 10. March 17 Boomberg News reports Pantera Capital Management LP has invested about $10 million in Bitstamp Ltd., a bitcoin exchange. Story continues March 16 Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, the man identified by Newsweek as the creator of bitcoin, hired legal counsel and issued a statement to officially deny Newsweek ’s report: "I did not create, invent or otherwise work on Bitcoin. I unconditionally deny the Newsweek report." March 14 A class action lawsuit is filed in Canada and the U.S. targeting Mt. Gox and Mizuho Bank in Japan regarding the loss of bitcoins. The allegations include negligence, breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation. March 11 New York state financial regulator Benjamin Lawsky said he would consider accepting applications to operate exchanges for bitcoin and other digital currencies to help speed the development of rules for that market. "The recent problems at Mt. Gox and other firms further demonstrate the urgent need for stronger oversight of virtual currency exchanges, including robust standards for consumer protection, cyber security and anti-money laundering compliance," Lawsky said in a statement . March 9 Blog and Twitter accounts of Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles are hacked and defaced. Hackers claim Mt. Gox still has customers' bitcoins and upload a data dump of user accounts to the site. An investigator from Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity firm, later discovered the archive file leaked also contained bitcoin-stealing malware. March 10 Mt. Gox files for bankruptcy in Dallas to protect its U.S.-based assets. March 7 Newsweek stands by their story, while Reddit starts a fundraising campaign for Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. "If this person is Satoshi, then the funds are a small 'thanks' and won't make much of a difference… However, if this person is not Satoshi, then these funds will serve as a 'sorry for what happened to you,' help with medical bills his family is facing, any legal bills they may incur, or anything else," wrote Andreas M. Antonopoulos, a member of the bitcoin subreddit. March 6 Newsweek claims to have found the man behind bitcoin. Journalist Leah McGrath Goodman identified Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese-American man living with his mother in Temple City, California, as the creator of bitcoin. Nakamoto denies his involvement. February 28 Mt. Gox files for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo. February 25 Mt. Gox’s website goes dark . February 2 Mt. Gox halts customer withdrawals.

2014-04-11 04:16:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [758, 824, 1137, 2389, 2483], "BTC": [1833]}

{}

CEX.IO’s GHash.IO Launches Innovative Scrypt Mining Multi Pool Pro

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/cex-io-ghash-io-launches-041600803.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

Released today, CEX.IO's scrypt Multi Pool Pro has many innovative features such as real-time profitability indicators, exchange rates and automatic mining of the most profitable coin. UK / ACCESSWIRE / April 11th, 2014 / London based CEX.IO has announced the launch of their revolutionary new scrypt mining pool: Multi Pool Pro , where Pro stands for progressive, professional and profitable. Multi Pool Pro is an innovative scrypt multi pool with exclusive options. GHash.IO follows emerging developments and constantly adds new cryptocurrencies like LTC, DOGE, FTR and AUR — which are all currently available for mining. The ‘Pro’ in Multi Pool Pro firstly stands for progressive. The Multi Pool Pro option is available as a part of GHash.IO, the leading Bitcoin Mining Pool, which has shared credentials with the CEX.IO Bitcoin cloud mining and trading platform. CEX.IO’s new Multi Pool Pro includes up to date trends, options and features, combined with real-time mining stats — all available to meet the needs of mining adherents. Secondly, the ‘Pro’ in Multi Pool Pro stands for professional; CEX.IO has been running its GHash.IO Bitcoin mining pool, the largest in the world, smoothly for a year. The Multi Pool Pro will be operating according to the proportional reward system; when a block is found, the reward is distributed among all workers proportionally to how many shares each of them has found. Finally, the ‘Pro’ in GHash.IO’s Multi Pool Pro stands for profitable: the pool is programmed to automatically mine the most profitable coin at any given moment. GHash.IO Multi Pool Pro users are also provided with real-time profitability indicators, such as difficulty, block reward and exchange rate , shown in a summary table, as well as a visual Last Hour Mining Diagram. Users can choose to convert their coins into BTC or LTC and switch settings; dropping miner jobs when switching coins. Smart investors and savvy miners looking for maximum profit will find Multi Pool Pro geared to their needs. Story continues For cryptocurrency mining experts and beginners alike, Multi Pool Pro’s plethora of features such as real-time profitability indicators and automatically mining the most profitable coin, make Multi Pool Pro the scrypt miner’s mining pool of choice . With the unprecedented features available at Multi Pool Pro, and the impeccable track record of CEX.IO as a Bitcoin company; Ghash.IO is taking the lead to very well become not only the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool – but also the largest scrypt mining pool on the planet. Visit https://ghash.io/MULTI for more information. Contact Info Name: Jeffrey Smith Organization: CEX.IO Email: [email protected]

2014-04-14 11:15:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [381, 646, 738, 1135, 1243, 1552, 1829, 1963]}

{"Bitcoin": [110]}

Myriad Interactive Media Inc. (MYRY) Completes Dogecoin Integration on CryptoCafe.com and Launches ItsComingToBitcoin.com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/myriad-interactive-media-inc-myry-111500489.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TORONTO, ON and LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Apr 14, 2014) - Myriad Interactive Media Inc. ( OTCQB : MYRY ) ( BERLIN : XNG ), a global interactive media and development company, is pleased to announce that we have added Dogecoin as a crypto-currency option for buying and selling on CryptoCafe.com "With V2 officially launched, CryptoCafe.com now supports Dogecoin in addition to Bitcoin for buyers and sellers to securely trade on the platform. Our goal has always been to provide an extremely flexible multi-currency escrow system to our users. Following this key principal, we have made it super simple for sellers to accept offers in either Bitcoin or Dogecoin. Sellers need to choose their primary currency for listings. By default Bitcoin remains the principal currency. Most importantly, we want to highlight that with these V2 integrations, we have now set the foundation to easily integrate additional crypto-currencies as the platform is currency agnostic. It took a little bit of extra time, but these latest backend code modifications will save us considerable time in the future," said Myriad CEO Derek Ivany. ItsComingToBitcoin.com Project Launch "It's important that our audience is aware that we are just getting started with Bitcoin and crypto-currencies in general. Our corporate goal is to continue to deliver shareholder value buy successfully completing in-house projects and launching them in due process. CryptoCafe.com was an initial development to get our development team knowledgeable about all the technical aspects around Bitcoin and alt crypto-currencies. Starting out with a project that was manageable and deliverable in a reasonable amount of time made the most sense to develop first. We are pleased to announce that we are now in the final preparation stages of a much bigger and more complex Bitcoin and cryptocurrency project. We would like to invite our investors and industry supporters to sign-up to http://www.ItsComingToBitcoin.com and stay tuned to a big upcoming announcement the company plans to make," continued Ivany. Story continues Corporate Update We are 75% complete the mobile development of our Medical Marijuana application. Furthermore, we will be updating the public with a very important milestone and a series of announcements relating to our recent corporate trip to Germany. We would like to ask our investors to remain patient while we finish our preparations for these important announcements. About Myriad Interactive Media, Inc.: Myriad Interactive Media is an interactive marketing and development firm based in Toronto, Canada. Myriad designs and develops customized marketing plans, social media marketing campaigns, pay per click, and search engine marketing. Our company also develops in house web & mobile applications. Myriad Interactive Media Inc. is a public company quoted on the OTCQB under the symbol MYRY. For more information, please visit us in the USA at www.myriadim.com Forward-Looking Statements In addition to historical information, this press release may contain forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectations and projections about future results, performance, prospects and opportunities. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to be materially different from those expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, the Company assumes no obligation to update publicly or to revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available, new events occur or circumstances change in the future.

2014-04-14 11:15:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [381, 646, 738, 1135, 1243, 1552, 1829, 1963]}

{"Bitcoin": [110]}

Myriad Interactive Media Inc. (MYRY) Completes Dogecoin Integration on CryptoCafe.com and Launches ItsComingToBitcoin.com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/myriad-interactive-media-inc-myry-111500489.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TORONTO, ON and LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Apr 14, 2014) - Myriad Interactive Media Inc. ( OTCQB : MYRY ) ( BERLIN : XNG ), a global interactive media and development company, is pleased to announce that we have added Dogecoin as a crypto-currency option for buying and selling on CryptoCafe.com "With V2 officially launched, CryptoCafe.com now supports Dogecoin in addition to Bitcoin for buyers and sellers to securely trade on the platform. Our goal has always been to provide an extremely flexible multi-currency escrow system to our users. Following this key principal, we have made it super simple for sellers to accept offers in either Bitcoin or Dogecoin. Sellers need to choose their primary currency for listings. By default Bitcoin remains the principal currency. Most importantly, we want to highlight that with these V2 integrations, we have now set the foundation to easily integrate additional crypto-currencies as the platform is currency agnostic. It took a little bit of extra time, but these latest backend code modifications will save us considerable time in the future," said Myriad CEO Derek Ivany. ItsComingToBitcoin.com Project Launch "It's important that our audience is aware that we are just getting started with Bitcoin and crypto-currencies in general. Our corporate goal is to continue to deliver shareholder value buy successfully completing in-house projects and launching them in due process. CryptoCafe.com was an initial development to get our development team knowledgeable about all the technical aspects around Bitcoin and alt crypto-currencies. Starting out with a project that was manageable and deliverable in a reasonable amount of time made the most sense to develop first. We are pleased to announce that we are now in the final preparation stages of a much bigger and more complex Bitcoin and cryptocurrency project. We would like to invite our investors and industry supporters to sign-up to http://www.ItsComingToBitcoin.com and stay tuned to a big upcoming announcement the company plans to make," continued Ivany. Story continues Corporate Update We are 75% complete the mobile development of our Medical Marijuana application. Furthermore, we will be updating the public with a very important milestone and a series of announcements relating to our recent corporate trip to Germany. We would like to ask our investors to remain patient while we finish our preparations for these important announcements. About Myriad Interactive Media, Inc.: Myriad Interactive Media is an interactive marketing and development firm based in Toronto, Canada. Myriad designs and develops customized marketing plans, social media marketing campaigns, pay per click, and search engine marketing. Our company also develops in house web & mobile applications. Myriad Interactive Media Inc. is a public company quoted on the OTCQB under the symbol MYRY. For more information, please visit us in the USA at www.myriadim.com Forward-Looking Statements In addition to historical information, this press release may contain forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectations and projections about future results, performance, prospects and opportunities. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to be materially different from those expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, the Company assumes no obligation to update publicly or to revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available, new events occur or circumstances change in the future.

2014-04-14 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [50, 476, 931, 951, 1202, 1413]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Shop Announces Opening of New Corporate Headquarters

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-shop-announces-opening-corporate-130000934.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SILVER SPRING, MD--(Marketwired - Apr 14, 2014) - Bitcoin Shop, Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) (the "Company"), the virtual currency ecommerce marketplace www.bitcoinshop.us , today announced the opening of new corporate headquarters where it will continue to manage its information technology, research and development, regulatory and financial controls. Corporate Headquarters Location: 1901 N. Fort Myer Dr., Suite 1105 Arlington, VA 22209 Charles Allen, Chief Executive Officer of Bitcoin Shop, commented, "We are pleased to move into our new space with increased capacity and room for growth. Strategically, the Washington, DC metro area provides us with access to virtual currency influencers and technology resources. Our location in Arlington, VA is within walking distance to DC, and provides a great fit for access, resources and a base for attracting and recruiting the top talent we need to support our plans for growth." About Bitcoin Shop, Inc.: Bitcoin Shop, Inc. operates an ecommerce website ( www.bitcoinshop.us ) where consumers can purchase products using virtual currency such as bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin, by searching through selection of over 400 categories and over 140,000 items. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin are virtual currencies that use peer-to-peer networks to facilitate instant payments. They are all categorized as cryptocurrencies, as they use cryptography as a security measure. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin issuances and transactions are carried out collectively by the network, with no central authority, and allow users to make verified transfers. Forward Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its virtual currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

2014-04-14 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [50, 476, 931, 951, 1202, 1413]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Shop Announces Opening of New Corporate Headquarters

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-shop-announces-opening-corporate-130000934.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SILVER SPRING, MD--(Marketwired - Apr 14, 2014) - Bitcoin Shop, Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) (the "Company"), the virtual currency ecommerce marketplace www.bitcoinshop.us , today announced the opening of new corporate headquarters where it will continue to manage its information technology, research and development, regulatory and financial controls. Corporate Headquarters Location: 1901 N. Fort Myer Dr., Suite 1105 Arlington, VA 22209 Charles Allen, Chief Executive Officer of Bitcoin Shop, commented, "We are pleased to move into our new space with increased capacity and room for growth. Strategically, the Washington, DC metro area provides us with access to virtual currency influencers and technology resources. Our location in Arlington, VA is within walking distance to DC, and provides a great fit for access, resources and a base for attracting and recruiting the top talent we need to support our plans for growth." About Bitcoin Shop, Inc.: Bitcoin Shop, Inc. operates an ecommerce website ( www.bitcoinshop.us ) where consumers can purchase products using virtual currency such as bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin, by searching through selection of over 400 categories and over 140,000 items. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin are virtual currencies that use peer-to-peer networks to facilitate instant payments. They are all categorized as cryptocurrencies, as they use cryptography as a security measure. Bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin issuances and transactions are carried out collectively by the network, with no central authority, and allow users to make verified transfers. Forward Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its virtual currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. View comments

2014-04-14 16:16:21+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1585, 2901, 3758]}

{}

Libra Offers Tax Accounting and Compliance Service for Digital Currency

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/libra-offers-tax-accounting-compliance-161621241.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 14, 2014) - Libra ( http://libratax.com/ ), the provider of software products which help taxpayers calculate the tax obligation for their digital currency holdings, today announced it will be making the first of those products, LibraTax for individuals, available to the public in Q3 2014. "I built this because the onus of being a good citizen and a responsible taxpayer can be especially burdensome for digital currency holders right now, given the confusion over policies and definitions," said Libra founder and CEO Jake Benson. "As this important process plays out, the need for easy-to-use, automated tools for consumers and businesses will be critical. Libra will help to eliminate much of the anxiety currently felt by those transacting in digital currency." Individuals who file for the automatic six-month extension with the Internal Revenue Service this year will be able to take advantage of the LibraTax service when it is released. Libra also is working on developing digital-currency financial tools for small businesses and large enterprises. "Preparing income tax returns is difficult enough. For digital currency users, the problems have been compounded because the IRS has provided limited guidance on how to account for varying exchange rates and casual spending," said Tyler Robbins, author of bitcointax.info . "LibraTax will simplify this process for home and professional tax preparers alike. LibraTax will pave the way for accurate, educated, and most importantly, simple tax calculations." The LibraTax software supports Bitcoin, Ripple and other digital currencies, and is designed to accommodate all types of digital stores of value. As more and more of the economy moves towards digital transactions, and as all stores of value become representable on payment networks such as Ripple, Libra is committed to providing accurate and up-to-date financial tools to taxpayers and businesses. "Despite whatever impact the recent guidelines might have, the fact the Internal Revenue Service is offering concrete directives is actually a good thing. Ultimately, it means that digital currency is being taken seriously, as are the foundational concepts of cryptocurrency technologies such as public ledgers. The end game here is a fully digital economy that improves convenience, efficiency and governance. Eventually, it will be possible to automatically populate your income, itemized deductions, and business expenses directly from public ledgers," added Benson. Libra is supported by CrossCoin Ventures, the digital currency accelerator based in San Francisco. For more information about Libra and to sign up for progress updates about the LibraTax platform, please visit http://www.libratax.com . Story continues About Libra Libra is the provider of software products that help taxpayers calculate the tax obligation for their holdings in Bitcoin, Ripple and other digital currencies. Libra offers a full suite of tax solutions aimed at customers in the consumer, small business and enterprise spaces, with public release of its first LibraTax products slated for Q3 2014. Libra is a CrossCoin Ventures company. For more information, please visit http://www.libratax.com . About CrossCoin Ventures CrossCoin Ventures invests to create a new financial ecosystem based on cryptocurrency technologies. We are big believers in the Ripple vision that payments will be transformed to become global, distributed, instant and free. The open source, distributed Ripple protocol enables free, instant payments to merchants, consumers and developers with no charge-backs and in any currency, from dollars and yen to bitcoins. In addition to running the Ripple accelerator, CrossCoin partners also invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency companies. For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.crosscoinventures.com . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. View comments

2014-04-14 21:37:35+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1116, 1335]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin promoter Shrem indicted in NY for money laundering

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-promoter-shrem-indicted-ny-213735200.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK, April 14 (Reuters) - Prominent bitcoin entrepreneur Charlie Shrem has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of funneling cash to the illicit online marketplace Silk Road. Shrem, known as one of the digital currency's most visible promoters, is accused of conspiring with a Florida man, Robert Faiella, to sell more than $1 million in bitcoins to the users of Silk Road despite knowing that it would be spent on illegal uses like drug trafficking. Both Shrem and Faiella face charges of money laundering, conspiracy and failing to file suspicious activity reports with government banking authorities, according to the indictment filed by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Shrem's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, and Faiella's lawyer, David Braun, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Federal authorities shut down Silk Road last year, and prosecutors from Bharara's office have charged Ross William Ulbricht with operating the site under the name "Dread Pirate Roberts." Shrem, 24, was arrested in January and stepped down as vice president of the Bitcoin Foundation, a well-known trade group, soon after. He was previously CEO of BitInstant, a bitcoin exchange company that enjoyed financial backing from the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss but closed last year. Bitcoin is a digital currency, not backed by any government or central bank, that fluctuates in value according to its users' demand. Users can transfer bitcoins to each other online and store the currency in digital "wallets." Authorities have vowed to pursue those who use bitcoin to complete illegal transactions, while regulators are still grappling with their approach to the nascent currency. The recent failure of Japan's Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy after apparently losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins, has underscored concerns about the currency's long-term viability. Shrem will be arraigned on the indictment on April 29, according to Bharara's office. He faces a maximum prison term of 20 years if convicted on the most serious charge. (Editing by Eric Walsh)

2014-04-14 21:37:35+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1116, 1335]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin promoter Shrem indicted in NY for money laundering

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-promoter-shrem-indicted-ny-213735200.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK, April 14 (Reuters) - Prominent bitcoin entrepreneur Charlie Shrem has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of funneling cash to the illicit online marketplace Silk Road. Shrem, known as one of the digital currency's most visible promoters, is accused of conspiring with a Florida man, Robert Faiella, to sell more than $1 million in bitcoins to the users of Silk Road despite knowing that it would be spent on illegal uses like drug trafficking. Both Shrem and Faiella face charges of money laundering, conspiracy and failing to file suspicious activity reports with government banking authorities, according to the indictment filed by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Shrem's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, and Faiella's lawyer, David Braun, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Federal authorities shut down Silk Road last year, and prosecutors from Bharara's office have charged Ross William Ulbricht with operating the site under the name "Dread Pirate Roberts." Shrem, 24, was arrested in January and stepped down as vice president of the Bitcoin Foundation, a well-known trade group, soon after. He was previously CEO of BitInstant, a bitcoin exchange company that enjoyed financial backing from the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss but closed last year. Bitcoin is a digital currency, not backed by any government or central bank, that fluctuates in value according to its users' demand. Users can transfer bitcoins to each other online and store the currency in digital "wallets." Authorities have vowed to pursue those who use bitcoin to complete illegal transactions, while regulators are still grappling with their approach to the nascent currency. The recent failure of Japan's Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy after apparently losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins, has underscored concerns about the currency's long-term viability. Shrem will be arraigned on the indictment on April 29, according to Bharara's office. He faces a maximum prison term of 20 years if convicted on the most serious charge. (Editing by Eric Walsh)

2014-04-15 02:11:32+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [941]}

{}

Mt. Gox founder won't appear in U.S. for questions about bankruptcy case

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-founder-wont-appear-021132686.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Devika Krishna Kumar (Reuters) - Mark Karpeles, the founder of Mt. Gox, said he would not come to the United States to answer questions about the Japanese bitcoin exchange's U.S. bankruptcy case, Mt. Gox lawyers told a federal judge on Monday. In the court filing, Mt. Gox lawyers cited a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which has closely monitored virtual currencies like bitcoin. "Mr. Karpeles is now in the process of obtaining counsel to represent him with respect to the FinCEN Subpoena. Until such time as counsel is retained and has an opportunity to 'get up to speed' and advise Mr. Karpeles, he is not willing to travel to the U.S.", the filing said. The subpoena requires Karpeles to appear and provide testimony in Washington, D.C., on Friday. The court papers also said a Japanese court had been informed of the issue and that a hearing was scheduled on Tuesday in Japan. Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value has soared in the last year, and the total worth of bit coins minted is now about $7 billion. Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan last month, saying it may have lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking into its computer system. According to Monday's court filings, the subpoena did not specify topics for discussion. In the court filings, Karpelès' lawyers asked the court to delay the bankruptcy deposition to May 5, 2014 but said that Mt. Gox could not guarantee that Karpeles would attend that either. The case was in Re: Mt Gox Co Ltd in the U.S. bankruptcy court for the northern district of Texas, Dallas division, No. 14-31229-sgj15. (Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in Bangalore; Editing by Eric Walsh)

2014-04-15 02:11:32+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [941]}

{}

Mt. Gox founder won't appear in U.S. for questions about bankruptcy case

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-founder-wont-appear-021132686.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Devika Krishna Kumar (Reuters) - Mark Karpeles, the founder of Mt. Gox, said he would not come to the United States to answer questions about the Japanese bitcoin exchange's U.S. bankruptcy case, Mt. Gox lawyers told a federal judge on Monday. In the court filing, Mt. Gox lawyers cited a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which has closely monitored virtual currencies like bitcoin. "Mr. Karpeles is now in the process of obtaining counsel to represent him with respect to the FinCEN Subpoena. Until such time as counsel is retained and has an opportunity to 'get up to speed' and advise Mr. Karpeles, he is not willing to travel to the U.S.", the filing said. The subpoena requires Karpeles to appear and provide testimony in Washington, D.C., on Friday. The court papers also said a Japanese court had been informed of the issue and that a hearing was scheduled on Tuesday in Japan. Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value has soared in the last year, and the total worth of bit coins minted is now about $7 billion. Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan last month, saying it may have lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking into its computer system. According to Monday's court filings, the subpoena did not specify topics for discussion. In the court filings, Karpelès' lawyers asked the court to delay the bankruptcy deposition to May 5, 2014 but said that Mt. Gox could not guarantee that Karpeles would attend that either. The case was in Re: Mt Gox Co Ltd in the U.S. bankruptcy court for the northern district of Texas, Dallas division, No. 14-31229-sgj15. (Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in Bangalore; Editing by Eric Walsh) View comments

2014-04-15 02:11:32+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [941]}

{}

Mt. Gox founder won't appear in U.S. for questions about bankruptcy case

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-founder-wont-appear-u-questions-bankruptcy-021132037--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Devika Krishna Kumar (Reuters) - Mark Karpeles, the founder of Mt. Gox, said he would not come to the United States to answer questions about the Japanese bitcoin exchange's U.S. bankruptcy case, Mt. Gox lawyers told a federal judge on Monday. In the court filing, Mt. Gox lawyers cited a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which has closely monitored virtual currencies like bitcoin. "Mr. Karpeles is now in the process of obtaining counsel to represent him with respect to the FinCEN Subpoena. Until such time as counsel is retained and has an opportunity to 'get up to speed' and advise Mr. Karpeles, he is not willing to travel to the U.S.", the filing said. The subpoena requires Karpeles to appear and provide testimony in Washington, D.C., on Friday. The court papers also said a Japanese court had been informed of the issue and that a hearing was scheduled on Tuesday in Japan. Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value has soared in the last year, and the total worth of bit coins minted is now about $7 billion. Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan last month, saying it may have lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking into its computer system. According to Monday's court filings, the subpoena did not specify topics for discussion. In the court filings, Karpelès' lawyers asked the court to delay the bankruptcy deposition to May 5, 2014 but said that Mt. Gox could not guarantee that Karpeles would attend that either. The case was in Re: Mt Gox Co Ltd in the U.S. bankruptcy court for the northern district of Texas, Dallas division, No. 14-31229-sgj15. (Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in Bangalore; Editing by Eric Walsh)

2014-04-15 02:11:32+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [941]}

{}

Mt. Gox founder won't appear in U.S. for questions about bankruptcy case

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-founder-wont-appear-u-questions-bankruptcy-021132037--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Devika Krishna Kumar (Reuters) - Mark Karpeles, the founder of Mt. Gox, said he would not come to the United States to answer questions about the Japanese bitcoin exchange's U.S. bankruptcy case, Mt. Gox lawyers told a federal judge on Monday. In the court filing, Mt. Gox lawyers cited a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which has closely monitored virtual currencies like bitcoin. "Mr. Karpeles is now in the process of obtaining counsel to represent him with respect to the FinCEN Subpoena. Until such time as counsel is retained and has an opportunity to 'get up to speed' and advise Mr. Karpeles, he is not willing to travel to the U.S.", the filing said. The subpoena requires Karpeles to appear and provide testimony in Washington, D.C., on Friday. The court papers also said a Japanese court had been informed of the issue and that a hearing was scheduled on Tuesday in Japan. Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value has soared in the last year, and the total worth of bit coins minted is now about $7 billion. Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan last month, saying it may have lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking into its computer system. According to Monday's court filings, the subpoena did not specify topics for discussion. In the court filings, Karpelès' lawyers asked the court to delay the bankruptcy deposition to May 5, 2014 but said that Mt. Gox could not guarantee that Karpeles would attend that either. The case was in Re: Mt Gox Co Ltd in the U.S. bankruptcy court for the northern district of Texas, Dallas division, No. 14-31229-sgj15. (Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in Bangalore; Editing by Eric Walsh)

2014-04-15 09:22:35+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [783, 1885, 3162, 3208], "BTC": [50, 602, 847, 1034, 1257, 1316, 2982]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin defies talk of China crackdown

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-defies-talk-china-crackdown-092235998.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

George Frey | Getty Images The price of bitcoin (:BTC=) rose on Tuesday despite growing uncertainty regarding regulation in China, including a possible deadline for the country's banks to stop handling the virtual currency. The price of bitcoin hit $500 by 10:00 a.m. London time on Tuesday, according to industry website CoinDesk, appreciating 40 percent since the recent low of $355 it reached on Friday. Chinese media had reported that April 15 was a possible deadline set by the People's Bank of China (PBoC) for Chinese banks to freeze the accounts of bitcoin exchanges. Chinese bitcoin companies BTC Trade and Huobi.com backed those reports last week. Both exchanges signaled that their banks were due to close their accounts before, or close to, Tuesday's deadline. Read More Bitcoin stumbles on fears of China clampdown A spokesperson for BTC Trade told CNBC via email on Tuesday that it had received a phone call from the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), informing that it would no longer be supported by the bank. However, BTC Trade added that no written confirmation had been sent and that it was now looking at the possibility of opening up in a different country. ABC was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. However, BTC Trade's experience is not common with other exchanges. BTC China, a leading exchange in the country and one of the world's busiest bitcoin exchanges, said that it had received no such communication from either the central bank or its own account provider. "As far as we know it's business as usual, " CEO Bobby Lee told CNBC Tuesday. "We have not received any calls or any changes in regulation." Speculation regarding how Chinese authorities were going to regulate the cryptocurrency began in early December 2013, after a price surge in bitcoin which many attributed to growing enthusiasm from Chinese investors. Read More Bitcoin price halves as China clampdown escalates A statement was released on the website of China's central bank on December 5 which warned of the cryptocurrency's risks, saying that Chinese financial institutions should not trade the digital currency. Story continues On December 18, Chinese news website Yicai.com reported that the PBoC had ordered third-party payment providers to stop using the virtual currency and had been ordered to stop any "custody, trading and other services" related to bitcoin. Speculation stepped up a notch last month with a report by Chinese news site Caixin, which said the PBoC had introduced measures which would target 15 bitcoin-trading websites, adding that banks - who have these companies as clients - would be punished if they failed to close their accounts by the April deadline. The PBoC has denied these most recent reports. It took to micro-blogging site Weibo on March 21 to claim state that reports of the deadline were untrue and that the guidelines set out on December 5 were the only formal communication it had released on the digital currency. BTC China's Lee also dismissed the recent reports as just "rumors in the media", saying that there has been no amendments or updates since the December 5 PBoC statement. Read More Bitcoin crashes 20% on China clampdown fears "Bitcoin has been classified as being not a currency in China, so technically it's not banned, people are allowed to own and buy," he said. "Time will tell how they eventually regulate bitcoin." Despite no confirmation of the crackdown, David Moskowitz, director at bitcoin account and transfer service Coin Republic, believes that China's bitcoin exchanges are currently trying to figure out ways around the regulations. "(The exchanges are) offering voucher systems, they're going to be launching some ATMs there as well," he told CNBC Tuesday. "We'll see if the government bans those too."

2014-04-15 09:22:35+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [783, 1885, 3162, 3208], "BTC": [50, 602, 847, 1034, 1257, 1316, 2982]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin defies talk of China crackdown

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-defies-talk-china-crackdown-092235998.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

George Frey | Getty Images The price of bitcoin (:BTC=) rose on Tuesday despite growing uncertainty regarding regulation in China, including a possible deadline for the country's banks to stop handling the virtual currency. The price of bitcoin hit $500 by 10:00 a.m. London time on Tuesday, according to industry website CoinDesk, appreciating 40 percent since the recent low of $355 it reached on Friday. Chinese media had reported that April 15 was a possible deadline set by the People's Bank of China (PBoC) for Chinese banks to freeze the accounts of bitcoin exchanges. Chinese bitcoin companies BTC Trade and Huobi.com backed those reports last week. Both exchanges signaled that their banks were due to close their accounts before, or close to, Tuesday's deadline. Read More Bitcoin stumbles on fears of China clampdown A spokesperson for BTC Trade told CNBC via email on Tuesday that it had received a phone call from the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), informing that it would no longer be supported by the bank. However, BTC Trade added that no written confirmation had been sent and that it was now looking at the possibility of opening up in a different country. ABC was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. However, BTC Trade's experience is not common with other exchanges. BTC China, a leading exchange in the country and one of the world's busiest bitcoin exchanges, said that it had received no such communication from either the central bank or its own account provider. "As far as we know it's business as usual, " CEO Bobby Lee told CNBC Tuesday. "We have not received any calls or any changes in regulation." Speculation regarding how Chinese authorities were going to regulate the cryptocurrency began in early December 2013, after a price surge in bitcoin which many attributed to growing enthusiasm from Chinese investors. Read More Bitcoin price halves as China clampdown escalates A statement was released on the website of China's central bank on December 5 which warned of the cryptocurrency's risks, saying that Chinese financial institutions should not trade the digital currency. Story continues On December 18, Chinese news website Yicai.com reported that the PBoC had ordered third-party payment providers to stop using the virtual currency and had been ordered to stop any "custody, trading and other services" related to bitcoin. Speculation stepped up a notch last month with a report by Chinese news site Caixin, which said the PBoC had introduced measures which would target 15 bitcoin-trading websites, adding that banks - who have these companies as clients - would be punished if they failed to close their accounts by the April deadline. The PBoC has denied these most recent reports. It took to micro-blogging site Weibo on March 21 to claim state that reports of the deadline were untrue and that the guidelines set out on December 5 were the only formal communication it had released on the digital currency. BTC China's Lee also dismissed the recent reports as just "rumors in the media", saying that there has been no amendments or updates since the December 5 PBoC statement. Read More Bitcoin crashes 20% on China clampdown fears "Bitcoin has been classified as being not a currency in China, so technically it's not banned, people are allowed to own and buy," he said. "Time will tell how they eventually regulate bitcoin." Despite no confirmation of the crackdown, David Moskowitz, director at bitcoin account and transfer service Coin Republic, believes that China's bitcoin exchanges are currently trying to figure out ways around the regulations. "(The exchanges are) offering voucher systems, they're going to be launching some ATMs there as well," he told CNBC Tuesday. "We'll see if the government bans those too."

2014-04-15 18:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [4068]}

{}

Ever Want to 'Unsend' an Email? Now You Can.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ever-want-unsend-email-now-180000280.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

Ever send an email and immediately regret it? Or realize you've misspelled the recipient's name, and want to correct it? Or just don't like the idea of a catty remark about a co-worker sitting in a friend's inbox for all eternity? Is the inherent permanency of email crippling your style? If you answered 'yes' to any of the above, Harvard Law students David Gobaud and Lindsay Lin believe they've cooked up a solution: Enter Pluto Mail , a free Web-based email service or, more succinctly, the Snapchat of email. (The name originates from the fact that Pluto's planetary status was doled out, and then abruptly rescinded – Similarly, "if you have second thoughts about something you said, our service allows you can take it back," explains Lin.) Ever Want to 'Unsend' an Email? Now You Can. David Gobaud and Lindsay Lin, co-founders of Pluto Mail Thanks in part to Facebook fatigue, as well as growing concerns about data breaches and NSA surveillance, Gobaud and Lin believe that people increasingly want their online exchanges to mirror their offline ones: impermanent, untraceable and therefore less restricted. "People self-censor themselves online," Gobaud says. "But if you have a conversation with a friend in person, you're not worried that that it will follow you for the rest of your life." Related: 5 Reasons Every Business Should be on Snapchat Pluto Mail's central selling point is its ease of use. It's not really an email provider – you need to authenticate your main email address to sign up – which means the service isn't limited to Pluto's Web interface; it can also be used on email clients like Gmail, Outlook and Apple mail. Unlike encryption services, which need to be downloaded and installed by both parties, recipients aren't required to use Pluto or install anything for the service to work. Similar to Snapchat, Pluto Mail allows you to choose when your email expires (although the options, of course, are far vaster). Do you want it to vanish ten days after you've sent it, regardless of whether it’s been read? Five minutes after it's been opened? Two seconds after it's been sent, just to mess with someone? Because while you can delete emails after you've sent them you can't erase their subject lines from a recipient's account. Say you send an email to your friend with the title: Top Secret, and then delete the message before she reads it. The subject line will remain in her inbox, except when opened, the email will simply state: “This message has expired.” Like with Snapchat, Pluto Mail has an obvious loophole: if a recipient takes a screenshot of your email, it he or she can then save it forever. Story continues Ever Want to 'Unsend' an Email? Now You Can. Related: Mixed Blessings: 4 Ways Computers Forever Changed How We Work Dodge the screenshot scenario, though, and once your email is deleted, it's truly gone. "In settings, the user can turn on auto eliminate so that when an email expires, we delete it from our servers immediately," Gobaud explains. He insists that Gmail's servers don't hold onto the email either and that, after a maximum of three days, the email disappears from Pluto Mail's backup server. In other words, your email is truly and completely erased. "From a security perspective," says Lin, "ephemerality can be very beneficial." While Pluto Mail has generated excitement among people like herself and Gobaud (i.e. the young and tech savvy), Lin says there's also been a lot of interest from small businesses who want more control over their ability to manage confidential information. Both Lin and Gobaud predict a seismic shift – anticipated by Snapchat's popularity – in how we use and think about data. "There's a trend towards a more forgettable internet," Gobaud says. "Humans don't have perfect memories. Computers do. And I don't think a world of perfect memories facilitates natural communication between people." While Pluto Mail is currently still in beta, you click on this link to sign up. Related: Jimmy Carter: I Send Snail Mail for Fear of NSA Surveillance More From Entrepreneur Bitcoin Millionaire Charlie Shrem Under House Arrest Following Federal Indictment Google Wants to Patent Contact Lenses That Can Snap Photos Optimizing Your Website for Local Searches View comments

2014-04-15 21:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [55, 306, 482, 654, 1469, 1521, 1689, 1904, 2360, 2601, 3231, 4423, 4665, 5877, 6805, 6906, 6957]}

{"Bitcoin": [38]}

Why Amazon is right to steer clear of Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2014-04-15-amazon-bitcoin-currency.html

Engadget

https://www.engadget.com/

Amazon has quashed the idea that it would be accepting Bitcoin as a method of payment. "We have considered it," said Tom Taylor, Amazon's head of seller services in an interview with Re/code , "but we're not hearing from customers that it's right for them, and don't have any plans within Amazon to engage Bitcoin." That stance might sound strange, given the company's history of staying ahead of its retail rivals, but there are a number of reasons why it makes sense. Not only is Bitcoin a deeply unstable proposition, despite its growing fame, but it's also becoming clear that Amazon already has e-currency and payment-platform ambitions of its own. Bitcoin isn't currently accepted as a currency in the US, China , Russia or India . It exists in a legal gray area where it's not legitimate, but not outlawed either. Senator Joe Manchin , once called for a ban on the cryptocurrency, and while his was a lone voice on Capitol Hill, it's reasonable to assume that other lawmakers could pick up the mantle. With the IRS currently treating the coinage as " taxable property ," every payment made in the US is liable for capital gains tax, adding a further veil of complexity for businesses willing to adopt the currency. Amazon isn't alone among the big companies that are holding out against it either, although eBay and PayPal are reportedly giving it some serious thought . If there's one thing that Amazon strives for, it's control, and it certainly can't control Bitcoin In the interview, Taylor said that adopting Bitcoin was not a priority, and that's entirely reasonable, considering that it's a minority currency. There's no official way to calculate how many people own and use Bitcoin, but according to a report from BitScan , the total number of users is no more than 2.5 million. In fact, the report goes further to suggest that if you exclude people who have the odd cent in a wallet, the Bitcoin community -- people who actually use the currency on a regular basis -- could be as small as 500,000. If that is the case, then it's highly unlikely that Amazon would devote the engineering, accountancy and political resources to develop a system that would cater to the same number of people as would turn up for a Seattle Seahawks victory parade . Story continues Between February and March of this year, the better part of $500 million worth of Bitcoin was stolen from the Mt. Gox and Flexcoin exchanges. The currency may have been based on the notion that, so long as more than 50 percent of all users were behaving legitimately, then the system was tremendously secure. Now, however, Bitcoin's reputation as a safe place to hold your money is gossamer-thin. Any large corporation would leave itself open to a huge amount of risk if it began to accept transactions that aren't approved by trusted servers, but instead by "the community at large." Even the most daring of businesses are likely to balk at the idea that the general public, or at least a small subset of it, should have any influence on how it does its banking. Source: Blockchain.info If there's one thing that Amazon strives for, it's control (which is why it launched its own TV, tablet, e-book and server platforms) and it certainly can't control Bitcoin. (Honestly, we're not sure anyone can.) Hell, it's pretty powerless even when it comes to credit card companies. It may have upwards of 200 million cards on file, but it has a reportedly strained relationship with banks. Much of that animosity stems from the fact that they won't provide Amazon with the purchasing information that it thrives upon. In the Re/code interview, Taylor said that he is being tasked with developing the company's commerce tools, but added that he would only build a rival to MasterCard if he "could do a better job" to benefit the consumer. Perhaps, the company's ambitions lie elsewhere -- a virtual currency of its very own. Amazon launched Coins last year, and while it's currently only used for app purchases on the Kindle Fire, it's already developed the infrastructure and discounts to lock consumers in. Since one of the key tenets of a virtual currency is to devalue cash and encourage users to spend more, it would make sense that a retailer like Amazon would want people turning dollars into Coins. Now, we admit that we can't imagine people buying a latte at Starbucks using Amazon Coins, but it's significantly more plausible than people using Bitcoin. And it would seem counterintuitive for Amazon to adopt what could turn out to be a potential competitor. We can't imagine people buying a latte at Starbucks using Amazon Coins, but it's significantly more plausible than people using Bitcoin That being said, analyst Guillermo Escofet doesn't believe that Amazon will make any sort of larger splash into the virtual currency world. In his mind, "virtual coin currencies are designed to handle small transactions" as they "save on what would be an unsustainable level of interchange fees." Not to mention that the discounting of Coins "might eat too much into Amazon's margin in books and music." Instead, he feels that Amazon's direct-billing relationship is where the company's strength lies, since "hundreds of millions of customers have registered their payment details on the Amazon platform." Now that seems to make a lot more sense. Especially with Amazon already muscling in on Square's and PayPal's territory as an enlightened middleman with its Login and Pay system, which allows people to use their Amazon credentials to purchase goods and services at other outlets. Of course, running a store across the world is likely to involve several issues regarding currency fluctuations. For a company of Amazon's scale, these minute shifts in values against the dollar are a technical and logistical headache to deal with -- even when those changes amount to just a few cents. Compare that to Bitcoin, however, and it's a drop in the ocean. In just four months, the system has fallen from a high of $1,151 during the holiday season to under $500 yesterday. Imagine purchasing an item on Monday, but by the time the transaction cleared on Tuesday, the value of the payment had halved. Who do you think would pick up the bill for the lost cash? Amazon is a company that won't even reveal how many Kindles it sells, so we're not likely to get an early tip-off as to its plans in the commerce space. However, Amazon has a lot of power, and we can't imagine it would use that to its, and its customer's, disadvantage. In his annual shareholders' letter, Jeff Bezos said that Amazon Login and Pay now accounts for a large proportion of transactions with its partners, and that we should all "look for more in 2014." Whatever happens, the next nine months are going to be very interesting and it's pretty clear it won't involve Bitcoin. ( Correction : This article originally stated that Senator Manchin was still seeking to ban Bitcoin. He has since taken a less stridently anti-Bitcoin stance. Though, we're sure this isn't the last time the currency will face challenges on Capitol Hill.)

2014-04-16 11:15:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1572]}

{}

Myriad Interactive Media Inc. (MYRY) Forms Gaming Division and Signs Deal With World Famous Game Designer Reiner Knizia

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/myriad-interactive-media-inc-myry-111500987.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TORONTO, ON and LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Apr 16, 2014) - Myriad Interactive Media Inc. ( OTCQB : MYRY ) ( BERLIN : XNG ) a global interactive media and development company, is pleased to announce that we have closed one of two deals that were initiated during our recent trip to Germany. This is the first of many anticipated licensing agreements with Dr. Reiner Knizia, a world famous game designer and Gaming Hall of Fame legend, who has published over 500 games globally. Dr. Reiner Knizia is a prolific German-style board game designer. Dr. Knizia has won the famous Spiele des Jahres ( Game of the Year) award four times and a multitude of others. Our German audience would be familiar with his popular game Keltis and Ingenious. Avid Star Trek & Lord of The Rings fans would know his sci-fi games. Board game enthusiasts would recognize Dr. Knizia's tremendously successful auction-mechanic games such as: RA, Medici, Modern Art, plus hundred of others. Dr. Knizia has published games for big names including but not limited to: LEGO, Ravensburger, Hans im Glück, Kosmos, Rio Grande Games and Hasbro. He is also a regular keynote at the largest toy festival in the world. After meeting with Dr. Knizia, Derek Ivany, CEO and President of Myriad, said, "I am extremely grateful and honored to have had the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Knizia in Nuremberg. I am equally honored and excited to have Dr. Knizia as a shareholder of Myriad Interactive Media, Inc. Our company has made significant strides in the last 5 months. We have successfully developed two Bitcoin projects and several client projects. Additionally, we've had significant debt elimination including: complete removal of any past toxic debt and the complete re-shaping of our corporate strategy. This has breathed new life, energy, and enthusiasm into the company. We are progressing faster than ever." Ivany continued, "Both Dr. Knizia and myself have outlined a strategic mobile game that we plan to develop for both Android and iPhone. It shares somewhat of a similar strategy as Candy Crush, but it has Dr. Knizia's genius behind it and was originally invented well before the Candy Crush Saga." Story continues Myriad is already in advanced talks with several strategic partners in the gaming industry. This will provide key support in making a successful development and rollout of this Knizia-Myriad game. The recent $7 Billion USD IPO of King Digital Entertainment shows a strong appetite for the $90 Billion USD + mobile gaming market. For example, Candy Crush has captivated hundreds of millions of users. Furthermore, it is reported to make over $633,000 USD per day in revenue. We, at Myriad, believe that our talented team coupled with: Dr. Knizia's excellence in physical publishing, the right financial support, and the international appetite for gaming, would enable us to introduce a game that could grow rapidly in global popularity. Therefore, translating into success in the mobile gaming market. "We know it is important to offer our investors a diverse portfolio of assets that hold significant potential for increased value. Moreover, we have demonstrated that our management team is capable of identifying and capitalizing on opportunities for our shareholders. Myriad continues to stay focused at what we do best, although our share price has seen a negative hit recently, we have at the same time seen serious strategic shareholders acquire a significant portion of our company's securities. We hope that our long term supporters recognize our dedication in delivering shareholder value and our unwavering principle of putting the company first. Myriad values our employees and stakeholders and would once again like to thank everyone for their hard work and support," said Myriad CEO Derek Ivany. About Dr. Reiner Knizia Reiner Knizia is a prolific German-style board game designer and easily considered the most prolific game designer of all time. Born in Germany, he developed his first game at the age of eight. He has a PhD in mathematics, and has been a full-time game designer since 1997, when he quit his job from the board of a large international bank. Knizia has been living in England since 1993. In addition to having designed over 500 published games, Knizia is highly acclaimed as a designer, having won the Deutscher Spiele Preis four times, a Spiel des Jahres (in addition to a Kinderspiel des Jahres and a special award), and numerous other national and international awards. At the Origins Game Fair in 2002 he was inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame . His games frequently make appearances on various "top games" lists, including the GAMES 100 list , the BoardGameGeek top 100 , and the Internet Top 100 Games List . Several gaming conventions host "Kniziathons" , which are tournaments dedicated to celebrating Knizia-designed games. Reiner Knizia started developing games for his play-by-mail game zine Postspillion , founded in 1985. The zine still exists, and the game Bretton Woods (also a Reiner Knizia design), which was started in 1987, is still going. One of Knizia's best selling games is Lord of the Rings , published in 17 languages with over one million copies sold. His dice game Pickomino has also reached 1 million copies sold and his Keltis sold over 600,000 copies. His game Ingenious has been published in over 20 languages. In 2011, Knizia designed a Star Trek-themed game for NECA/WizKids, based on the 2009 film that 'reset' the Star Trek universe. About Myriad Interactive Media, Inc.: Myriad Interactive Media is an interactive marketing and development firm based in Toronto, Canada. Myriad designs and develops customized marketing plans, social media marketing campaigns, pay per click, and search engine marketing, corporate websites, enterprise applications and other custom web development. Myriad has developed several in house technologies which are 100% owned and operated by Myriad Interactive Media, Inc. Myriad Interactive Media Inc. is a public company quoted on the OTCQB under the symbol MYRY and on the Berlin exchange in Germany under the symbol XNG. For more information, please visit us in the USA at www.myriadim.com Forward-Looking Statements In addition to historical information, this press release may contain forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectations and projections about future results, performance, prospects and opportunities. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to be materially different from those expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, the Company assumes no obligation to update publicly or to revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available, new events occur or circumstances change in the future.

2014-04-16 11:17:18+00:00

{"BTC": [37, 1850, 2377, 3225]}

{}

China gets first bitcoin ATM, skirting bank crackdown

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/china-gets-first-bitcoin-atm-104410375.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Pete Sweeney SHANGHAI (Reuters) - BTC China, one of the country's leading digital currency exchanges, has installed China's first bitcoin ATM and launched an online app allowing individuals to buy and sell bitcoins using mobile phones, skirting local banking regulations seen as increasingly hostile to so-called crypto-currencies. Rising interest from mainland Chinese speculators was credited for driving up global bitcoin prices last year to above $1,000 on some exchanges. But a subsequent crackdown by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has seen the digital currency sag, changing hands below $530 on Wednesday, according to exchange-tracker CoinDesk. That, in combination with scandals involving hacking, theft, and fraud, have put pressure on digital currency markets around the world. Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has given up plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection and asked a local court to allow it to be liquidated, The Wall Street Journal reported. Unlike conventional money, bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are generated by computers and are not backed by any central bank or government, or by physical assets. They can be exchanged through nearly any file transfer mechanism for goods, services or cash - but the latter has proved a problem. Many regulatory agencies around the world are concerned that digital currencies can be easily used for money laundering or the illegal purchase of weapons and narcotics, and have moved to control or prohibit their use in ordinary commerce. In December, the PBOC banned financial institutions from trading in bitcoin, saying the government would act to prevent money laundering risks from the digital currency. It did not ban trading by individuals. Last week, two bitcoin exchanges said their trading accounts at certain domestic banks would be closed down by the lenders. BTC China's chief executive Bobby Lee said by telephone that his exchange is still in operation and has yet to receive any notice from the bank that his accounts are being closed. "News reports said it would be shut down by April 15. It's April 16 and nothing has happened," he said. Story continues While trading volumes on his exchange are down 80-90 percent from their peak, transaction levels were still healthy, said Lee, on par with levels last September prior to bitcoin's spike. CAFE ATM The new ATM-like services from BTC China do not involve the banking system at all. The physical ATM, located in a cafe at a mall in Shanghai's Zhangjiang technology park area, allows people to buy bitcoin directly from the exchange for yuan inserted into the machine. Users cannot withdraw cash. The machine was lightly used during a visit by Reuters, with just one client appearing to use it, but cafe manager Cheng Mengyao said she had seen a steady stream of customers use the machine for small transactions since it was installed. The web app essentially allows transactions on a direct peer-to-peer basis, as opposed to selling them on an open exchange. This also avoids using the banking network or a public online exchange, but means transactions are between individuals and liquidity is limited to how much cash they have. (This story has been refiled to correct name of BTC China in paragraph 7) (Additional reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-16 11:17:18+00:00

{"BTC": [37, 1850, 2377, 3225]}

{}

China gets first bitcoin ATM, skirting bank crackdown

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-gets-first-bitcoin-atm-104410375.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Pete Sweeney SHANGHAI (Reuters) - BTC China, one of the country's leading digital currency exchanges, has installed China's first bitcoin ATM and launched an online app allowing individuals to buy and sell bitcoins using mobile phones, skirting local banking regulations seen as increasingly hostile to so-called crypto-currencies. Rising interest from mainland Chinese speculators was credited for driving up global bitcoin prices last year to above $1,000 on some exchanges. But a subsequent crackdown by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has seen the digital currency sag, changing hands below $530 on Wednesday, according to exchange-tracker CoinDesk. That, in combination with scandals involving hacking, theft, and fraud, have put pressure on digital currency markets around the world. Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has given up plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection and asked a local court to allow it to be liquidated, The Wall Street Journal reported. Unlike conventional money, bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are generated by computers and are not backed by any central bank or government, or by physical assets. They can be exchanged through nearly any file transfer mechanism for goods, services or cash - but the latter has proved a problem. Many regulatory agencies around the world are concerned that digital currencies can be easily used for money laundering or the illegal purchase of weapons and narcotics, and have moved to control or prohibit their use in ordinary commerce. In December, the PBOC banned financial institutions from trading in bitcoin, saying the government would act to prevent money laundering risks from the digital currency. It did not ban trading by individuals. Last week, two bitcoin exchanges said their trading accounts at certain domestic banks would be closed down by the lenders. BTC China's chief executive Bobby Lee said by telephone that his exchange is still in operation and has yet to receive any notice from the bank that his accounts are being closed. "News reports said it would be shut down by April 15. It's April 16 and nothing has happened," he said. Story continues While trading volumes on his exchange are down 80-90 percent from their peak, transaction levels were still healthy, said Lee, on par with levels last September prior to bitcoin's spike. CAFE ATM The new ATM-like services from BTC China do not involve the banking system at all. The physical ATM, located in a cafe at a mall in Shanghai's Zhangjiang technology park area, allows people to buy bitcoin directly from the exchange for yuan inserted into the machine. Users cannot withdraw cash. The machine was lightly used during a visit by Reuters, with just one client appearing to use it, but cafe manager Cheng Mengyao said she had seen a steady stream of customers use the machine for small transactions since it was installed. The web app essentially allows transactions on a direct peer-to-peer basis, as opposed to selling them on an open exchange. This also avoids using the banking network or a public online exchange, but means transactions are between individuals and liquidity is limited to how much cash they have. (This story has been refiled to correct name of BTC China in paragraph 7) (Additional reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-16 12:45:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [180, 243, 337, 838, 921, 1389], "BTC": [757]}

{"Bitcoin": [48]}

Microelectronics Technology Corporation Secures Bitcoin Mining Server Supplier

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/microelectronics-technology-corporation-secures-bitcoin-124500571.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

MONARCH BAY, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 16, 2014) - Microelectronics Technology Corporation ( OTCBB : MELY ) ( OTCQB : MELY ), is pleased to announce the Company has negotiated with a Bitcoin equipment supplier for the acquisition of the 100 Th/s Bitcoin Mining servers. The agreement calls for the initial delivery of three (1TH/s servers) Bitcoin mining servers to the companies Dynamo server co-location facilities for installation and testing. Upon the determination of the performance abilities of the servers and the power consumption profile has been established, the company has agreed to take delivery of ten (1 TH/s servers) every two weeks for the next twenty weeks. Upon completion the company will have established the planned first phase 100 TH/S BTC Mining Center by September 1, 2014 The company anticipates the launch of its Bitcoin Mining pool May 1, 2014 . The company will add the first 3 (1TH/S servers) Bitcoin Mining Servers to the mining pool upon completion of the initial testing, with the addition of 10 (1TH/s servers) every two weeks contingent upon consistent delivery of the servers from our supplier. The company will be operating this cyber currency mining center in an open pool configuration allowing other miners to join the pool for a proportional percentage share of the mining pool production. "The establishment of a consistent and reliable supplier of Bitcoin mining servers is such a significant key to the company's success that we have made the consistent supply as our first priority," states company president Brett Everett. "The company is very pleased with the supply negotiations to date and looks to take delivery of the first three (1TH/s servers) within the next two weeks." The Company acquisition remains on schedule with the closing date of April 18, 2014. About Dynamo Servers The Dynamo Servers platform was built from the ground-up to accommodate the needs of modern dedicated server customers, with features that are unique to the market. A simplified pricing model was applied to an expansive configuration system, allowing for predictable pricing without the customization limitations or penalties that are common among providers. An API was built to allow for integration with custom software and 3rd-party services. Social features were added to enable a dialogue among customers and a level of transparency unheard of in the industry. As long-time dedicated server customers, the people behind Dynamo Servers built a platform that they would want to use themselves. Story continues Dynamo Servers provide dedicated servers to clients through our point of presence in Vancouver, Canada inside a carrier neutral facility owned and operated by Cologix Inc. www.dynamoservers.com Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; MELY's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital. Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements.

2014-04-16 17:49:22+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1513]}

{}

This Could Be Our First Look at Amazon’s 3D Smartphone

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/this-could-be-our-first-look-at-amazons-3d-smartphone-82908708751.html

Yahoo Tech

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/

(BGR) Amazon’s plan for world domination is going swimmingly: It has a massive store for everything, a tablet, a streaming TV box , a drone army , and now it is launching a 3D smartphone to ship in September , the first of its kind. A trusted tech source, BGR revealed what it says are the first exclusive photos of the Amazon phone prototype, as well as some details about the device’s specs. According to the sources, the phone will be 4.7 inches long diagonally, (similar to the Moto X, but smaller than the HTC One and Samsung’s Galaxy 5); have 720p HD resolution; 2 GB of RAM; and a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It will also power Mayday, Amazon’s specialized, personalized customer service system. Most interestingly, it has six cameras. The two main cameras are on the back of the device (14 megapixels), and there is also a front-facing camera. There will also be four other front-facing cameras, on each of the corners of the phone. These are low-power infrared cameras that, according to BGR’s source , will create the 3D experience without the aid of glasses. “The device’s extra cameras are used to track the position of the user’s face and eyes in relation to the phone’s display. This allows Amazon’s software to make constant adjustments to the positioning of on-screen elements, altering the perspective of visuals on the screen,” BGR says. The 3D effect will also appear in the main applications, such as maps, the bookstore, the music store, and Amazon’s digital market. RELATED: Once-Leading Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Calls It Quits The online shopping giant has slowly but surely been moving toward the smartphone world. Its Kindle Fire has successfully allowed the brand to build up its own app store and beef up its sales of digital content. However, Amazon still trails behind its competitors, mostly because it lacks a strong mobile component. On April 11, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the Amazon Appstore, which launched in March 2011, had more than 200,000 apps available, serving 200 countries. By comparison, there are currently 1,200,198 apps in the Google Play store, which launched October 2008. Apple launched its App Store in July 2008, and it has more than a million apps as well. Amazon’s upcoming smartphone will likely skyrocket the number of apps available to its existing customers. Based on the growth of competitors, it is possible that Amazon could be in the millionaire app club in two to three years. Story continues RELATED: If You Don’t Have Enough Women on Your Power List, Make Sure to Put One on the Cover Amazon has set itself up for a perfect phone launch, as well. It has a successful streaming product to incorporate into the phone, a growing app store, and a growing business in Amazon Prime, which ( despite the recent price increase ) has created a loyal customer base — perfect for marketing this newest device and the many other Amazon products it can deliver. (BGR) As for the actual look and feel of the phone, it isn’t clear yet, as Amazon has not officially revealed the details. The images obtained by BGR show a bulky, boxy design, but this is due to the protective shell on the outside of the device that is meant to hide key parts of design from leaks. (Like this one, oops.) While there is much about Amazon’s new product remaining to be revealed, the phone is definitely coming, and currently aiming for a September release date. We can only hope it will be delivered by a friendly drone. RELATED: Google Just Bought the Drone Company that Facebook Had Its Eye On This article was originally published at The Wire . Read more from The Wire • Napping, It Turns Out, May Kill You • Amazon Plans to Release a ‘Hologram’ 3D Smartphone

2014-04-16 18:03:08+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [5186]}

{}

Stocks retain strong gains as Fed's Beige Book confirms weather story

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-retain-strong-gains-feds-beige-book-confirms-180308808.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Stocks retain strong gains as Fed's Beige Book confirms weather story U.S. stocks on Wednesday climbed for a third session after U.S. industrial production rose more than projected and Yahoo posted better-than-expected earnings, bolstering the technology sector. Stocks held most of their gains as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen addressed the Economic Club of New York Wednesday afternoon and after the release of the Fed's Beige Book. "I don't think it's what Yellen is saying; there is general skittishness, one of the more important things really is options expiration has moved up a day, so there's a ton of intraday volatility. Also we have some big earnings tonight and tomorrow," said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade. Read More Yellen: Fed will keep rates low even when the economy recovers "It's a big day today, we've got 17 out of the S&P 500 reporting, and so far it's been more good than bad. There is more positive forward guidance than negative, so things will pick up in the second half of the year," said Chris Gaffney, EverBank senior market strategist. "And, we had industrial production come out on a positive note this morning, supporting the notion that the economy is heating up with the weather," Gaffney said. Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO - News ) surged after reporting robust sales at Alibaba Group Holding, the Chinese e-commerce company in which it holds a 24 percent stake. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC - News ) gained a day after the chip manufacturer reported a quarterly profit that surpassed Wall Street estimates. "Earnings aren't as terrible as people thought they were going to be," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC - News ) fell after posting a first-quarter loss as the lender settled claims tied to mortgage bonds. PNC Financial Services Group (NYSE: PNC - News ) rose after the regional bank reported first-quarter profit that beat expectations. Economic data had U.S. manufacturing output rising for a second straight month in March, with factory production up 0.5 percent last month and overall industrial production climbing 0.7 percent, beating expectations. Story continues Another report from the Commerce Department had the pace of U.S. home construction bouncing back less than expected last month, with the data coming after a report Tuesday that showed homebuilder confidence rising less than projected in April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow Jones Global Indexes: .DJI) gained 128.09 points, or 0.8 percent, to 16,390.65, with Visa (NYSE: V - News ) pacing gains that had 27 of the index's 30 components rising. The S&P 500 (INDEX: ^GSPC - News ) jumped 14.58 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,857.56, with materials leading gains that extended to all 10 of its major sectors. The Nasdaq (NASDAQ: ^IXIC - News ) climbed 40.79 points, or 1 percent, to 4,074.94. The technology-heavy index during Tuesday's session fell to within 0.3 percent from a 10 percent correction from its March 6 high. For every share on the decline, three rose on on the New York Stock Exchange, where 275 million shares traded by 12:20 p.m. Eastern. Composite volume hit 1.4 billion. Data from China had the world's second-largest economy expanding by 7.4 percent in the first quarter of 2014, slowing from a 7.7 percent increase in the final quarter of last year. "I don't think we're going to see a hard landing in China," said Gaffney, who added that the country is taking steps to shore up their economy as it transitions from one driven by exports to one fueled by consumption. Read More China Q1 GDP growth slows to 7.7 percent. The dollar fell against the currencies of major US trading partners and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note used in figuring mortgage rates and other consumers loans added 2 points to 2.653 percent. Crude-oil futures for May delivery rose 56 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $104.31 a barrel; gold futures for June delivery fluctuated, lately up 20 cents at $1,300.50 an ounce. The precious metal fell below its 200-day moving average on Tuesday, its worst session since December. On Tuesday, stocks turned higher , with the Nasdaq making its largest rebound in five years on upbeat earnings from Dow components Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO - News ) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ - News ) . Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL - News ) and IBM (NYSE: IBM - News ) are among the technology companies that report later Wednesday. -By CNBC's Kate Gibson Coming Up This Week: Wednesday 11:30 a.m.: Atlanta Fed's Lockhart 12:25 p.m.: Fed Chair Janet Yellen at Economic Club of NY, Q&A 1:25 p.m.: Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher 2:00 p.m.: Beige book Thursday Earnings: General Electric , BlackRock , Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley , Blackstone , DuPont, Union Pacific, Pepsico , Chipotle , Baker Hughes, Sherwin-Williams, Fifth Third, AutoNation, Sonoco Products, Snap-on Mattel, Cypress Semiconductor, Baxter, Taiwan Semiconductor, Rockwell Collins 8:30 a.m.: Jobless claims 10:00 a.m.: Philadelphia Fed survey Friday Markets closed for Good Friday 10:00 a.m.: Leading indicators More From CNBC.com: The worst state to do business is ... ? Seafood chain has been 'dishonest': Health group Bitcoin having trouble shedding its dark side More From CNBC Need growth? Sell everything and buy this: Cramer Inside one man's bitcoin mining operation Obamacare helped 10 million uninsured, says Gallup

2014-04-17 01:15:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [546]}

{}

Bringing Cryptocurrency To Women Worldwide Cryptomoms Launches 3 Million DNotes Giveaway

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bringing-cryptocurrency-women-worldwide-cryptomoms-011500357.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

The official launch of Cryptomoms.com will begin with a huge give away of up to 3 million DNotes. Cryptomoms.com's mission is to address the huge gender imbalance seen in the world of cryptocurrencies today. April 16th, 2014 / The fact that the emerging world of cryptocurrency is overwhelmingly dominated by men has never been in dispute. As of April 2014, surveys show that currently the male to female ratio is 19:1, or 95% (male) to 5% (female). This troubling gender imbalance has been voiced by women’s advocates and discussed in different Bitcoin forums; but until now a highly focused and dedicated effort to change the playing field has been lacking. Developed and fully funded by the same team who created DNotes, Cryptomoms.com officially launched today in the Mid-West, USA; aiming to bridge the gender gap as clearly articulated in their mission statement : “Cryptomoms.com is a digital community center with a dedicated mission to encourage and assist women to participate in the emerging world of crypto currency overwhelmingly dominated by men. We begin by creating a culture of mutual respect for women with genuine efforts to help them acquire the basic knowledge about digital currency along with many earning opportunities. We will relentlessly pursue to accomplish our mission through multiple campaigns and outreach projects and invite the participation of our industry peers and advocates to join force with us. We will set very specific quantifiable goals and sponsor creditable surveys to measure our achievement against those goals. For the common good of our industry we are committed to make a difference.” The Cryptomoms forum is already buzzing with great enthusiasm and excitement. In a matter of days one can feel that a new culture is born. There is a great a sense of a family atmosphere, where everyone is genuinely excited to welcome new members, helping, teaching and inspiring each other. While both men and women are welcome, there is a sense that there is some kind of super “girl power” taking charge that could change the male dominated world of cryptocurrency forever. Story continues The official launch of Cryptomoms.com will begin with a huge give away of up to 3 million DNotes . Participants who register and participate in the forum will be sent 250 DNotes to their wallet address. In anticipation that many will be new to the digital currency world Cryptomoms supporters will be on stand by to help. The site is already fully loaded with instructions and tutorial videos. For beginners, it is also recommended that they simply open an account with an exchange where DNotes is currently listed which includes Allcoin and Poloniex. A spokesman from DNotes commented that for digital currency to become truly mainstream the huge gender imbalance must be corrected, as women control more than 50% of consumer purchasing power. He elaborated that DNotes is positioned as a serious digital currency, with a strong commitment to generating trust and support for its stake holders. In a never ending journey to build asset value for their stake holders: Cryptomoms.com is the first of many ambitious web properties planned by the Dnotes team. To learn more about Dnotes please go to: http://dnotescoin.com/ Visit http://cryptomoms.com/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Alan Yong Organization: Cryptomoms Email: [email protected]

2014-04-17 01:15:56+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [7, 251, 874, 1163, 1341]}

{"Bitcoin": [9]}

One-time Bitcoin king Mt. Gox nears the end of the road

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-time-bitcoin-king-mt-gox-nears-end-011556821.html

BGR News

http://www.bgr.com/

Sorry, Bitcoin fans: You’re never, ever, ever getting all your precious pieces of cryptocurrency back from Mt. Gox. The Wall Street Journal reports that Mt. Gox, the one-time Magic Card trading website that transformed itself into the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange before it collapsed earlier this year , has filed for liquidation. This means that the exchange has completely given up any hopes of rebuilding itself while under bankruptcy protection and now its remaining assets will be sold off for cash. This also means that Mt. Gox’s creditors are likely to receive even less return on their investment in the exchange than they would have received under bankruptcy. Although one of the Journal’s sources says Mt. Gox is still hoping that it can find a potential buyer for the exchange, it seems like a difficult sell since Mt. Gox’s brand is now so damaged among the Bitcoin community that any potential it has as a future place to trade cryptocurrencies is impossible to imagine. More from BGR: Here are all the passwords you need to change right now because of Heartbleed This article was originally published on BGR.com Related stories The most ominous Bitcoin trend Lawyer for Alleged Silk Road founder concocts the best defense against money laundering charges Video: Watch a Redditor literally eat his hat for being wrong about Bitcoin

2014-04-17 07:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [100, 226, 453, 552, 649, 687, 754, 910, 969, 1094, 1211, 1286, 1370, 1699, 1991, 2228, 2749, 2976, 3075, 3189, 3448, 4870]}

{"Bitcoin": [52, 138]}

Bitminer.CC LTD, a Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of First Bitcoin Capital Corp., (OTCMarkets: BITCF) Enters Into MOU, Signs Non-disclosure with Bitcoin Mining Company Alydian

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitminer-cc-ltd-wholly-owned-070000507.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

VANCOUVER, B.C / ACCESSWIRE / April, 17, 2014 / Bitminer.cc LTD, a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Bitcoin Capital Corp., is pleased to announce that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding to acquire the assets of Bitcoin mining company Alydian. Due to a previously signed non-disclosure agreement and relevant SEC regulations, the companies can not disclose the terms of the MOU at this time. Alydian, a portfolio company of venture-backed Bitcoin business incubator CoinLab, Inc., was launched in 2012 to deliver enterprise-scale turnkey Bitcoin mining services for qualified customers. Located in several U.S. data centers, Alydian’s Bitcoin hardware is capable of mining Bitcoins at approximately 215 terahashes per second. The company’s Bitcoin mining rigs were designed to solve complex mathematical algorithms in order to mine the virtual currency. Alydian is ranked as one of the top three Bitcoin miners on BTCGuild.com, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pools where multiple mining companies combine their computer processing resources to generate bitcoins. First Bitcoin Capital Corp. said the move signifies a vital step in its plan to expand its mining operations. “Since First Bitcoin Capital Corp. is the first vertically-integrated publically traded Bitcoin consolidator, we believe that being involved in mining and manufacturing of Bitcoin mining hardware will give us an advantage in this fast-growing crypto-currency arena”- management commented. The company said its hardware integrates a custom-designed application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, a microchip that is designed to perform the hashing algorithms necessary to verify transactions on the Bitcoin network and mine coin. Eventually, the company plans to develop its own bitcoin mining technology. “We plan on initiating a mass production of chips using 20nm process technology, which will allow us to make very complex and highly-integrated system on chips.” Story continues Mining Bitcoin and other digital currency requires the operation of expensive and powerful computing equipment, which uses substantial amounts of electricity to perform complex algorithms. The mining process gets increasingly difficult as more Bitcoins are mined, driving the demand for computing power even higher. Industry experts say that while prospecting may not be an ideal investment for the average individual, it can lead to massive potential earnings for large bitcoin mining companies that are able to scale operations and save costs on cooling and power, while making their computers more efficient and cost effective. At least two of the top mining companies have generated profits solely from mining. Stockholm-based KnCMiner’s computers mined 21,000 Bitcoins, according to the company’s co-founder. The chief executive officer of Cloud Hashing, which allows individuals to buy computing capacity and share in profits, said the company mines about $230,000 to $260,000 worth of Bitcoins per day. About the company: Bitminer.cc LTD was formed specifically to acquire and manage Bitcoin mining assets on behalf of the company. Bitminer.cc LTD plans to join the BTCGuild.com mining pool. First Bitcoin Capital Corp. is a developing Canadian-based mining company currently holding concessions of Gold in Venezuela and is preparing to enter the crypto-currency industry. It is the first publicly traded, vertically-integrated consolidation company of the Bitcoin and crypto-currency marketplace. SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This press release includes various "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which represent the Company's expectations or beliefs concerning future events. Statements containing expressions such as "believes," "anticipates," "intends," or "expects," used in the Company's press releases and in Disclosure Statements and Reports filed with the Over the Counter Markets through the OTC Disclosure and News Service are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes its expectations are based upon reasonable assumptions within the bounds of its knowledge of its business and operations, there can be no assurances that actual results will not differ materially from expected results. The Company cautions that these and similar statements included in this report are further qualified by important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date thereof. Contacts: [email protected] bitcoincapitalcorp.com Source: First Bitcoin Capital Corp.

2014-04-17 07:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [100, 226, 453, 552, 649, 687, 754, 910, 969, 1094, 1211, 1286, 1370, 1699, 1991, 2228, 2749, 2976, 3075, 3189, 3448, 4870]}

{"Bitcoin": [52, 138]}

Bitminer.CC LTD, a Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of First Bitcoin Capital Corp., (OTCMarkets: BITCF) Enters Into MOU, Signs Non-disclosure with Bitcoin Mining Company Alydian

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitminer-cc-ltd-wholly-owned-070000507.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

VANCOUVER, B.C / ACCESSWIRE / April, 17, 2014 / Bitminer.cc LTD, a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Bitcoin Capital Corp., is pleased to announce that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding to acquire the assets of Bitcoin mining company Alydian. Due to a previously signed non-disclosure agreement and relevant SEC regulations, the companies can not disclose the terms of the MOU at this time. Alydian, a portfolio company of venture-backed Bitcoin business incubator CoinLab, Inc., was launched in 2012 to deliver enterprise-scale turnkey Bitcoin mining services for qualified customers. Located in several U.S. data centers, Alydian’s Bitcoin hardware is capable of mining Bitcoins at approximately 215 terahashes per second. The company’s Bitcoin mining rigs were designed to solve complex mathematical algorithms in order to mine the virtual currency. Alydian is ranked as one of the top three Bitcoin miners on BTCGuild.com, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pools where multiple mining companies combine their computer processing resources to generate bitcoins. First Bitcoin Capital Corp. said the move signifies a vital step in its plan to expand its mining operations. “Since First Bitcoin Capital Corp. is the first vertically-integrated publically traded Bitcoin consolidator, we believe that being involved in mining and manufacturing of Bitcoin mining hardware will give us an advantage in this fast-growing crypto-currency arena”- management commented. The company said its hardware integrates a custom-designed application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, a microchip that is designed to perform the hashing algorithms necessary to verify transactions on the Bitcoin network and mine coin. Eventually, the company plans to develop its own bitcoin mining technology. “We plan on initiating a mass production of chips using 20nm process technology, which will allow us to make very complex and highly-integrated system on chips.” Story continues Mining Bitcoin and other digital currency requires the operation of expensive and powerful computing equipment, which uses substantial amounts of electricity to perform complex algorithms. The mining process gets increasingly difficult as more Bitcoins are mined, driving the demand for computing power even higher. Industry experts say that while prospecting may not be an ideal investment for the average individual, it can lead to massive potential earnings for large bitcoin mining companies that are able to scale operations and save costs on cooling and power, while making their computers more efficient and cost effective. At least two of the top mining companies have generated profits solely from mining. Stockholm-based KnCMiner’s computers mined 21,000 Bitcoins, according to the company’s co-founder. The chief executive officer of Cloud Hashing, which allows individuals to buy computing capacity and share in profits, said the company mines about $230,000 to $260,000 worth of Bitcoins per day. About the company: Bitminer.cc LTD was formed specifically to acquire and manage Bitcoin mining assets on behalf of the company. Bitminer.cc LTD plans to join the BTCGuild.com mining pool. First Bitcoin Capital Corp. is a developing Canadian-based mining company currently holding concessions of Gold in Venezuela and is preparing to enter the crypto-currency industry. It is the first publicly traded, vertically-integrated consolidation company of the Bitcoin and crypto-currency marketplace. SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This press release includes various "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which represent the Company's expectations or beliefs concerning future events. Statements containing expressions such as "believes," "anticipates," "intends," or "expects," used in the Company's press releases and in Disclosure Statements and Reports filed with the Over the Counter Markets through the OTC Disclosure and News Service are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes its expectations are based upon reasonable assumptions within the bounds of its knowledge of its business and operations, there can be no assurances that actual results will not differ materially from expected results. The Company cautions that these and similar statements included in this report are further qualified by important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date thereof. Contacts: [email protected] bitcoincapitalcorp.com Source: First Bitcoin Capital Corp.

2014-04-17 20:15:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [781, 1240, 1323], "BTC": [797]}

{"Bitcoin": [65]}

Microelectronics Technology Corporation Completes Acquisition of Bitcoin Cyber Currency Digital Mining Company

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/microelectronics-technology-corporation-completes-acquisition-201500154.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

MONARCH BAY, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 17, 2014) - Microelectronics Technology Corporation ( OTCQB : MELY ), is pleased to announce the Company has completed the documentation required for the finalization of the acquisition of Digital Mining Corporation and its digital mining assets. Complete Acquisition details will be provided on form 8K yet to be filed. The acquisition includes the existing operational digital mining servers and support software. The Digital Currency Mining servers are currently being transitioned to the Dynamo Server co-location facilities with the transition expected to be completed by months end. This transition will allow for peak efficiency utilizing the state of the art server facility and seamless expansion capability Dynamo servers can provide. Bitcoin Mining: BTC The company is in development of a 100 TH/s mining pool. The company will be investing in the required hardware needed to provide the targeted 100 TH/s rate over the period of six to eight months. The company will be operating this cyber currency mining center in an open pool configuration allowing other miners to join the pool for a proportional percentage share of the mining pool production. The company anticipates the launch of its Bitcoin Mining pool May 1, 2014 . The company will add the first 3 (1TH/S servers) Bitcoin Mining Servers to the mining pool upon completion of the initial testing, with the addition of 10 (1TH/s servers) every two weeks contingent upon consistent delivery of the servers from our supplier. The company will be operating this cyber currency mining center in an open pool configuration allowing other miners to join the pool for a proportional percentage share of the mining pool production. Dynamo Servers: The Dynamo Servers platform was built from the ground-up to accommodate the needs of modern dedicated server customers, with features that are unique to the market. A simplified pricing model was applied to an expansive configuration system, allowing for predictable pricing without the customization limitations or penalties that are common among providers. An API was built to allow for integration with custom software and 3rd-party services. Social features were added to enable a dialogue among customers and a level of transparency unheard of in the industry. As long-time dedicated server customers, the people behind Dynamo Servers built a platform that they would want to use themselves. Story continues About Dynamo Servers Dynamo Servers provide dedicated servers to clients through our point of presence in Vancouver, Canada inside a carrier neutral facility owned and operated by Cologix Inc. www.dynamoservers.com Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; MELY's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital. Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements

2014-04-17 23:30:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1626, 1698]}

{}

GAWMiners.com to Double All Their Customers' Mining Hashing Power for a Week on April 26th, 2014

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/gawminers-com-double-customers-mining-233000989.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EAST LONGMEADOW, MA--(Marketwired - Apr 17, 2014) - GAWMiners announced Thursday that the Double Your Hash promotion they are running for their GAW Founders Club members will be available to all customers who have purchased from GAWMiners.com on or before April 25, 2014. Customers can already register for the promotion on the GAWMiners website at: http://www.gawminers.com/promotions/double-your-hash/ . The Double Your Hash promotion is meant to help miners who took a hit during the heavy crypto currency market dip over the last few weeks. The payout for the promotion will be based on the Litecoin mining difficulty and market price during the 7 days of the promotion. Customers will be paid the equivalent of what their purchased hashing power earns them. "We're running this promotion because we have the most loyal customers who've supported us every step of the way," said Josh Garza, CEO. "We know how frustrating it is to invest into something and almost immediately take a giant hit. It's not a feeling we want to leave our customers with and by doing this, I think it strengthens the crypto community as a whole. The more people who trust and believe in it, the stronger it will be and the faster we can all grow." The following are the official rules of the Double Your Hash promotion: Only customers of GAWMiners.com are eligible Customers must register on the website to enter Registration closes at 11:59pm 4/25/2014 A customer's total hashing power is the sum of all purchased miners before 4/26/14 Any fraudulent transactions and/or activity will result in immediate disqualification Customers must have a Bitcoin wallet address to receive promotional payout GAWMiners provides Bitcoin and Scrypt Mining Hardware at low prices with free same-day shipping. As an additional option, they also offer free hosting & electricity at their server locations. They're customer services are unbeatable in the crypto mining industry with live 24/7 phone and tech support. For more information, resources and support for crypto mining visit http://www.GAWMiners.com .

2014-04-17 23:43:02+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1927, 1983]}

{"Bitcoin": [63]}

In Less Than A Month These Guys Raked In $12 Million Thanks To Bitcoin Alternatives

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/less-month-guys-raked-12-234302499.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Sam Cole Marcus Erlandsson KnCMiner KnCMiner Sam Cole and Marcus Erlandsson, co-founders of KnCMiner Whether you think bitcoin is an incredible advancement, or just a weird Internet fad, it has been very, very good for a Stockholm-based company called KnCMiner. That's because KnCMiner makes special computers that "mine" these coins. That's the process that creates the cyber-money. There are even bitcoin alternatives. In less than a month, KnCMiner sold $12 million worth of a new special computer, called the Titan, which mines bitcoin alternatives that are based on the cryptographic program called scrypt, co-founder Sam Cole tells us. Scrypt is responsible for currencies like Litecoin, Dogecoin, Iceland's Auroracoin, even Stalwartbucks , a Dogecoin clone created by Business Insider's own Joe Weisenthal . Dogecoin started as a joke but became a real thing last year, a popular way to give someone a tip. The company raked in the first $4 million just hours after the machine went on sale, Cole says. And that beats its sales last November, when KnCMiner sold $3 million worth of bitcoin-mining computers in just four days . Mining these coins involves solving a series of difficult cryptography math problems. The typical home PC doesn't have the computational power to do that, hence the need for specially designed computers. These computers do only one job: mine for coins. It's become a serious business. A bitcoin-mining machine will set you back about $3,500 to $6,000 ; the Titan costs almost $10,000 . (The team is working on a less expensive version of the Titan, too, that will cost a mere $5,500.) Cole says the company generated $45 million in sales in 2013. So with 2014 sales so far, KnCMiner has brought in $57 million in about 16 months. And yes, it does accept payment in bitcoin – and Litecoin, too. These computers are supposed to literally pay for themselves. More From Business Insider Ron Paul: Bitcoin Is Not 'True Money' The Hunt For The Creator Of Bitcoin Keeps Coming Back To One Guy — And He May Be Hiding In Plain Sight Banks Say Heartbleed Poses No Threat, But Experts Raise Doubts

2014-04-17 23:50:10+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [292]}

{}

Mt. Gox suitors seek creditor support to save bitcoin exchange

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-suitors-seek-creditor-224250912.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) - A group of investors, which is seeking to buy Mt. Gox, has launched a website to garner support from creditors of the bankrupt bitcoin exchange to prevent a liquidation of its assets. "We need your help to stop a liquidation, which would be good neither for Mt. Gox creditors nor Bitcoin's reputation with the general public and regulators," the investors wrote on the website. ( http://r.reuters.com/jeh68v ) The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported that Mt. Gox had given up plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection and had asked a Tokyo court to allow it to be liquidated. The investor group, which offered to take over the assets of Mt. Gox and revive it, has received backing from many creditors and hopes to convince the court to reconsider their rehabilitation proposal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. ( http://r.reuters.com/keh68v ) Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, has about 127,000 creditors. The exchange filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan in February, saying it may have lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking. (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila) (This story corrects date of story to April 17 from April 18)

2014-04-17 23:50:10+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [292]}

{}

Mt. Gox suitors seek creditor support to save bitcoin exchange

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-suitors-seek-creditor-224250912.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) - A group of investors, which is seeking to buy Mt. Gox, has launched a website to garner support from creditors of the bankrupt bitcoin exchange to prevent a liquidation of its assets. "We need your help to stop a liquidation, which would be good neither for Mt. Gox creditors nor Bitcoin's reputation with the general public and regulators," the investors wrote on the website. ( http://r.reuters.com/jeh68v ) The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported that Mt. Gox had given up plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection and had asked a Tokyo court to allow it to be liquidated. The investor group, which offered to take over the assets of Mt. Gox and revive it, has received backing from many creditors and hopes to convince the court to reconsider their rehabilitation proposal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. ( http://r.reuters.com/keh68v ) Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, has about 127,000 creditors. The exchange filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan in February, saying it may have lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking. (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila) (This story corrects date of story to April 17 from April 18)

2014-04-18 11:30:59+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [0, 562, 848, 988, 1086, 1253, 1323, 1400, 1439, 1653, 1748, 1797, 1970, 2077, 2194, 2353, 2425, 3010, 3068, 3126, 3382, 3470, 3744, 4059, 4276, 4357, 4726, 4792, 4971, 5225, 5341, 5408]}

{"Bitcoin": [33]}

How Real People Can Actually Use Bitcoins

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-people-actually-bitcoins-113059190.html

Credit.com

http://www.credit.com

Bitcoin enthusiasts gathered at a trade show in New York City last week to show off their latest digital currency creations. Heading the discussion: Efforts to make sure bitcoins are accepted and available as broadly as possible. To that end, word leaked that a bitcoin-based debit card may soon make its way to the U.S. Meanwhile, not only do a handful of New York bars accept bitcoins for booze, a slightly larger number encourage patrons to tip bar staff using digital currency . So when will you — the non-early adopter of technology — be forced to confront Bitcoin in your life? And what should you do about it? Spoiler alert! The answers — A: Not very soon; and B: Cheer because it will one day enable nearly fee-free international money transfers and micropayments that might save artists and writers, but please don’t invest in it. Talk of Bitcoin crescendoed last week, even as the Wall Street Journal described dogged efforts by a Hong Kong-based startup named Cryptex to merge Bitcoin value and the convenience of plastic-based debit cards . It’s easy to see how integrating Bitcoin into the way Americans already spend would be the easiest way to increase adoption rates. There are numerous regulatory hurdles to clear, however, and putting Bitcoin on traditional plastic in some ways defeats the advantages of Bitcoin in the first place (there will be traditional transaction fees). Why Bitcoin Is Such a Big Deal To refresh: Bitcoin is the first digital, nation-state independent currency that has enjoyed any kind of widespread adoption. Widespread is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. It’s not easy to calculate the true number of Bitcoin users, but one reasonable estimator guesses the number is around 1 million worldwide . Bitcoin is cool because — it’s cool. And because Bitcoins can be acquired and spent without the backing of a government entity or the involvement of banks, these transactions are incredibly cheap. Coffee shops that accept Bitcoins save themselves from 2 – 3% credit card transaction fees, for example. Story continues Of course, Bitcoin has a problem: Where can users find such coffee shops? Despite the constant churn of news stories announcing Bitcoin acceptance, you still have to work pretty hard to spend the things. A Forbes reporter demonstrated this last year when she tried to live for a week on Bitcoins. However, the number is certainly growing. Where can you spend Bitcoins? At those aforementioned fee-fight coffee shops, though many are clustered around Silicon Valley right now At the occasional pub, such as Old Man Hustle in New York’s Lower East Side At edgy websites. Overstock.com is among the largest, as is TigerDirect.com At some native digital services, like game site Zynga All manner of online-only sites, such as gambling sites, both legal and perhaps a little less legal And, as we all know, sites that sell illegal items, such as the now defunct Silk Road drug sales site Also, it should be noted, you can buy gift certificates with Bitcoins, which effectively allows holders to spend their Bitcoins at big sites like Amazon. The Bigger Picture for Bitcoin Don’t get hung up on the connection between crime and bitcoins. To shake you of that stereotype, look up the early history of PayPal. Every new form of payment is exploited by criminals looking to circumvent regulators. That has nothing to do with Bitcoin as a concept. As a concept, here are some reasons why you should be cheering on Bitcoin: It makes high-fee transactions, such as moving money internationally , dramatically cheaper. It really helps with a frictionless economy. It’s cheaper for merchants, and that means cheaper for consumers, who avoid 2-3% merchant processing fees with every purchase. Bitcoins really could enable micropayments — small, quick payments of say half a penny or so. Micropayments (and the small transaction fee that would have to accompany them) have long been promised as the savior of good content online. Wouldn’t you pay half a penny, if it were easy, to read a great feature story? Bitcoin is a great way for regular citizens to deal with a currency crisis, because it allows them to move money quickly and easily outside a country. This has already occurred in some form: Spaniards reportedly used Bitcoins to keep their money safe during the Cyprus crisis in early 2013. Sadly, Bitcoin has already run into so much trouble — Silk Road being atop the list, wild value fluctuations due to speculators a close second — that it’s easy to imagine governments and banking titans will eventually come down hard on the concept and even regulate it out of existence. For that reason, it would be foolish for anyone but the most seasoned risk-taker to play Bitcoin as an investment. You probably won’t want to buy any more Bitcoins that you might use in the next few weeks or so to avoid the potential of losing it all in a catastrophic event, such as the bankruptcy that hit Mt. Gox, once the largest Bitcoin exchange, in March. Events like these recall the early, heady days of Napster, which took the world by storm and invented a new way to consume music, but which was eventually consumed itself by criminal activity . But it’s only smart to toy with Bitcoins and make sure you grasp the concepts. And it’s always a great idea to tip your bartenders (and doing it in Bitcoins, they will get to keep more of the tip!). Because even if Bitcoin eventually goes down in flames, like Napster, something similar will replace it. The concept is just too solid. We can only hope it isn’t replaced by something like iTunes, and doesn’t fall under control of a huge international corporation. More from Credit.com Credit or Debit? How to Choose at the Checkout How Credit Really Works How Credit Impacts Your Daily Life

2014-04-18 13:53:32+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [141, 481, 698, 735, 816, 1119, 1154, 1510, 1626, 1744]}

{"Bitcoin": [34]}

Texas's Greg Abbott Welcomes the 'Bitcoin Community' to His Campaign

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/texass-greg-abbott-welcomes-bitcoin-community-campaign-135332463.html

The Atlantic

http://theatlantic.com

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who's running for governor against Wendy Davis, has a new plan to attract young, digitally-savvy voters: Bitcoin. Abbott's campaign announced this week that it would officially accept the cryptocurrency donations. Abbott's communications director Matt Hirsch tells Politico's Ben White: Our campaign has focused on making use of cutting-edge tools to communicate online and has made digital a priority from the start. Something as innovative as Bitcoin is an opportunity for us to continue this focus, especially given the fact that it embodies free market principles, which Texans are very fond of. In a stump speech on Wednesday, Abbott said , "We welcome the Bitcoin community to join our team." Bitcoin users tend to be young, white, libertarian males. This is partly because Bitcoin is completely decentralized and outside the Federal Reserve's purview. While Abbott isn't one of the politicians calling to "End the Fed," he is definitely a proponent of states rights. As Attorney General, he s ued the federal government 27 times . That does not seem to be enough for die-hard Bitcoin fans, however. On Reddit's Bitcoin forum, users are lamenting the fact that Abbott hasn't said what he would do to help give the cryptocurrency legitimacy. Many are already Davis fans, presumably because of her stance on social issues. RELATED: House Republicans Might Pass Immigration Bills After All, Just as They Always Planned The FEC will issue an advisory opinion next week on Bitcoin campaign donations. Right now, politicians are considering them in-kind donations, since the IRS ruled that Bitcoin should be taxed as property. According to Michael Lindenberger at The Dallas Morning News , the FEC may allow Bitcoin to " be used to pay campaign bills, provided vendors would accept the novel currency." This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/texass-greg-abbott-welcomes-the-bitcoin-community-to-his-campaign/360881/ Story continues Read more from The Wire • Rob Ford Launches Re-Election Campaign With Understatements, Free Booze • What the Devastating Droughts in California and Texas Look Like When Graphed

2014-04-19 00:26:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3015]}

{}

These Guys Met On Craigslist And 2 Years Later Their Startup Raised $37 Million And Is Threatening Amazon

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/guys-met-craigslist-2-years-002600596.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

DigitalOcean cofounders2 LinkedIn/DigitalOcean DigitalOcean co-founders Ben Uretsky, Moisey Uretsky, Mitch Wainer Remember last December, when Beyoncé caused a music industry firestorm by releasing her new album via her website and iTunes a full week before retailers like Amazon and Target could sell it? Well, unbeknownst to them, these three guys were part of the controversy. Their company, DigitalOcean, runs the cloud service that hosts Beyoncé's website. But they didn't know about her album plans until they saw the traffic go crazy on their cloud that day. "We had no idea," co-founder and CEO Ben Uretsky told Business Insider. "Her development team chose DigitalOcean because of our fast cloud servers." That Beyonc é 's web developers had full confidence that this startup could safely handle the load when millions of people all jumped on the website the second the album launched says a lot about the startup. But it was just another milestone in a whirlwind that began two years ago, when brothers Ben and Moisey Uretsky met Mitch Wainer through Craigslist. "We met on Craigslist, but it wasn't the personals," laughs co-founder and CMO Wainer. "Ben and Moisey put out a job listing and I answered it." Wainer was bored with a dead-end job at a startup where he had no equity, and was surfing for new options. He had gotten an offer from another hot New York startup, ZocDoc, but made a "big bet" to go become a founder instead. The bet paid off. DigitalOcean landed a spot in the TechStars 2012 class in Boulder, Colo., and the team built a cloud service that quickly became astoundingly popular. In less than two years, mostly through word-of-mouth, DigitalOcean has become the ninth largest cloud infrastructure company in the world, according to a site that tracks such stats, Netcraft. IT professionals love it for something called "droplets," which is what the company calls its cloud computers. Droplets can be set up in 55 seconds, they use superfast solid-state disk (SSD) flash storage (that's what Beyoncé's team liked) and cost as little as $5/month. Story continues Today the company hosts about 1.5 million "droplets" and was adding more servers per month than Amazon's cloud, Netcraft says. It has 150,000 customers and recently opened a new Amsterdam data center, too. In March, DigitalOcean nabbed a big $35 million Series A at a $153 million valuation led by Andreessen Horowitz (it has raised $37.2 million total). And, unlike many Silicon Valley cloud startups, DigitalOcean didn't need the money. It's already profitable, Wainer says. They don't plan to use the investment to operate at a loss. "We'll grow as fast as possible as long as we're at break even," Wainer says. "The moment we start to go into the red, we would take a step back. We just love running profitable companies. That's a contrast with New York. We're real. We're down to earth. We don't run a fantasy revenue model." More From Business Insider In Less Than A Month These Guys Raked In $12 Million Thanks To Bitcoin Alternatives Tech Billionaire Marc Benioff Is Not Impressed By Mark Zuckerberg's $1 Billion Gift To Charity How A $1 Billion Company You've Never Heard Of Bought A Big Chunk Of Motorola For $3.45 Billion

2014-04-20 14:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [39, 255, 923, 1422]}

{}

Why bitcoin needs a marketing campaign

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-bitcoin-needs-marketing-campaign-140000612.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Why bitcoin needs a marketing campaign Bitcoin has an image problem. A big one. And it's holding the virtual currency back from going mainstream, said Hank Lucas, a professor at the University of Maryland who focuses on disruptive technologies. Read More Bitcoin having trouble shedding its dark side "It's hard for me to say that bitcoin is going to be the dominant virtual currency of the future," Lucas said. "If someone came up with a virtual currency that people understood and whose value did not fluctuate as much, well, then it might become the one adopted by the masses and not bitcoin." Read More Behind bitcoin: An avid group tries to spread word There's certainly no shortage of alternate digital currencies-Namecoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin, to name a few. But bitcoin is by far the most popular and widely used of the bunch. Yet, it's too early to tell if its popularity will last, Lucas said. Read More Watch 'Bitcoin Uprising' One reason bitcoin has gained the level of traction it has is because merchants don't have to pay transaction fees, Lucas said. It's also popular with consumers because it gives them more anonymity when making purchases, he added. But despite its growth, most people remain skeptical of the currency, Lucas said. "One of the biggest problems for bitcoins is people don't understand how they are created and that's not going to lead a lot of people to adopt it," he said. Read More Bitcoin bickering: How much regulation? Basically, bitcoin could turn out to be the Napster of digital currency, Lucas said. It could be the currency that leads the shift to digital payments, but fails to go mainstream because a competitor markets itself better and provides more security for consumers, much like how Apple's iTunes appealed to consumers over Napster. Read More For bitcoin 'miners,' nice work if you can get it Considering the recent failure of the popular bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox-which caused the loss of almost $500 million-and the dramatic price fluctuations for the currency, it's no wonder people might be afraid of adopting it. Story continues Read More Mt. Gox revamp rejected, goes into administration "I think its a big problem for consumers," he said. "If a bank fails you get your money back, or at least part of it, but when Mt. Gox failed, there was nothing there. ... This has to discourage people who don't understand a virtual currency." "You never see an ad for bitcoin. You don't see bitcoin pushing itself out there," Lucas said. "But if there was a digital currency that could market itself in a way consumers could understand, it could become the digital currency of choice." More From CNBC Portland hotel hooks up to the tiny houses trend 'We're not Amsterdam': Is Colorado pot tourism a myth? These 13 states raked in $34B in gaming revenue

2014-04-20 14:18:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [4087]}

{}

This Is How Much Startup Founders Pay Themselves (And It's Less Than You Think)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-startup-founders-pay-themselves-141808171.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

startup fisheye Flickr/Heisenberg Media When a startup gets handed that first big check, how much of that can they dedicate to their own livelihoods? To read the tech media, you'd think they're all millionaires and billionaires. But they're not. According to Brad Feld, a VC at Foundry Group, the short answer is: $100,000 - $250,000 in cash salary, with the CEO generally earning the most salary. potential bonus money of $0 - $100,000 and equity (ranging from less than 1% - 20%). The CEO and CTO founders tend to keep the biggest stakes, but it's surprisingly small by the time they've raised multimillions. According to Feld the stakes often break out like this: Founder CEO 5% - 20% Founder CTO 2% - 10% other co-founders between 3 - 7% and non-founder equity holders 0.5% - 5%. Obviously, startups living in expensive places, like Silicon Valley, tend to pay higher salaries than those in cheaper areas of the country, Feld says, and founders of later-stage companies get paid more, too. While he originally posted those numbers in 2007, they hold true today, he told us, however "stage and geography matters a lot." Peter Thiel Getty / Chip Somodevilla Peter Thiel And things get complicated from here. For instance, venture capitalist Peter Thiel won't invest in any startup that pays its CEO more than $150,000, period. So he said in his Stanford CS183 class on startups: A categorical rule of thumb that Founders Fund has developed is that no CEO should be paid more than $150k per year. Experience has shown that there is great predictive power in a venture-backed CEO’s salary: the lower it is, the better the company tends to do. Empirically, if you could reduce all your diligence to one question, you should ask how much the CEO of a prospective portfolio company draws in salary. If the answer is more than $150k, do not invest. Before paying themselves anything, founders are expected to get the OK from their board and seed investor, says New York super angel David S. Rose on Quora. For a startup that just raised $5 million he advises: "It should be discussed directly with the Series A board director, and it is up to you to propose something. ... it will likely end up somewhere between $100K and $200K. I'd personally suggest +/-$150K." Rose answered a similar question on Quora back in 2011 from someone who had just raised $1 million , and this is what he said then: "In my experience, the range is generally between about $75,000 and $150,000 per year." The stage of the startup is probably the biggest factor. A seed startup that's raised $500,000 - $1 million can't pay as much as one that's raised $5 million in a Series A. Some founders give themself a raise every time they raise more funds. Story continues Aaron Levie Flickr/Enterprise 2.0 Late stage Box pays founder/CEO Aaron Levie $150K salary + bonuses What Foundry Group venture capitalist Seth Levine wrote in a blog post in 2012 is still fundamentally true today, too: Companies that have raised $1M or less tend to pay their CEO between $75k and $125k, skewed to the low end of the scale. Companies that have raised less than $500k tend to top out at $75k for CEO comp. Companies that have raised between $1M and about $2.5M tend to pay their CEOs around $125k. Companies who have raised more than that, pay more. amount skew up from there. All that said, investors are not looking to turn the founders into slave labor. Levine adds: "Don’t starve . There’s no sense in paying yourself so little that you can’t live or will be overly stressed about paying your bills. ... You don’t need to tighten the belt so much that it ends up distracting you from your focus on building a great business." Venture capitalist Jason Lemkin, a partner at Storm Ventures and previous CEO co-founder of EchoSign (acquired by Adobe), dittos that. On Quora he wrote : "Putting yourself in a position where you are overly stressed about making enough money to live is just going to damage the company's growth potential now." More From Business Insider In Less Than A Month These Guys Raked In $12 Million Thanks To Bitcoin Alternatives Tech Billionaire Marc Benioff Is Not Impressed By Mark Zuckerberg's $1 Billion Gift To Charity Here's A Peek Inside Amazon's Culture Of 'Frugality' View comments

2014-04-21 06:06:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [261, 1570, 2039]}

{}

ASIC Resistant Cryptocurrency CACHeCoin Features Accessible Mining And PoS / PoW Algorithm

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/asic-resistant-cryptocurrency-cachecoin-features-060600796.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

New cryptocurrency CACHeCoin is ASIC resistant, which means mining the currency is accessible to everyone worldwide. Proof-of-stakers can also earn coins simply by holding CACHeCoins in their wallet. CACHeCoin is an ASIC proof cryptographic currency similar to Bitcoin and Litecoin , which implements not only a proof-of-work (PoW) system but also a low energy proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm to secure the network. CACHeCoin was released without any premine; early miners are therefore well-rewarded. CACHeCoin gives users many options to choose the preferred mining strategy and can be energy efficiently staked using PoS, or mined with hashing power for those who prefer mining pools. CACHeCoin is compatible with all mining pools that support the Scrypt-Jane algorithm. CACHe is accessible for mining by the small scale miner as it is ASIC resistant, which prevents large million dollar investors from monopolizing the coin. CACHe also adjusts difficulty by implementing a logarithmic adjustment algorithm. CACHeCoin utilizes PoS minting which generates more CACHeCoins for holders, when coins are retained in a wallet for at least 7 days. CACHeCoins´ PoS block require 520 confirmations; once the confirmations are made the staked coins become available again in the wallet. PoS is not very CPU intensive, requires no special programs and once coins have been in a CACHe wallet for at least 7 days new coins will be minted automatically. It is possible to exclude coins from PoS minting easily by using the Reservebalance setting. With the launch of CACHeCoin a new Bitcoin alternative for the small scale miner has entered the crypto space. With versatile mining options like proof-of-Stake and Proof-of-Work together with its ASIC resistant features and no premined coins; CACHe may be a prosperous option for small scale miners and proof-of-stakers who like to be rewarded for simply holding coins in their wallet. CACHeCoin thread on bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=400389.0 Story continues To trade CACHe for Bitcoin: https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/154 CACHeCoin Technical Specifications: Scrypt-Jane Coin No ASIC Miners No Premine Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake Mining Block Reward: Inversely proportional to the difficulty Difficulty adjustment every block Difficulty adjustment algorithm: Logarithmic Target of 15 minute block generation Maximum of ~2 billion coins per transaction Block maturity: 520 confirms Transaction Maturity: 6 Confirms Coin age of stake: 7 days RPCPort: 2224 Network port: 2225 ** This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Please conduct own due diligence. Visit http://cachecoin.org/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Jasin Lee Organization: CACHeCoin Email: [email protected]

2014-04-21 09:04:38+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9066]}

{}

At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-geek-ceo-sought-both-012742546--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today's market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many early bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorise decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo PR firm that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called 3D Shade and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' - which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-21 09:04:38+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9066]}

{}

At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-geek-ceo-sought-both-012742546--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today's market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many early bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorise decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo PR firm that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called 3D Shade and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' - which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-21 09:04:38+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9082]}

{}

At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-geek-090438120.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today's market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. Story continues THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many early bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorise decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo PR firm that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called 3D Shade and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' - which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan) View comments

2014-04-21 09:04:38+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9082]}

{}

At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-geek-012742855.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today's market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. Story continues "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many early bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorise decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo PR firm that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called 3D Shade and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' - which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-21 21:42:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3259, 3287]}

{}

Crowdsourcing Gone Too Far? Canadian Couple Lets the Internet Name Their Baby Girl.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/crowdsourcing-gone-too-far-canadian-214205088.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

Yana Don’t-Blink. Chalupa Batman. Megatron Salad. Streetlamp of-the-sea. Nope, those aren’t tonight’s freaky-deeky fusion sushi specials. They’re but a tame slice of the nuttier names you get when you ask the Internet to name your unborn child. Probably because live-tweeting your childbirth is so yesterday, Stephen McLaughlin, a software programmer in Kelowna, Canada, left it up to the geeky social media Pandora’s box that is Reddit to choose a first and middle name for his unborn baby girl. Related: How to Rock the Cradle at Home and Work? Realize a Perfect Work-Life Balance is Impossible. Yes, you read right. This guy asked everyone on Reddit -- basically all 2.89 million redditors and everyone else on the Internet, too -- to name his kid. Internet Help me http://t.co/P32JUzPeqk ... You can vote once per name per day. Feel free to retweet! — Stephen McLaughlin (@digitalgecko) January 10, 2014 Well, they almost did, in a way, but McLaughlin and his wife, Alysha, who he said was “in disbelief” over his strange ask, spared their child the most-voted-on name. And thank “WackyTaco692” goodness they did. Instead the software developer and his wife were good parents and chickened out on Reddit’s number one baby name choice (out of 150,000 votes in all), which was “Cthulhu.” Right, Cthulhu, you know, that mythical evil winged beast that has an octopus for a face. Make that “Cthulhu all-spark,” actually, as “all-spark” was the most upvoted middle name choice. That doesn’t mean the babe’s parents won’t call her Cthulhu from time to time, probably when she’s not “behaving.” Her mom reportedly already did in her birth announcement status update on Facebook, commanding “All bow down to the great and powerful Cthulhu.” Related: Richard Branson on Business Lessons From Parenting “Kids’R’Gross,” “Not Zelda,” “LOL” and “13” are some of the other lovely front runner names the couple shafted in favor of a somewhat disappointingly normal name for their little bundle of joy. They picked a safe suggestion, the number two top-voted choice, one that won’t make their daughter hate them: Amelia Savannah Joy McLaughlin. She introduced herself to the world “happy and healthy” at 3:42 a.m. on April 7 after “five anxious days,” her dad wrote on his rose-colored website namemydaughter.com . Story continues Hi, My name is Stephen and much to the disbelief of my wife, I have decided to let the internet name * my daughter. Yeah that is an asterisk, Unfortunately internet I know better than to trust you. We will ultimately be making the final decision, Alas my daughter shall not be named WackyTaco692. Sorry guys the wife wouldn't go for a free for all. Just in case you were wondering, and we can’t imagine why you would, Stephen says he’s not crazy. “As for the obvious question -- No I am not crazy. I have been tested!” he declared on his original reddit IAmA subreddit post, in which redditors were ask to suggest and then vote on potential baby names. (Ok, good. Glad we got that whole not-crazy business cleared up, Stephen. If you weren’t already crazy, having a kid will drive you crazy several times day and when you attempt to sleep at night. I know. I have three.) Oh, and probably no big surprise here, McLaughlin’s apparently into Bitcoin, too. He posted his Bitcoin address for all to see on namemydaughter.com. Also, a redditor asked the proud new papa to create a Dogecoin tip web address to collect a few Shiba Inu-themed virtual coins for “entertaining us so.” To the moon, beautiful bouncing baby girl of the interwebs, to the moon! Related: A Lesson in Oversharing: Dad Loses $80,000 Because Daughter Blabbed on Facebook More From Entrepreneur 5 Negotiation Tactics You Can Learn From Kids 4 Movies Plots That Modern Technology Would Have Destroyed Game On: Apple and Google Turn Up the Heat in the Mobile Gaming 'Arms Race'

2014-04-22 04:55:57+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9164]}

{}

Insight: At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/insight-mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-geek-ceo-sought-045557025.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

(This story changes Mandalah description in the 30th paragraph, company name in the 31st paragraph) By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today's market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorize decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo consultancy that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called Shade 3D and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' - which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. ($1 = 103.7200 Japanese Yen) ($1 = 0.7238 Euros) (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-22 04:55:57+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9180]}

{}

Insight: At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/insight-mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-045557123.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

(This story changes Mandalah description in the 30th paragraph, company name in the 31st paragraph) By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today's market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. Story continues "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorize decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo consultancy that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called Shade 3D and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' - which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. ($1 = 103.7200 Japanese Yen) ($1 = 0.7238 Euros) (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-22 04:55:57+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9180]}

{}

Insight: At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/insight-mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-045557749.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

(This story changes Mandalah description in the 30th paragraph, company name in the 31st paragraph) By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today's market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. Story continues "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorize decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo consultancy that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called Shade 3D and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' - which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. ($1 = 103.7200 Japanese Yen) ($1 = 0.7238 Euros) (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-22 05:13:51+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [9128]}

{}

At Mt. Gox bitcoin hub, 'geek' CEO sought both control and escape

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-bitcoin-hub-geek-051351385.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". During an online chat, Karpeles moved the equivalent of $170 million in bitcoin at today’s market rates - the virtual equivalent of a bank manager flashing a wad of cash in a wallet to establish credit. The gesture - with a sly wink to the "geek" culture Karpeles believed he shared with many of his 50,000 customers at the time, including an interest in coding, Japanese manga comics and science fiction - succeeded. By moving 424,242 bitcoins, Karpeles, then 26, evoked the random number, 42, described as the "meaning of life" in Douglas Adams' sci-fi novel. "Don't come after me claiming we have no coins," Karpeles said, according to a transcript of that online discussion. "42 is the answer." As the price of bitcoin soared from a few dollars to above $1,000, Mt. Gox grew to become the world's largest exchange for the digital currency, handling flows worth $3 billion in 2013, by the company's own reckoning. But even as Mt. Gox boomed, French-born Karpeles seemed both keen to maintain total control of key operations and indifferent to commercial success, according to former staff and associates who spoke to Reuters, but asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations into the exchange's collapse. Creditors who want to know how Mt. Gox at one point lost some $500 million worth of bitcoin and another $27 million in cash from its bank accounts, are seeking answers from Karpeles, who has spent recent days huddled in meetings with lawyers in Tokyo. [ID:nL1N0LX12S] Mt. Gox and its lawyers declined repeated requests for comment for this article. Lawyers for Karpeles told a U.S. judge last week that he was "not willing" to travel to the United States - as ordered by the judge to answer questions in a bankruptcy court - until his attorneys can "get up to speed" on a new subpoena from the U.S. Treasury Department. [ID:nL3N0N70BW] Karpeles doesn't want to go to the U.S. as he fears he could be arrested by authorities there, a person familiar with his thinking said. Story continues "Regardless of whether it was a massive fraud or whether he was just grossly negligent, at the end of the day he's at fault," said Steven Woodrow, a lawyer representing a U.S. class action against Karpeles brought by Mt. Gox creditors. Mt. Gox's bid to resuscitate its business was dismissed by a Tokyo court on Wednesday, and the court-appointed administrator said that meant the firm was likely to be liquidated. He added that Karpeles was likely to be investigated for liability in the exchange's collapse. [ID:nL3N0N82HQ] THE MAGICAL TUX In its bankruptcy filing, Mt. Gox said 750,000 customer bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to a software security flaw. Karpeles has told others he has been hurt by accusations he masterminded the theft, and wants to return the bitcoins and cash to some 127,000 creditors. Karpeles, who has said he is reluctant to appear in public because of safety concerns, relieves stress by driving around Tokyo at night in a Honda Civic he bought as a company car at Mt. Gox, people close to him said. He lives alone with his cat, Tibane, whose exploits he used to chronicle on now-deleted Flickr and YouTube accounts. The cat's name, chosen by Karpeles' late grandmother, inspired the name of his first company, Tibanne, which he set up in October 2009 in Japan. His employer at the time, software platform distributor Nexway, had transferred him to the country earlier that year. Born in Chenove, in the Burgundy region of France, Karpeles wrote his first computer program aged 10. He wrote on his blog that he "never really felt at home in France," and has not been back since moving to Japan five years ago. Shy and fearful of confrontation, the self-proclaimed "geek" felt comfortable in Japan, where he could also indulge his love of manga, video games and cosplay - a combination of "costume" and "play", where people dress as characters from Japanese anime, graphic manga novels and video games. Karpeles found solace in online communities, where he was known as "The Magical Tux", a reference to the penguin mascot of open-source operating system Linux. His escapism into virtual worlds was accompanied by what some former associates describe as a lack of interest in how running afoul of law and regulation could threaten his business and reputation. According to blog posts Karpeles wrote in 2006, he was arrested twice in France before he was 21 for computer fraud-related charges. One resulted in a 3-month suspended sentence. French authorities in Tokyo said they had seen confirmation of one prior conviction, but did not have details. In Japan, Karpeles was sued by a customer in 2012 who claimed he had paid 15,000 euros ($20,700) for a website to be developed that was never built. Tokyo District Court ruled last May that Karpeles had to return the money. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized $5.5 million in Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013, saying the exchange had been late to register as a money transmitter. "A NICE EXPERIMENT" Karpeles became interested in bitcoin when a customer of his web-hosting services wanted to pay in the digital currency. Unlike other early fans of bitcoin, Karpeles had no particular interest in the libertarian philosophy that drove many bitcoin adopters. Instead, he told Reuters in a 2013 interview, he was interested in the technology as a "nice experiment". He met the founder of Mt. Gox, U.S. entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, on IRC, an online chat platform. McCaleb, nervous about regulatory scrutiny on bitcoin, wanted rid of the exchange and sold it to Karpeles in March 2011 for no upfront fee, people with knowledge of the deal said. Karpeles told others he had later paid McCaleb a small fee, calling it "a very good deal". McCaleb could not be reached for comment. Mt. Gox's user base mushroomed from 3,000 to 50,000 within three months as bitcoin gained traction. Unable to keep up with customer support queries, Karpeles hired his first five employees in June of that year, shortly after the company said in public announcements that it believed one or more hackers broke into the exchange's database and drove the price of bitcoin down to zero. Dazed by that security breach, a former employer said, Karpeles retreated to build a more secure trading platform but left the exchange offline, with thousands of emails from bewildered users unanswered until a group of bitcoin enthusiasts volunteered to come in to help. One was Roger Ver, who says he was stunned when Karpeles proposed they resume work on Monday rather than work through the weekend to solve the crisis. "He wasn't ever focused on Mt. Gox like he should have been," said Ver. As the exchange's business grew, Karpeles hired more staff to work in programming, customer support and user verification, eventually taking space in a central Tokyo office with 30 employees, with another dozen contractors overseas. ROBOTS, EXERCISE BALLS Karpeles wanted to be liked, three former employees say. He bought lunch for the entire staff and spent thousands of dollars on gadgets and equipment to make the office more "fun" - exercise balls for chairs, beer steins and robots. Late last year, in the middle of increasingly strained times for Mt. Gox, he spent an afternoon putting up a hammock in the recreation room. But staff found it galling that the boss was buying these goodies even while he refused to give pay raises. They also became frustrated as they waited for Karpeles to authorise decisions or make progress on simple tasks. Developers, stuck without direct access to the Mt. Gox source code, resorted to playing video games, people inside the company at the time say. Employees were also concerned that Karpeles' tight grip on all company affairs was causing a bottleneck: he was the only person who could access the exchange's bank accounts and bitcoin holdings and resolve requests by traders to cash out. Former employees say they asked Karpeles to share the passwords to Mt. Gox's bitcoin wallets in case he became incapacitated or unable to access the data. He refused, leaving him as the only person able to piece together the passwords, written on paper stored at his home, the office, and an undisclosed location. Karpeles' secrecy extended to the company accounts, which he refused to show to prospective investors who came to the company with proposals, according to former employees. Mandalah, a Tokyo consultancy that worked for Mt. Gox, was also frustrated by Karpeles' lack of interest in outreach and business growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mandalah declined to comment. As other competing exchanges developed more sophisticated trading systems, Karpeles diverted his attention from the exchange to buy an unrelated software company called Shade 3D and began to work on launching a 'Bitcoin Cafe' – which would accept the digital currency as payment - on the ground floor of the office, according to records and former staff. Karpeles was planning to serve quiche and apple pies he'd made himself in the cafe, which would also showcase a point-of-sales system he had spent hours tinkering with, a former employee said. The cafe never opened. ($1 = 103.7200 Japanese Yen) ($1 = 0.7238 Euros) (Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

2014-04-22 12:57:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3362, 3374]}

{}

Want To Become A Billionaire? Just Solve One Of These 10 Problems

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/want-become-billionaire-just-solve-125709766.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

wind weather vane Wikimedia Commons We recently gave you a list of 25 trends that would be making people billions . Most of the phenomena will end up benefiting everyone. But if you fancied yourself as someone who could be turned into a billionaire, you were arguably cheating — these were things everyone has already figured out. The real challenge, and the greater value and more lucrative pursuit, would be to come up with the solutions to problems that have befuddled engineers for decades or more. We thought of 10 of them: 1. Wireless Power Digital devices have become so small that it can be cumbersome to plug them into a power source. Longer-lasting batteries? Nope — Apple iPod God Tony Fadell says pursuing greater efficiency in batteries is a trap . The key is to find ways of squeezing more efficiency out of the devices' other parts — and stealing power from what's around you. University of Washington engineers, among others, are at work on harvesting existing TV and cellular transmissions and turning them into a power source. "This novel technique enables ubiquitous communication where devices can communicate among themselves at unprecedented scales and in locations that were previously inaccessible," they say . 2. Rural, Remote Internet Everyone agrees this is a priority. But there appear to be a hard way and an easier way to achieve it. The former involves lots of expensive regulatory clearance and installations. The latter, currently spearheaded by Google, is called Project Loon . The company plans to send renewables-powered balloons to the edge of space to create an Internet network in remote parts of the world. "We believe it's possible to create a ring of balloons that fly around the globe on the stratospheric winds and provide Internet access to the earth below," they say. Whoa. project loon TED/Screenshot 3. Cheap, Scalable Solar There are two ways to reduce the cost of raw solar power. One is to have a super-cheap photovoltaic cell, with the tradeoff off that it's inefficient. Of course, more efficient cells cost more to make. So everyone is racing to find a material or process that eliminates the tradeoffs. We may be close: Australian researchers say they've achieved commercial-scale efficiency with a set of dirt-cheap materials first experimented with a century ago but never considered for this use: perovskites. The scientists say they could help cut solar costs by 75% to as low as 10 cents a watt. Story continues 4. Clean Coal The technology was recently the subject of a cover story in Wired , which said carbon capture and storage "may be more important — though much less publicized — than any renewable-energy technology for decades to come," since it would allow the world to keep burning its most abundant fuel source. But it goes on to note that "developing reliable, large-scale CCS facilities will be time-consuming, unglamorous, and breathtakingly costly." 5. Super-Low-Cost International Payments While this isn't a problem that touches the average consumer directly, the fees paid by financial institutions to wire funds overseas can eventually filter down. Remittances, too, while not over burdensome, would be much cheaper if they were sent over a decentralized or distributed network free from network, acquiring or interchange fees (see the chart below). This, of course, is the problem Bitcoin and Bitcoin-like technologies, like Ripple, are looking to address. goldman bitcoin Goldman Sachs 6. A Pill That Really Makes You Lose Weight The holy grail of modern society, and another that may prove impossible. But there may yet be a way: In 2012, scientists at UCLA say they'd genetically engineered mice brains to a key compound that craves fats. The results, according to The Week , "These mice lived in a 'hypermetabolic state,' burning fat calories far more efficiently than normal mice, study researcher Daniele Piomelli said in a statement . They were 'resistant to obesity,' staying thin despite a high-fat diet without exercise. They even had normal blood pressure, and showed no increased risk of heart disease or diabetes." 7. Cheap Desalination Water shortages continue to make the list of the world's most pressing issues. This year's crippling drought in California further drove the point home. But desalination plants have proved way too expensive and inefficient to build. But earlier this year, Business Insider's Dina Spector profiled the company behind a kind of solar-powered desalination process that uses uses half the total energy — most of it coming from solar — of the best competing thermal (fossil) methods, and one-fifth the electricity of reverse osmosis technology. If something like this doesn't pan out, we'll have to keep relying on massive conservation efforts — which basically means we've already lost. WaterFX WaterFX A parabolic trough collects energy from the sun. The heat is used to evaporate clean water from the salty agricultural drainage water of irrigated crops. 8. Detecting Or Predicting Major Weather Or Natural Events A new book about the San Andreas Fault frames the issue like this: "the world community of seismologists remains divided — at times, vehemently — over the issue of whether it will ever be possible to predict earthquakes. It’s a question that’s been raised again as the network of faults in Southern California has awakened with seismic activity in recent months. It is a complex problem. And, to date, no one has yet predicted an earthquake." Meanwhile the number of billion-dollar meteorological events climbs inexorably higher. billion dollar weather events Scientific American 9. Unhackable Passwords Wired has said 2012 was the year passwords broke. Hackers have, through brute force, so far been able to break through practically every firewall ever invented. There must be a better way. And engineers are working on them. Google, for instance, continues to search for ways to turn your smartphone or some other device into a computer "car key," Another involves what was once thought the holy grail of cryptography, called obfuscation , which masks the inner workings of a computer program. 10. Death It's happening. Google — yes, it has appeared several times on this list, but that's because it's interested, and it can — just hired biophysicist Cynthia Kenyon from UCSF to join its Project Calico antiaging team. Her experiments have produced roundworm as old as the equivalent of 80 human years but looks and acts the equivalent of 40. Google admits it's a moonshot , but it's proved pretty decent at those. NOW WATCH – ELON MUSK: Here's How We Can Fix Mars And Colonize It Please enable Javascript to watch this video More From Business Insider This 50-Year Chart Of Horses And Mules Teaches Us Something Very Important About Disruptive Technologies Everyone In America Should Care About What Chipotle And Netflix Are About To Do Everything You Need To Know About iOS 8, Apple's Next Big iPhone Update

2014-04-22 14:41:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [21, 215, 554, 799, 1340]}

{"Bitcoin": [52]}

This bracelet lets you flick your wrist to pay with Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2014-04-22-mevu-bitcoin-bracelet.html

Engadget

https://www.engadget.com/

MEVU's gesture-based Bitcoin wrist wallet Sometimes, there's such a thing as being too forward-thinking. Take MEVU and its prototype payment bracelet as an example: the wrist-worn Bluetooth wallet lets you pay with Bitcoin using only air gestures. Sounds cool, right? In many ways, it is. As the company shows in its demo video, you can flick your wrist to cover parking or donate to charity without ever reaching for your wallet ( or your phone , for that matter). However, it's very much a pie-in-the-sky vision at this point. As you may have noticed, Bitcoin isn't widely accepted online, let alone at retail. As such, you likely won't be waving your arm around to pay at the local coffee shop. Moreover, the current point-of-sale technology is based on iOS -- given that Apple has been removing Bitcoin wallets from the App Store, any practical shopping functions will have to wait for the Android software due in a few months. Instead, the real promise of the bracelet may be its underlying platform, Alive OS. The open software lets programmers take advantage of wearables with motion, voice and glanceable displays for any purpose; they only need to sign up for a developer preview to get started. The bracelet itself should be available for pre-orders within a month. It's hard to say whether MEVU's software will catch on, but the Bitcoin system is really just a test case -- really, this wristwear can do a lot more.

2014-04-22 18:40:59+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [764, 2913, 3196, 3533, 3738]}

{}

El-Erian: This is better than bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/el-erian-better-bitcoin-184059395.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Emile Wamsteker | Bloomberg | Getty Images There seems to be no limit to the exciting possibilities that come from combining technical innovations, the Internet, and social media. It is a phenomenon that has been revolutionizing journalism and entertainment; and, by helping to overcome coordination challenges, it has also had political consequences in a growing number of countries - all of which means an ever-evolving set of opportunities and risks. What is less appreciated, however, is the extent to which a broadly similar phenomenon may be starting to play out in finance, via a democratization process that could gradually reconfigure a notable part of the institutional landscape, particularly in consumer finance, while challenging regulators to adapt. Bitcoin is the most visible - albeit far from a good - example of this nascent development, having attracted attention from specialists, regulators, and, slowly but surely, the public. But the crypto-currency phenomenon is far from the only example, and it is certainly not the most consequential one. Its impact, both actual and potential, is relatively limited when compared to ongoing attempts to enhance and democratize lending, borrowing, investing, and payments and settlements. The underlying sequence of disruptive technology is historically familiar. A bold innovation suddenly lowers entry barriers for certain activities. Mechanisms emerge to enable a larger part of the population to participate in what is deemed desirable but, until now, had been hard to access. As the disruptive forces gain traction, existing business models face difficult adaptation challenges, and regulators begin to fall behind. The situation is often amplified by a natural human tendency to overproduce and over-consume hitherto restricted goods and services. Read More How I created my own bitcoin-like currency: Brian Kelly This, of course, is what has been occurring in media for several years. The result is a proliferation of platforms for producing, aggregating, disseminating, and consuming content. Falling entry barriers and lower access costs have significantly democratized participation, whether in production or consumption. And, as hard as they try, many traditional media outlets - especially those unable to claim quite distinctive content - find it increasingly difficult to compete. Story continues Now something somewhat similar is starting to happen in finance as well, albeit at a less frantic pace and - at least until now - in a less disruptive manner. And, as with media, the main innovations are being spearheaded by those outside the traditional institutional setup. Most consequentially, an emerging cohort of technology entrepreneurs understand the power of online/social media innovation to disrupt components of traditional finance, and are now leading efforts that include behavioral scientists and finance experts. Recall that Bitcoin started in 2009 as an attempt to produce a "better" currency, championed especially by those who mistrust central banks' management of fiat money. These early adopters were joined by a growing number of financial speculators attracted by highly volatile price movements. But Bitcoin's success, which remains highly uncertain, ultimately depends on it attaining sufficient stability to perform the most essential function of any currency (as opposed to a speculative commodity) - that of providing a relatively predictable medium of exchange. Fulfilling that function would require a lot to happen. At a minimum, Bitcoin would need a more solid institutional foundation; and broad acceptance of it would require much greater clarity concerning regulatory and supervisory approaches. Watch CNBC's bitcoin documentary: 'Bitcoin Uprising' More promising examples, albeit less well-known, may be found in Internet-driven lending and borrowing clubs or, more generally, the peer-to-peer initiatives in consumer financial services. By seeking to compress net interest margins, including through lower expenses and more efficient data assessments and aggregation, and by targeting an enhanced consumer experience, such empowerment schemes could serve to reduce the cost of financial intermediation while providing for fairer risk-pooling outcomes and better credit underwriting. Likewise, so-called digital wallets and mobile transfers are efforts to improve payments and settlement in a retail financial sector that gets a lot less attention than its institutional peers. The prospects for each of these democratizing developments vary significantly, as do the probable cost-benefit equations. Much will depend on whether the underlying technology is stable and secure, trust is established, transparency is convincing, consumer protection is effective, new content is coupled well with strong distribution channels, and broad-based validation and institutional verification boost credibility. Looking ahead, we should expect the underlying forces of innovation to remain strong. Some existing businesses will fend off disruptive threats, including through takeovers; others will adjust (for example, Walmart recently announced an expansion of its financial-services offerings); but many may well prove insufficiently agile. Regulators will also likely lag initially in their response to new structures and activities. The challenges of getting this right in finance are considerably more difficult than they are in media; and the consequences are far more profound, given the centrality of finance to broad swaths of the real economy. Anyone who doubts that should recall how last decade's securitization boom and bust - another example of a disruptive financial innovation that was over-produced and over-consumed - contributed to a credit and liquidity crisis that pushed the global economy to the verge of Great Depression II. Read More Mobile payment revolution: Why everyone wants in In their recent book, Google ( GOOGL ) 's Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt brilliantly remind us of the opportunities and risks afforded by multispeed developments in the real and virtual worlds. Having redefined media, similar developments are slowly beginning to play out in finance - in a rather isolated way for now, but soon likely to start transforming how capital is mobilized and allocated in support of economic growth and employment. Individuals, companies, and governments would be well advised to devote more time and other resources to comprehending this important and transformative phenomenon. Commentary by Mohamed A. El-Erian, former CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO. El-Erian is a member of the International Executive Committee at Allianz and chief economic advisor to its management board, chair of the President's Global Development Council, and author of the NYT/WSJ bestseller "When Markets Collide." Follow him on Twitter @elerianm . Copyright: Project Syndicate , 2014

2014-04-22 18:40:59+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [764, 2913, 3196, 3533, 3738]}

{}

El-Erian: This is better than bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/el-erian-better-bitcoin-184059395.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Emile Wamsteker | Bloomberg | Getty Images There seems to be no limit to the exciting possibilities that come from combining technical innovations, the Internet, and social media. It is a phenomenon that has been revolutionizing journalism and entertainment; and, by helping to overcome coordination challenges, it has also had political consequences in a growing number of countries - all of which means an ever-evolving set of opportunities and risks. What is less appreciated, however, is the extent to which a broadly similar phenomenon may be starting to play out in finance, via a democratization process that could gradually reconfigure a notable part of the institutional landscape, particularly in consumer finance, while challenging regulators to adapt. Bitcoin is the most visible - albeit far from a good - example of this nascent development, having attracted attention from specialists, regulators, and, slowly but surely, the public. But the crypto-currency phenomenon is far from the only example, and it is certainly not the most consequential one. Its impact, both actual and potential, is relatively limited when compared to ongoing attempts to enhance and democratize lending, borrowing, investing, and payments and settlements. The underlying sequence of disruptive technology is historically familiar. A bold innovation suddenly lowers entry barriers for certain activities. Mechanisms emerge to enable a larger part of the population to participate in what is deemed desirable but, until now, had been hard to access. As the disruptive forces gain traction, existing business models face difficult adaptation challenges, and regulators begin to fall behind. The situation is often amplified by a natural human tendency to overproduce and over-consume hitherto restricted goods and services. Read More How I created my own bitcoin-like currency: Brian Kelly This, of course, is what has been occurring in media for several years. The result is a proliferation of platforms for producing, aggregating, disseminating, and consuming content. Falling entry barriers and lower access costs have significantly democratized participation, whether in production or consumption. And, as hard as they try, many traditional media outlets - especially those unable to claim quite distinctive content - find it increasingly difficult to compete. Story continues Now something somewhat similar is starting to happen in finance as well, albeit at a less frantic pace and - at least until now - in a less disruptive manner. And, as with media, the main innovations are being spearheaded by those outside the traditional institutional setup. Most consequentially, an emerging cohort of technology entrepreneurs understand the power of online/social media innovation to disrupt components of traditional finance, and are now leading efforts that include behavioral scientists and finance experts. Recall that Bitcoin started in 2009 as an attempt to produce a "better" currency, championed especially by those who mistrust central banks' management of fiat money. These early adopters were joined by a growing number of financial speculators attracted by highly volatile price movements. But Bitcoin's success, which remains highly uncertain, ultimately depends on it attaining sufficient stability to perform the most essential function of any currency (as opposed to a speculative commodity) - that of providing a relatively predictable medium of exchange. Fulfilling that function would require a lot to happen. At a minimum, Bitcoin would need a more solid institutional foundation; and broad acceptance of it would require much greater clarity concerning regulatory and supervisory approaches. Watch CNBC's bitcoin documentary: 'Bitcoin Uprising' More promising examples, albeit less well-known, may be found in Internet-driven lending and borrowing clubs or, more generally, the peer-to-peer initiatives in consumer financial services. By seeking to compress net interest margins, including through lower expenses and more efficient data assessments and aggregation, and by targeting an enhanced consumer experience, such empowerment schemes could serve to reduce the cost of financial intermediation while providing for fairer risk-pooling outcomes and better credit underwriting. Likewise, so-called digital wallets and mobile transfers are efforts to improve payments and settlement in a retail financial sector that gets a lot less attention than its institutional peers. The prospects for each of these democratizing developments vary significantly, as do the probable cost-benefit equations. Much will depend on whether the underlying technology is stable and secure, trust is established, transparency is convincing, consumer protection is effective, new content is coupled well with strong distribution channels, and broad-based validation and institutional verification boost credibility. Looking ahead, we should expect the underlying forces of innovation to remain strong. Some existing businesses will fend off disruptive threats, including through takeovers; others will adjust (for example, Walmart recently announced an expansion of its financial-services offerings); but many may well prove insufficiently agile. Regulators will also likely lag initially in their response to new structures and activities. The challenges of getting this right in finance are considerably more difficult than they are in media; and the consequences are far more profound, given the centrality of finance to broad swaths of the real economy. Anyone who doubts that should recall how last decade's securitization boom and bust - another example of a disruptive financial innovation that was over-produced and over-consumed - contributed to a credit and liquidity crisis that pushed the global economy to the verge of Great Depression II. Read More Mobile payment revolution: Why everyone wants in In their recent book, Google ( GOOGL ) 's Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt brilliantly remind us of the opportunities and risks afforded by multispeed developments in the real and virtual worlds. Having redefined media, similar developments are slowly beginning to play out in finance - in a rather isolated way for now, but soon likely to start transforming how capital is mobilized and allocated in support of economic growth and employment. Individuals, companies, and governments would be well advised to devote more time and other resources to comprehending this important and transformative phenomenon. Commentary by Mohamed A. El-Erian, former CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO. El-Erian is a member of the International Executive Committee at Allianz and chief economic advisor to its management board, chair of the President's Global Development Council, and author of the NYT/WSJ bestseller "When Markets Collide." Follow him on Twitter @elerianm . Copyright: Project Syndicate , 2014

2014-04-22 18:45:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [490]}

{}

The Growing Perils of the Cashless Future

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/growing-perils-cashless-future-184400210.html

The Fiscal Times

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/

We’re finally on the brink of the cashless society that futurists and other have been forecasting for years. The average consumer owns at least two credit cards and early adopters have begun ditching plastic for virtual wallets . Even businesses that used to rely heavily on cash — think taxis, food trucks or even craft fairs — can now go cashless, thanks to new technology like Square . Yet, the more we abandon paper bills for plastic, smartphone payments and even cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the perils of the new, cashless economy are becoming more apparent. Recent security breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus and other retailers illustrate the vulnerability of electronic payments to hacking attacks. Related: Why Cash May Not Be King Anymore There were 2,164 reported security incidents exposing 822 million records last year, nearly doubling the previous highest year, 2011, according to Risk Based Security, a data security firm. The pace seems to be continuing this year. Chip-and-pin cards, in use in Europe for years, would remove some of the threat. Computer chips embedded on the cards verify unique personal identification numbers consumers punch into terminals. The cards would help reduce fraud, but it's not clear how much. For instance, they don't help prevent online fraud. The problem is cost. Making the cards and installing the new terminals needed to read them is expensive. Consumer advocates want Congress to press retailers and banks for fast adoption of chip-and-pin technology. "Some institutions in the U.S. say they will switch to this technology in the next few years, but we need a stronger commitment from all stakeholders," stated Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for Consumers Union, in testimony to Congress. "Policymakers must also take action to encourage investments in technology to tighten up the security of our financial institutions." Data breaches aren't the only downside. Going cashless in a world of Big Data means all your purchases — and therefore your privacy — is up for grabs. Did you hear the one about the woman who wanted to surprise her husband and tell him that after three years of trying, she was finally pregnant? Too late. While on line one night on their home computer, he noticed all these products geared to pregnancy and childbirth. Story continues Of course, it’s not just companies that want to make a buck. A recent episode of “The Good Wife” showed how a fictional (we hope) NSA might operate. The agency had been listening to the “good wife’s” phone conversations at the office as well as her estranged husband, the governor. Therefore, the governor had an aide post a “for sale” notice at a local mosque for an incredible deal on a pre-owned car — the number to call was that of the local head of the NSA. Dozens of men with Arabic names called the man at his office, and he was fired. Privacy experts suspect that if the NSA is capable of recording information about people’s phone calls , it is certainly monitoring electronic purchases. "That is a civil liberties concern," says Scott Shay, chairman of Signature Bank. "When governments have information they are sometimes tempted to use it, and sometimes they attempt to use it in ways that are not fully vetted by due process." Since electronic payments can be traced, authorities may be able to curtail or even eliminate crime, including everything from prostitution to terrorism. But constant government monitoring could turn everyone into a potential suspect, creating distrust between government and citizens that could lead to "vast consequences," economist Domagoj Sajter of the University of Osijek in Croatia wrote in a research paper published in March 2013 titled "Privacy, Identity, and the Perils of the Cashless Society." Individuals and organizations may be unwilling to promote unpopular or unconventional ideas if they know their transactions are being monitored. "Ultimately, this would lead to a weaker form of democracy, in which certain voices could not be heard and lobbied for." Related: 6 Items That Could Replace Paper Money It is possible that the government could monitor electronic purchases in an attempt to police crime, says David Stearns, a historian and sociologist specializing in electronic payments at the University of Washington. From a technological standpoint, the feat would be relatively easy. But whether it will happen remains uncertain, he says. Even it does happen, criminals would simply use a different currency, be it digital or physical, he added. For instance, in times of hyperinflation in the past, people bartered with cigarettes. "The idea that it will eliminate all fraud and crime is a little optimistic." Stearns sees a cash-limited society as far more likely than a cashless society. "There are a number of cultural rites that we use cash for today," he says, citing small donations, tips, religious contributions, and gifts. "It's a lot more meaningful for grandma to send a crisp $20 bill than a piece of plastic. If we went to a cashless society, that's what we'd have to figure out." Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Why Bloomberg’s Nanny Campaign Will Backfire Report Card on Fed Policy During the Great Recession Taxpayers Hit Twice by Fast-Food Pay Practices

2014-04-23 00:05:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1479]}

{}

GAWMiners Launches GAW Loyalty Rewards and Refer-a-Friend Programs

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gawminers-launches-gaw-loyalty-rewards-000500044.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EAST LONGMEADOW, MA--(Marketwired - Apr 22, 2014) - GAWMiners launched two programs in a unified system to reward customers: The GAW Loyalty Rewards program and Refer-a-Friend program. The programs are available immediately and can be accessed by simply logging into the GAWMiners website with an existing login or by creating a new one. All new and existing accounts receive 1000 points to start. The GAW Loyalty Rewards program earns customers 10 rewards points for every dollar they spend. Points are redeemable for store credit - up to hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Points may be redeemed as soon as the user hits a goal or they can be saved up to reach a larger goal and a bigger credit. The Refer-a-Friend program allows customers to send a referral link to their friends and other people which will provide a coupon when the referred user visits the site (currently $20 off a $200 or more purchase). For every referral, the referrer earns 5000 points (equivalent of a $500 order) which are combined with any other points earned in the Loyalty Rewards program. "Many of our customers have been asking for a way to earn miners or equipment for referring their friends and we think this is a great system where everyone wins," said Josh Garza, CEO. "We also wanted to thank our return customers for staying onboard with us through the good and bad times! It's something we don't take for granted and this is our way of showing our appreciation." GAWMiners provides Bitcoin and Scrypt Mining Hardware at low prices with free same-day shipping. As an additional option, they also offer free hosting & electricity at their server locations. They're customer services are unbeatable in the crypto mining industry with live 24/7 phone and tech support. For more information, resources and support for crypto mining visit http://www.GAWMiners.com .

2014-04-23 14:57:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1498]}

{}

Here's The Difference Between Wal-Mart America And Whole Foods America

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-difference-between-walmart-america-145738804.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Wal-Mart country and Whole Foods country are very different places. Morgan Stanley is out with a retail "atlas" that breaks down retail stores by geography. Based on its data, we made the following maps showing the number of Wal-Marts and Whole Foods per 1 million people in each state. Here's Wal-Mart: You can see it dominates in the center of the country. Arkansas, where Wal-Mart was born, has the most per capita with Oklahoma a close second. Wal-Mart is much less popular on the coasts. walmarts per million people Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Morgan Stanley Here's Whole Foods: It's not that big in the center of the country, but it's huge on the coasts. Colorado is also huge. whole foods per million people Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Morgan Stanley There are, of course, far more Wal-Marts than Whole Foods in each state overall, but it's fun to see where the stores are more and less concentrated. Bottom line: Whole Foods America is much more coastal, while Wal-Mart America is much more central. Here are tables showing the number and the population-adjusted number of Wal-Marts and Whole Foods stores in each state: walmart table Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Morgan Stanley whole foods table Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Morgan Stanley More From Business Insider 11 Things You'll Regret In Your 30s Dish Network Is Partnering With This Startup To Make Cellphone Internet 1,000 Times Faster Than 4G SATOSHI'S REVOLUTION: How The Creator Of Bitcoin May Have Stumbled Onto Something Much, Much Bigger

2014-04-23 15:09:11+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [4390]}

{}

A Brief History Of How The Cubicle Took Over Offices Everywhere

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/brief-history-cubicle-took-over-150717856.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

CSFB Trashed Cubicle Dealbreaker.com The cubicle turns 50 years old this month. What a life it's had. Designed to liberate the office worker from the privacy-less panic of the open office , Nikil Saval, author of " Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace , " say it's done the opposite . Dilbert and his colleagues would agree . To celebrate the milestone, here's a brief history of the cubicle, chronicling its rise from a bright idea to a staple of offices everywhere: The original cubicle was designed in 1964 to empower people. Robert Propst, a designer for then-home furnishings company Herman Miller , designed the first cubicle. Propst studied how people worked and wanted to improve on the open-bullpen office that he had grown up with. He designed the " Action Office ," which had a huge desk, a space for making phone calls, a vertical filing system, and partitions, so workers could have privacy . What's more, the desk could be set at varying heights so people could stand while they worked — helping, he thought, with blood flow. As Fortune reports , the young designer thought that "productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them, not just stacked in an in-box." But when it was released in 1968, it flopped. Though it looked futuristic, it fizzled. " Then nothing happened," recalls Joe Schwartz, Herman Miller's former marketing chief, who helped launch the system in 1968 . "We had a few orders in Canada, but the executive market was extremely hard to penetrate. It was a first attempt." It was too expensive, and too high concept to fit the market. "The Action Office wasn't conceived to cram a lot of people into little space," Joe Schwartz says . "It was driven that way by economics." But then the cubicle became the cubicle we know and love (loathe?) today. After the first release tanked, Herman Miller designed a cheaper follow up (the Action Office 2!) made for easy installation. It was an enclosed, modular desk system, ready for the middle management folks that were increasingly prevalent in corporate America. The adjustable desk was gone, the cheap "workspace solution" had arrived. Story continues "Businesses found it incredibly useful for cramming people into smaller spaces," Saval says, " while upper-level management still enjoyed windowed offices on the perimeter of the building." Then the rush came. Steelcase, Heyworth, and other office furniture companies offered "similar modular desk set-ups for less by eliminating many of Propst's pricier features," Men's Journal reports . Sadly, this meant the Action Office lost its standing-and-sitting adjust ability, becoming a part of the corporate sameness that Propst hoped to avoid. The government also helped the cubicle take off. Back in the 1960s, hoping to stimulate business spending, the Treasury made new rules for depreciating assets — the way businesses can write off parts of the costs for office equipment for tax purposes . Companies can depreciate their furniture (including cubicles) in seven years, while permanent structures like actual walls are given a 39.5-year rate. Suddenly, the cubicle became even more attractive . Companies could recover their costs quicker by buying furniture that acted like offices rather than offices themselves. The cubicle grew popular during a nasty period for white-collar labor. The cubicle really caught on in the '80s and '90s, a time when mergers, buyouts, and layoffs became commonplace. The mergers meant more people were getting crammed into offices — perfect for cubicles — and the layoffs lead to a sense of alienation, Saval says. "These were the years when the cubicle began to seem less like a space for exerting autonomy and independence," he says, "and more like a flimsy, fabric-wrapped symbol of workplace insecurity." Today, the cubicle is as pervasive as it is abhorred. In the past 50 years, cubicles have become ubiquitous and now represent a $3 billion industry . But people still hate them, and they've been found to be just as distracting as open plan offices . The ultimate rebuke? Propst, the inventor of the Action Office, said his creation turned into "monolithic insanity." More From Business Insider 11 Things You'll Regret In Your 30s Dish Network Is Partnering With This Startup To Make Cellphone Internet 1,000 Times Faster Than 4G SATOSHI'S REVOLUTION: How The Creator Of Bitcoin May Have Stumbled Onto Something Much, Much Bigger

2014-04-23 17:48:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3634]}

{}

Tech, Food & Transportation: How Life Has Changed Since the 1964 World's Fair

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tech-food-transportation-life-changed-174800237.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

Fifty years ago this week, the 1964 New York World's Fair opened to the public in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. Dating back to 1851 London and the first Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, these fairs have acted as showcase for innovation and what big business hoped would be the next big thing. In August of '64, Isaac Asimov, the acclaimed science fiction author of works such as I, Robot , wrote a prediction for The New York Times about what the 2014 World's Fair would look like. Some of his views were imaginative (moon colonies), and others were frightening (the stretch between Boston and Washington would become one giant city), but parts were pretty on point (video phones, 3-D televisions, unmanned vehicles on Mars). Related: The Next Big Thing: Embeddable Tech? The 1964 fair ended up being smaller in scale than its organizers had hoped, and was beset by some controversy , but the architectural symbol of the event -- the silver globe Unisphere -- remains in the park today. Perhaps more importantly, the innovative spirit that underscored the event can be found in more places than ever, including the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, SXSW in Austin, Texas, and the Toy Fair in New York City, just to name a few. Here's a snapshot of 1964's inventive offerings and how they stack up today. In many ways, it seems the more things have changed, the more they've stayed the same. Entertainment Tech, Food & Transportation: How Life Has Changed Since the 1964 World's Fair Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress attraction Image credit: Express Monorail via Flickr Then: Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress attraction -- that creepy yet endearing animatronic view of an American family -- was created for the fair and showcased in the General Electric Pavilion. Now: Visitors to Disney World can now opt to be tracked by wearable tech Magic Bands, but not everything is different. As you traverse the park, you can still check out the Carousel of Progress and try like mad to get "It's a Small World" (which also premiered at the fair) out of your head. Transportation Tech, Food & Transportation: How Life Has Changed Since the 1964 World's Fair Ford Mustang Image credit: Ford Europe via Flickr Then: The customizable and cool Ford Mustang made its first appearance at the fair. Now: Elon Musk's electric Tesla car has continued to make waves in the auto industry. Related: How to Be More Creative, Wherever You Work Food Tech, Food & Transportation: How Life Has Changed Since the 1964 World's Fair Belgian Waffles Image credit: KCTS 9 via Flickr Then: Belgian Waffles were introduced to American palates in the '60s, first at Seattle's World Fair and then in New York's Belgian Village two years later -- as made and served by the Vermersch family, they became a runaway hit at the fair. Story continues Now: Taco Bell is hoping its waffle taco will appeal to millennial customers and Chef Dominique Ansel presented the follow-up to his ubiquitious cronut to fans at SXSW -- milk and cookie shots. Technology Tech, Food & Transportation: How Life Has Changed Since the 1964 World's Fair The Bell Telephone System Pavilion Image credit: AT&T Tech Channel via Youtube Then: The Bell Telephone System Pavilion had a Picturephone on display, a precursor for cell phones equipped for Skype and Google Hangouts, and visitors to RCA Television's pavilion got to see themselves on screen for the first time in living color. Now: Modular phones like Google's Project Ara are getting people talking. Related: Entrepreneurs on the Moon, DNA Hacking and Real-Life Iron Man Gear More From Entrepreneur Outer Space: Bitcoin's Final Frontier? Hottest of the Hot: The Most Exciting Trends in Innovation Right Now Eye of the Tiger: U.S. Army Eyes Night Vision Contact Lenses View comments

2014-04-23 20:43:10+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1376, 24042]}

{"Bitcoin": [25]}

eGifter's Roye Discusses Bitcoin, New Business Models And Disruptive Technology

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/egifters-roye-discusses-bitcoin-business-204310290.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

David Smith recently spoke with eGifter CEO and co-founder Tyler Roye to discuss eGifter , bitcoin , and the emerging payments landscape. eGifter enables thousands of consumers to shop at big name brands, like Chili’s and Foot Locker, using bitcoin. eGifter helps these brands test the benefits of bitcoin without directly accepting it themselves. Roye looked at why bitcoin enables new businesses models, and explained why its low cost, fraud-free nature is going to be disruptive . Smith: How did you get the idea for the eGifter? Roye: As digital gift cards started to converge and gain market share, we were looking at mobile commerce and social commerce and saying these are trends we are interested in. One day we realized the digital gift card was perhaps the first chapter in mobile commerce and social commerce. A lot of people had tried to do all sorts of interesting things on Facebook - putting up store fronts and what not. Nothing was working. Social commerce was not happening. We looked at the digital gift card and said this is something that could actually travel over social networks. We also said that Near Field Communication (NFC) is a nice story and mobile presentation of some form will eventually happen, but for now it is likely the first thing someone presents to a large retailer on their phone is going to be a digital gift card. Related: Signs A Bitcoin Tidal Wave Is Forming To Disrupt Business Smith: Why were efforts to commercialize Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) unsuccessful? Roye : I think it was because they were looking for people to do something that was not in the natural flow of their social behavior. They were looking for people to stop and go shopping. If you have Facebook.com slash pick a brand and now I'm going to stop what I'm doing and go shopping. If I wanted to stop what I was doing on my social network and go shopping I would go to Amazon.com. Just because it is on Facebook doesn't make it social. They all realized that was not going to work and quickly started shutting down these failing Facebook-centric stores and looking for other things that were more tied to natural behavior -- and one of the natural things that was happening is people were wishing each other happy birthday on Facebook. We realized we could connect to that, and the digital gift card could play a role starting to add commerce to social activity. Smith: I read eGifter gets an understanding of important life events, like job changes? Roye: We do what we call algorithmic gifting. We are looking for the who, what and why of gifting. Who should I give a gift, perhaps the people you interact with most on social networks? What should I give them? Probably something they like. Why should I give it to them beyond the obvious birthday? What other life events can we cull from the social graph using big data? Can we find other reasons to gift. Certainly opening up just because kind of gifting, impulsive gifting would be quite attractive to retail. Story continues As mobile commerce becomes more frictionless it becomes a nice little gesture. It's like me buying you a drink at the bar. It's a nice little gesture I can make, and as long as it is frictionless enough I might be inclined to do it. Smith: Like Facebook send someone a Starbucks $5 gift for their birthday? Roye : All sorts of people are experimenting with different things. It makes sense. As we get to a point where we have micro payment options tied to your smart phone, it will be easy to do this. You see obviously commercial efforts to create new forms of currency, and you see cryptocurrency options emerging. It is becoming easier and easier for people to have a few different payment options they are comfortable with. It will become just a matter of a gesture or two they will be able to buy something or make a payment. Then it can become a natural part of day-to-day activities. Smith: Why was your company interested in accepting bitcoins? Roye: We had a commitment from day one to embrace emerging payments. Thinking that some of these emerging payment forms would come at a lower transaction fee. That is very important to us in selling low margin gift cards. We also thought they might help us with fraud because we are targets for fraud and that destroys our margins. When bitcoin came around we were immediately interested. When we found out there were processors lining up to create fraud-free, low cost transactions we were just thrilled. We jumped on bitcoin and found pretty quickly there was a growing community of passionate supporters of bitcoin, who were appreciative of us jumping in and giving them a place to spend their bitcoins. That was an important dynamic. The brands perhaps most in demand are some of the largest brands, and those are the ones that are probably least likely to adopt taking bitcoins early. It is going to take some time for them to come to terms with bitcoin, get comfortable with it, get through their own bureaucracy, deal with their own IT integrations, and add it. It was nice knowing we could provide a great value to the bitcoin community, grow our revenue and provide a great service to the brands as well. We give them an opportunity to experiment with bitcoin without having to jump in with both feet. Smith: Do you think all the big brands will accept bitcoins in the future? Roye: I suppose there is a good chance everyone will come around eventually, but maybe not. At this point my belief is they definitely will come around, but at least as it stands right now we don't really know. We're not sitting inside these brands so we don't have any insight into the brands' positions. Unless they come out like Amazon did last week, stating something specifically about where their heads are at, I have no insight into what they are thinking. Smith: You mentioned fraud reduction was one of the reasons you are excited about bitcoin? Roye: When we got into the business we recognized there was a unique opportunity to do a better job at fraud than anyone had done to date. There were a bunch of great third-party systems available for fraud reduction, and big data was driving the intelligence of these systems. At the same time no one was using big data from social logins and mobile data and mixing it all together to create a better outcome. So we said we are going to be a social login-centric solution. We can take all those third-party systems and put our own layer of social and mobile decisions on top, to get the best outcome in the business and make it a competitive differentiator. We have that advantage, but at the same time I'd love to wake up tomorrow not having to rely on our ever improving algorithms and have no fraud. Today as a “Card Not Present” merchant with MasterCard (NYSE: MA ), Visa (NYSE: V ) and American Express (NYSE: AXP ), fraud is my problem. I'm an online merchant; I don't have a card. Smith: Don't PayPal and Visa spend a lot of money every year battling fraud? Roye: Yeah they battle it -- and the funny thing is, if you pick a retailer who has both an online and an offline presence, you walk into that physical store hand them the card swipe the card, the card is (fraudulent), it is not that retailer's problem. It is MasterCard’s, Visa's, or American Express's problem, because they approved it, because the card was present. You go home and you go to that same brand's website and you buy something on that website, now it is the brand's problem if they take that card, ship you that product, and it is charged back. That's what “Card Not Present” (CNP) is all about. For online merchants we've been sitting here getting the short end of the stick for a long time on this whole thing. Things like bitcoin put pressure on the incumbents to respond both with price and service. Meaning they need to lower their prices and maybe take on the fraud themselves, instead of leaving it to us online merchants. Smith: Where there any challenges in the bitcoin integration you did? Roye: No, we partnered with Coinbase on the bitcoin integration. It was really a no-brainer. They built a very solid system. The most important thing from our perspective was we never touch the bitcoin. They convert it to cash for us in real time valuing how much bitcoin is needed at the moment of the transaction. If someone wants to buy a $100 gift card, Coinbase prices it in bitcoin for the consumer and Coinbase converts it to cash for us. We don't have to deal with the risk: the regulatory risk, the market fluctuations, all that kind of stuff. If we were to take bitcoin and have to deal with the market fluctuations, given the low margins of our business we'd really just be trading bitcoins. So we really can't do that. Trading bitcoins is not our business, so their service of turning it into cash was a perfect solution for us. Smith: Were there any surprise benefits you got from accepting bitcoin? Roye: The passionate community. We knew there were some people who were enthusiastic about it. The skyrocketing price of bitcoin last year played a role in making the community even larger more enthusiastic and more passionate. We were lucky to see that wave that happened in mid-2013, but there really were just a of enthusiastic people and they were genuinely appreciative of what we were doing. All of a sudden we had raving fans everyday telling us how much they appreciated what we were doing. That energized us to want to do more. Smith: Is there anything bitcoin will enable you to do in the future that other forms of payment won't let you do today? Roye: Yeah, the micro-payment nature of bitcoin, and the fact that there is not even a base transaction fee that a lot of credit cards have, positions bitcoin really well for all types of micropayment solutions. We could wind up having a whole bunch of different digital things that we sell. The variable denomination digital gift cards we sell are essentially a brand's own currency. Digital gift cards we sell are variable denomination, meaning they range anywhere from $1 up in 1 penny increments all the way up to as much as a thousand dollars. Imagine if you are buying really, really small amounts you see the trend towards all sorts of interesting micro payments. An example of micro-payments is the tipping inside the Dogecoin community. Thats why we were excited about our recent addition of Dogecoin as a payment option. We added Dogecoin and Litecoin. We see the nature of cryptocurrencies could be that we have micro-sized transactions taking place and those transactions could be profitable. Smith: Do you see that helping your group giving feature, where if its somebody's birthday five or 100 friends can all get together to put something towards that friend's gift? Roye: Right. So imagine in the traditional model I would have to take a hundred credit card transactions, pay 25 cents a hundred times on each one of them. If everybody put in $1 thats 25 percent right there that's a business model that couldn't exist, but in a cryptocurrency which is fraud-free and super-low cost transaction you can actually do something like that. We built what we believe is the best group-gifting engine in the world. We put a lot of energy into the group-gifting aspect of what we do. It is really a great user experience. Its completely cross platform capable. We have personalization, where you can create an animated greeting card with video messages, and we stitch all the video messages together for the people who chip in on the group. You can really create this cool social experience that fits in the cryptocurrency story we just told. The scale of it could be pretty substantial. Smith: I've seen group gifts in real life, but your platform connects everyone regardless of physical location, making it easy to do from anywhere in the world. Roye: That's the idea. Anywhere in the world and efficient. There are logistics of chipping in, whether it is for the coach or the teacher or someone in the office who is having the baby, to manage. There's always a person who has to manage it all and it's manual processing and chasing people who pledged the money, and maybe you don't get it and maybe you were nice enough to organize it you end up having to cover someone who never stepped up. We make that all an online function and manage it all. It is really a great tool for those scenarios. Smith: Who are your competitors? Roye: We definitely have competitors on both sides of the business. We have a platform side of the business where we are plugging in the entire experience we described to big brands, Facebook fan pages, websites and mobile apps. On that side we don't have competitors who are doing the group-gifting, with the deep social integrations, and the heavy degrees of personalization. We don't have anyone who is in our exact same space on that side. Other companies put together a gift card marketplace that takes some form of emerging currencies as a form of payment, particularly bitcoin. There is a company called Gyft that is a competitor on the payment side, but they don't take currencies besides bitcoin. Smith: What differentiates you from Gyft? The platform you've built? Roye: Certainly the software as a service side of what we do, but also the group gift and the personalization and social features in our product are more advanced, but the group gift is something they definitely don't have. Smith: Do you see bitcoin progressing in the mainstream retail space? Roye: I think bitcoin is on the minds of a lot of companies and in a lot of boardrooms. I think it could be one of those things where a few important players are going to make the move and do it. And then all those other ones, who were playing a little bit of wait and see, are going to feel the pressure of having to make that move. I don't believe we are at that inflection point, but I suppose we could wake up any morning and there could be one or two announcements from some interesting brands -- and my guess is that it will cause a tidal wave of other brands trying to catch up. When Overstock and Tiger Direct did it, these are really the early adopters. Maybe in three to six months there will be another group that will start to move the meter, but it hasn't happened yet and I don't know when that will happen. Smith: I've read Overstock has a relatively low volume of bitcoin sales but the profit margins are substantially higher? Roye: Yeah, that is interesting. I read some feedback from Overstock and the numbers they've achieved, they are happy with their decision. I'm sure that they've caused a lot of conversations at a lot of other retailers. I would have thought, within this timeframe, we would maybe have seen a couple more. We have only got a quarter of the year under our belt. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a lot more during the course of this year. Smith: Do you think they are in the wait and see mode right now because the number of people who have bitcoin to be able to spend it in the first place is so low? Roye: Retailers have to make a decision based on how important bitcoin can be in comparison to the scope and scale of their overall business. For us we're small, we are a startup, bitcoin moved the meter. If you're one of these giant retailers, you look at the entire size of the bitcoin market. You say to yourself, this thing isn't going to move the meter for me. I don't need to do this to be cool, I don't need to be perceived as an early adopter, I can take more of a wait and see attitude. While they wait, things are happening that are creating higher levels of confidence, that this thing is heading in the right direction. You have some recent regulatory clarity as it relates to the IRS position on taxes. That provides more of a clear runway. Time is creating more distance from the Silk Road era of bitcoin. The more time that passes between when there was really nothing but negative news on bitcoin gives an opportunity for some positive news to build up on bitcoin.Then bitcoin doesn't ring out negatively in the minds of people. I think brands are probably looking at it and just trying to time it. There are some that might be a real long time before they take it, just because they have a conservative nature and they feel like it is inconsistent with who they are as a brand. I do believe there will be a lot of brands that will be very late to the game. Smith : Have you seen other programs that are accelerating the commercialization of digital currencies? Roye: We are seeing evidence of more commercial efforts. We were reading about Facebook getting licensed in Ireland in the next few weeks, to start offering a Facebook-based currency. I think we are going to see a lot more of that coming. I think that it is going to be an interesting balance. A brand behind their own currency gives it their credibility. And that currency can be used in their ecosystem. You think about Apple and it is at least possible, if not likely, that something like could happen like that in the Apple ecosystem. I think you are going to see a lot more digital currencies. As far as the cryptocurrencies I think there is a lot of speculation. There are actually hundreds of cryptocurrencies right now, but there are only a handful that are reaching an interesting critical mass. As they get to a critical mass we start getting people asking us to take their currencies and then we have a list of ones that we like to take Dogecoin and Litecoin were on the top of that list. Luckily GoCoin, who is similar to what Coinbase is to us for bitcoin. GoCoin put together a service where we could take Dogecoin and Litecoin and we become the first people who integrated with them to get it turned on. Or one of the first, I think within a week of them having turned on the service we were up and running. As cryptocurrencies gain momentum and I think they'll continue to add a lot more. Smith: Is one of the problems in the cryptocurrency space the 200 currencies out there, but the inability to use most of them in day to day commerce? Roye: They have them and can trade them for bitcoin, and then come spend their bitcoin or cash the bitcoin out for USD, but people want it to be easy. If every time you needed to spend cash you had to jump through these different hoops to spend it, that will certainly slow down the growth curve for these currencies -- so giving people places to spend those currencies is one of the primary things that will impact the adoption curve. That's why if you are a member of one of those communities, you see that we've jumped in and started to take it, you are happy and you feel like what we are doing is certainly helping the currency gain traction. Smith: I know the Dogecoin community is big on fundraisers, like for the Jamacain bobsled team and Talladega. However the bitcoin community has not embraced that, citing scam concerns. Are there scams in the Dogecoin community? How those efforts work to pool money together but make sure nobody runs off with it? Roye : There are these amazing things called tipbots in the Dogecoin community, and you can send a tip to anyone or any cause. I suppose it is possible a cause that's got less than scrupulous intent could emerge and convince people that they are a legitimate cause, raise funds and run away with a bunch of money. But I think you have a crowd-forming sentiment, that is more likely to flush out that type of behavior in a community like that than in almost any other situation in the real world. So I think it is possible that scams could emerge. I think it is less likely because it is so community-based, and the fact that there is so much conversation going on around it that if something stinks it is going to surface. Smith: Getting back to remittances I've read about Western Union having a 10 percent fee to send money. I've read that bitcoin-based remittances can get a lot lower. If it is such a simple problem, why we haven't seen bitcoin solutions in that space? Roye: I think it is coming. I think bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are an underpinning of an extremely efficient money transfer system, whether it be for micro-payments or small gesture type gifts, or transferring money efficiently from place A to place B. I think the entrepreneurs are coming in by the droves. They are designing the solutions. There are definitely the ones working on international transfer systems. Of course they have tremendous amounts of compliance to deal with. The reasons it hasn't happened faster is because they are making sure they build a service that complies with the laws. At the end of the day they are going to be incredibly disruptive, because of the potential to be completely secure, fraud free, and low cost. Smith: How efficient are services like Bitpay and Coinbase? Roye: Right now it is one percent, and that is a reasonable number that we can afford to pay. Hopefully there continues to be a healthy amount of competition in the space and it keeps the costs down. If all of a sudden they aren't much more attractive than the traditional alternatives, it will slow the growth curve and that wouldn't be good for the cryptocurrency as a whole. Hopefully the economics of the business are such that they'll be able to keep the costs very low and really speed the adoption, because, for some, if you have a very high margin business the extra point may not be worth your time or energy to get familiar with all this, and deal with another integration and deal with the accounting and whatnot. In a business like ours, where we are dealing with only a couple points worth of profit margin, it is much more material. But not everybody has that situation. Clearly they have to keep the cost benefit in the equation, to maximize the adoption curve. Smith: I have an iPhone, I didn't see a way to spend bitcoins with my phone on your app; why is that? Roye: You have to use the mobile website on iPhones. Apple does not allow apps to take bitcoin. We did have an Apple solution at one point, where you would pop out of the app and go into a browser to complete the bitcoin transaction. For a while that was okay, but ultimately they decided even that wasn't okay. The only way you can do a bitcoin transaction on an iPhone at eGifter, or anywhere for that matter, is in your browser not in the app. Smith: Is that a deal-breaker for you, long term? If it is still restricted in five years, would that impact your decision to use bitcoin or not? Roye: No, because of the great Android market. I think the more Apple restricts emerging and interesting things that people want to use, the more that will impact them and their marketshare in the long term. They are in a position where they don't necessarily have to be first. They run a much tighter community than the Android community; they have much more control. They have the power to maintain that control, but they can't wait forever. Eventually they will need to come around. As it stands right now, you need to get into the browser to complete the transaction. Smith: How critical to your business is bitcoin? If bitcoin was to go away, would your business still be able to compete or would you have to change strategies? Roye: It is definitely important part of the consumer side of the business, because we are starting to move some nice volume in bitcoin sales, but a lot of it has been a surprise and wasn't in the plan. We just expected it to be another form of payment. We didn't recognize that there would be an explosion in the value, creating lots of people with bitcoin wealth wanting to spend it. We didn't realize there would be such an enthusiastic community. All that was surprise upside, and therefore if it was to change it would just take us back to a level set which would take us back to the original plan, which didn't have explosive bitcoin growth in the model. In that model we are focused on good, healthy growth, making our fraud system better, making the mobile commerce experience better and, of course, focusing on the platform side. Related: 3 Secrets To Bitcoin Investment Success Smith: You see bitcoin as a way to dramatically accelerate the growth of your business, but not change the fundamentals of it? Roye: Yeah. What we are seeing is, there are many emerging forms of payment. It might be that there is some sort of Facebook credits or something that becomes equally important, as lots of people take those on, and then we do an integration there and take it as a form of payment. We might find that it also offers us a fraud-free, lower cost transaction that could be just as meaningful as bitcoin, I suppose. It is really hard for us to forecast. Ultimately we don't think that the revolution in payments is going to stop. We think it just started. Smith: It will be interesting to see what Facebook's cost structures are. Because it seems it would be hard for Facebook or PayPal or anyone to compete on cost with bitcoin. Roye: They are going to have a lot of issues that bring costs into the equation. With so many emerging players having their own universe to leverage, whether it be pay with Amazon, the mobile OS's Android and Apple, or even the carriers, they all seem to want to get into the payment business. I'd assume they'd all find efficient ways to do it that are going to create a better solution than what exists today, or they serve no purpose. There are probably only a couple places you can get better one cost, and the other is fraud. If you do fraud better and you do it at a lower cost,then you are a better solution. If you don't do one of those things better, than what are you bringing to the party? Disclosure: At the time of this writing, David Smith has a long bitcoin position. Related Links Horizon Pharma Reports Inducement Grants Facebook Reports Q1 Earnings; Revenue Grows 72% AUD/USD to Resume Long-Term Bearish Trend as Pair Carves Lower High in April -David Song, Currency Analyst at DailyFX © 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. 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2014-04-24 10:33:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [189, 381, 1303, 1550, 1676, 1886, 2040, 2091, 2164, 2231], "BTC": [284, 331]}

{"Bitcoin": [22, 81]}

Cheapest GH/s Instant Bitcoin Cloud Mining Offered By Startup For Anyone To Earn Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cheapest-gh-instant-bitcoin-cloud-103300992.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

New bitcoin startup offers the cheapest bitcoin cloud mining to be found anywhere online. CANADA / ACCESSWIRE / April 24th, 2014 - Newly launched PB Mining offers the best value in instant Bitcoin cloud mining to be found anywhere online; 100 GH/s can currently be purchased for 0.56 BTC , while 1 GH/s can be purchased for 0.0056 BTC. This is less than half of the price of other Bitcoin cloud mining services currently available, meaning that PB mining is twice as profitable as other cloud mining platforms. The benefits of cloud mining are many – no need to wait for mining equipment to arrive, no need to set up and configure mining machines, and users can purchase as much or as little mining power as they need. With PB Mining the purchased GH/s begin mining immediately for a duration of five years, and users are paid out their mining earnings on a weekly basis. Users have access to a live dashboard where they can monitor their mining power and earnings in real-time. All 5 year mining contracts with PB Mining are 100% insured; if there is a problem at PB Mining’s data centre users will be reimbursed for any mining losses they may have incurred. There are no pool fees, or electricity fees. All extraneous mining expenses are covered by PB Mining themselves. PB Mining is currently mining Bitcoin with a total hash rate of 235 TH/s, and this is ever increasing as more mining power is added to the operation. The cloud mining platform is run by a registered business in SK, Canada, which also owns an eBay account that has been selling Bitcoin mining equipment for over two years. An affiliate program is also offered: affiliates earn a generous 10% of the GH/s Bitcoin cloud mining power of their referrals. PB Mining was recently featured in a PB Mining review on popular bitcoin cloud mining review website cloudminingreport.com . With the cheapest and most profitable Bitcoin cloud mining GH/s on the market, the live dashboard for users, and the generous affiliate program: PB Mining is quickly becoming the most popular Bitcoin cloud mining platform online today . While Bitcoin mining profitability depends on many factors, such as the future Bitcoin exchange rate and mining difficulty, for those who believe Bitcoin is just getting started, PB Mining is an obvious choice. Story continues * This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Please conduct your own due diligence. Visit http://pb-mining.co for more information. Contact Info Name: Cloud Mining Report Organization: Cloud Mining Report SOURCE: PB Mining