"One of the sites that was more or less a copy of The Silk Road and the second largest online black market, The Atlantis Market, was forced to shut their doors for good due to 'security' reasons. Atlantis offered black market, anonymous items, in exchange for Bitcoin and Litecoin. Users will have one week to withdraw any of their funds before the market shuts down permanently. Below is a statement from the Atlantis team." Continue reading →
"Argentina’s currency troubles have been well documented for years. With inflation between 10 and 11% per year for most of the past decade, Argentinians have actively looked to subvert the country’s strict capital controls and obtain alternative stores of value. Historically, that has meant underground dealing in USD and EUR, but more recently has led to interest in the largely-unregulated world of bitcoin. BitPagos, a Latin American payment processing company in the latest class of the Boost.vc Accelerator, is capitalizing on that interest by adding bitcoin to their processing options." Continue reading →
"We are thrilled to announce a trip around the world on bitcoin as part of our documentary film! Trip dates: October 12th - November 3rd Week #1: We will drive across the United States from our home Provo, Utah to New York City with multiple cities in between. Week #2: We will fly to Europe and specifically visit the glorious cities of Stockholm, Sweden and Berlin, Germany. Week #3: We will fly from Berlin to Singapore and spend a week in Asia. November 3rd: We will arrive back in Salt Lake City having circled the globe and paying for the trip with the world's first decentralized, digital currency, bitcoin!" Continue reading →
"As of March of this year, credit union membership has increased to more than 95 million members and they hold 6 percent of the financial assets of United States to the tune of $1 trillion dollars. Now the major banks want to destroy them. This month the American Bankers Association started a huge lobbying effort to end the tax break credit unions receive as non-profit organizations – a tax break that allows them to run as a non-profit and offer their members services at a much lower rate. There is a big budget battle looming and the estimated $2 billion in annual revenue that is estimated from eliminating the tax exemption has already been floated." Continue reading →
"Retail beef prices rose nearly 4¢ in August to reach $5.394/lb, a record high, reports Beef Magazine. This should be no problem, though, if you switch to lower priced goods as beef climbs, as government theorizes consumers do as part of its chained-inflation index. For example, peanut butter prices are down 5.7% over the last 12 months, according to the BLS. So if you switch from steak to peanut butter sandwiches, you won't notice any increase in the cost of eating." Continue reading →
"The establishment media and many economists and other social scientists continually bemoan the varying income differences generated by voluntary and ever changing consumer choices on the market. In the U.S., the political class regularly and forcibly extracts a massive amount of income from productive workers, investors, and entrepreneurs via taxation and money creation ('quantitative easing' and 'zero interest-rate policies') and funnels these stolen funds into its own pockets and those of privileged financial institutions, giant agribusiness corporations, government military contractors, construction unions, etc." Continue reading →
"Mayor David Bing announced in January that he'd assembled a task force to execute Operation Compliance. Operation Compliance began with the stated goal of shutting down 20 businesses a week. Since its inception, Operation Compliance has resulted in the closure of 383 small businesses, with another 536 in the 'process of compliance,' according to figures provided to Reason TV by city officials. But business owners say that Operation Compliance unfairly targets small, struggling businesses in poor areas of town and that the city's maze of regulations is nearly impossible to navigate, with permit fees that are excessive and damaging to businesses running on thin profit margins." Continue reading →
"Detroit’s ground-up resurrection has not been created by the city, but rather, it has been enabled by the city because in spite of its seemingly unyielding regulatory environment, as presented by the media and some local businessmen, the government-regulatory complex has been too corrupt, too inept, and too inconsequential to enforce its own ridiculous dictates, for the most part. Detroit’s entrepreneurial storm that is rooted in rejection of the conventional political system is purposeful in that creative human capital actually seeks Detroit out as a place where they can potentially launch and operate innovative entrepreneurial efforts with minimal bureaucratic meddling." Continue reading →
"There are some great technology companies worth billions of dollars like photo-sharing website Instagram, and microblogging platform Tumblr. But…that doesn’t make them great businesses either. Mainly because they don’t actually make any money. These two are examples of a great idea that people love, but don’t pay for. But there are a lot of great ideas in the world. A lot of inventions, a lot of smart people coming up with world changing ideas. Some get lucky (like Instagram and Tumblr), some fail and some take years of hard work. For those ideas to become great companies, the pathway to that destination is relatively simple." Continue reading →
"The protein that Olson is describing is called chlorotoxin. It’s a major component of the venom injected from the sting of a scorpion’s tail. Once it’s infused into the bloodstream, the venom naturally travels to the brain and attaches itself to chloride channels that lay on the surface of cells. And as it turns out, chlorotoxin actually prefers the chloride channels on tumor cells above all other tissues. Upon realizing this fascinating discovery, the Blaze Bioscience team re-engineered chlorotoxin. They tagged it with molecules that literally act like a flashlight for doctors. It’s a fluorescent dye that illuminates the outline of the tumor in its entirety, making it easier for brain surgeons to operate without error." Continue reading →