Bitcoin

Kenya: Are Bitcoins the Future of Mobile Money?

"Ever since Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile-network operator, launched the mobile-payment system M-Pesa in 2007, some two-thirds of Kenya's adult population have subscribed, and an astonishing 31% of the country's GDP is now spent through mobile phones. Kenya has been at the forefront of popular technological innovation for the past 5 years, and now there are indications that the country could usher in a new era of mobile banking. On 1 July, a company called Kipochi launched a new 'digital wallet' service that allows Kenyans to not only send and receive money domestically but, using the online peer-to-peer currency Bitcoins, transfer it internationally." Continue reading →

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Coinsetter CEO’s Message to Banks: You Will Soon Love Bitcoin

"Put yourself into a world in which banks charge $20 to $50 to manage an international wire transfer, but hardly make a profit on it. Conceptualize a world in which banks delay domestic ACH transfers up to three days, in a large part to reduce fraud risk. Imagine a world in which taking on just one new customer necessitates the hiring of another employee. If you’re a commercial bank, these problems are likely all too familiar. Your costs are continuously rising, but your clearing and compliance infrastructure hasn’t changed. Well I have some good news for you: Bitcoin is going to lower your network and compliance costs by 90%, and I guarantee you will be using it within ten years or less." Continue reading →

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WikiLeaks raises $12,000 in Bitcoin for Edward Snowden’s defense

"Now that he’s found asylum in Russia and faces espionage charges at home, a legal defense fund launched by WikiLeaks has raised over $16,000 to pay Snowden’s legal fees. 75 percent ($12,740 by current exchange rates) of that money came in the form of Bitcoins raised in just the past two weeks. A Bitcoin is currently selling for about $130 on Mt. Gox, the currency’s largest exchange. Over 105 Bitcoins from 144 donors have made their way to a Bitcoin wallet set up by WikiLeaks specifically for Snowden donations. Since they began accepting Bitcoin donations on August 12, the single largest deposit to the account has been an impressive 25 Bitcoins ($2,908)." Continue reading →

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Cody Willard: Game plan for a completely corrupted market

"So, what’s the game plan? It remains the same. You want to remain net long those inflated stocks for at least a while longer, but much less aggressively long than we were two and three years ago when stock prices were much lower. You want to keep buying and scaling into more real physical gold and silver (and a tiny position in Bitcoins too). Coins and bullion that you have stored yourself somewhere safe (not a paper promise, but the real stuff that you can hold). You want to start shorting Treasurys, but not rush into a big position anytime soon. The trends and systems and bubbles we’re seeing in front of us presently can last much longer than most bears thinks possible." Continue reading →

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So you want to invent your own currency

"Our ability to exchange without knowing where things come from blinds us to the real core of the economy: not money, but the physical things we must wrench from the ground by human effort, which is underpinned by agricultural systems, and energised by sunlight, water and soil. The more we abstract and fetishise money as a thing in itself, the more we lose sight of its sources and its goals. We get confused, and feel disempowered relative to those who wield larger flows of it. Sealed off from inquiry in its hermetic shell, money distorts our perceptions of one another. We can’t seem to remember that it is merely one means of exchange among many." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin-friendly Internet Credit Union suddenly dumps accounts: ‘regulatory issues’

"The Internet Archive Federal Credit Union, an experimental financial institution run by the eponymous nonprofit that archives web history, has established itself as a Bitcoin haven. In contrast to traditional banks, which snubbed businesses built around the virtual currency, the IAFCU basically put up a Bitcoin welcome sign. 'These are not drug dealers, money launderers, or whatever. These are average folks,' IAFCU CEO Jordan Modell told Wired. That all changed yesterday, however, when the credit union announced it will be dumping its Bitcoin clients." Continue reading →

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10 Small or remote places that have embraced Bitcoin

"World travelers may occasionally find themselves in a beautiful but also small and remote location and go through the difficult experience of having to deal with foreign currency. But what if there was a business around the corner that accepted Bitcoin? That would completely change the way you live your adventures. Well, in some cases this can happen, as there are actually remote places that know and have embraced cyptocurrency. In other cases, Bitcoin is a reality, but is still waiting to be accepted." Continue reading →

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Following the Bitcoin trail

"Before the paranoid start dumping their Bitcoins, Ms Meiklejohn says that changes could be made to reduce the trail that her group followed. Mixing services, for instance, can take money from one party and return it using entirely an new key. 'Those kinds of services would completely thwart our kind of analysis', she says. But caveat emptor: in the team’s testing of four mixing services, one stole their money and another returned the same key. She says the trust required and volume necessary for mixing simply doesn’t yet exist. The fundamental problem is that 'right now there are not enough ways to buy and sell Bitcoins,' which means that it is difficult to take advantage of the underlying protocol’s anonymity." Continue reading →

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Rentalutions enables US residents to pay rent in bitcoins

"A company in the US is now enabling tenants to pay their rent in bitcoins, which has the potential to significantly increase the currency’s use. Rentalutions was co-founded in Chicago by Ryan Coon as an online property management platform to help landlords vet potential tenants and look after their properties, plus enable tenants to pay their rent and request maintenance work. Landlords signed up with the company have to pay between $5 and $150 per month depending on the level of services they want to receive. Currently, there is no option for landlords to pay these monthly fees in bitcoins, but Coon said he hopes to set this feature up in the near future." Continue reading →

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Why bitcoin has a firm foothold in the online gambling world

"What’s interesting in bitcoin-based gambling sites is how many of them are possibly more transparent than traditional casinos or other online sites. That’s because with the block chain being a public ledger, all that an inquisitive gambler would need to do is follow the transactions from a site’s bitcoin address. It’s no wonder, then, that sites like SatoshiDice show the latest plays being transacted on the site and claim to be 'provably trustworthy'. In addition, some sites even publish how they implement their random number generator. BitSaloon, for example, defines itself as a 'provably fair casino' meaning that the site operators cannot modify the outcome of any particular game." Continue reading →

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