Bitcoin

Casascius Physical Bitcoin: Orders now accepted by invitation only

"On April 1, 2013, I stopped accepting orders for Casascius Coins from the public. I switched my website so orders can only be placed by resellers with prior invitation. I recommend and encourage sales of Casascius Coins by resellers. Over the last month, Bitcoin has become a lot more interesting to the world. Bitcoin prices have skyrocketed. Interest in Casascius Coins has increased substantially for multiple reasons that are seemingly working as a 'force multiplier'. While I’m very excited to see this has happened, for me to be able to satisfy the market demand for Casascius Coins, I will have to make some major changes to the way they are made and shipped." Continue reading →

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Western Union Eyes Digital Currency Services

"The company, once known for telegrams, is now investigating new types of digital transactions and investing in analytics to help the company adjust pricing for its electronic money transfer services. The company is looking at the use of digital currencies like Bitcoin as well as the role Western Union can play in other online transactions, from Internet telephony to video gaming–a far cry from its current business offerings of money transfer, bill pay and prepaid cards." Continue reading →

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CNBC: Bitcoin Bonanza

"They won't make a sound no matter how many of them you try to toss in a bucket, and you can't pitch them in a fountain and wish for good luck. But make no mistake, bitcoins are getting big. The online alternative currency, previously little more than a curiosity in financial markets since its 2009 inception, has zoomed in trading value since the Cyprus banking crisis erupted two weeks ago. With fears spreading that even insured deposits might not be safe in similar nations hit by banking crises, those looking for a haven to store their wealth have fled to the complicated world of digital cash." Continue reading →

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Bloomberg: Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy’s Last Safe Haven

"One of the oddest bits of news to emerge from the economic collapse of Cyprus is a corresponding rise in the value of Bitcoin, the Internet’s favorite, media-friendly, anarchist crypto-currency. Bitcoin thrives where people would prefer to throw in their lot with anonymous strangers instead of the world economy. It’s gold-bug thinking reinvented for an age of fluid transparency and instantaneous transactions. And as such it’s an excellent indicator of anxiety. Where you see Bitcoins in action you find a weird and heady mix of speculative angst, a fear of being left behind, and people who appear to have lost faith in institutions, who feel most left behind." Continue reading →

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Think Twice Before Accepting Bank Transfers For Online Payment

If you're a seller on Ebay or any number of other peer-to-peer commerce sites, chances are you've run into a buyer who either maliciously charges-back the transaction despite having received the product, or a buyer who is operating using someone else's stolen credit card or other financial account. The accepted wisdom is that a bank transfer is the safest payment option to accept, on the basis that it cannot be reversed once it is credited to the recipient's account. Unfortunately, that is not true in the case of ever-increasing online fraud. Continue reading →

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Jittery Spaniards Seek Safety in Bitcoins

"Since Sunday, a trio of Bitcoin apps have soared upSpain’s download charts, coinciding with news that cash-strapped Cyprus was planning to raid domestic savings accounts to pay off a $13 billion bailout tab. Fearing contagion on the other end of the Mediterranean, some Spaniards are apparently looking for cover in an experimental digital currency. That Spaniards would consider converting a portion of their dwindling savings into a peer-to-peer currency vulnerable to wild price fluctuations and the odd thieving Trojan speaks volumes about banking confidence in some parts of Europe." Continue reading →

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Printable 3D Gun Creator Meets Alex Jones

"Alex welcomes crypto-anarchist and law student Cody Wilson who developed and published open source gun designs suitable for 3D printing. http://defensedistributed.com/ The specific purposes for which this corporation is organized are: To defend the civil liberty of popular access to arms as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, through facilitating global access to, and the collaborative production of, information and knowledge related to the 3D printing of arms; and to publish and distribute, at no cost to the public, such information and knowledge in promotion of the public interest." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin: the fastest growing currency in the world

"Bitcoin is an unregulated, uncontrolled online currency – worth more than £500m, it's the world's fastest growing. It can be used to buy drugs, move money across the world, or get rich quick. The people behind Bitcoin speak to the Guardian's James Ball at their home in a squat in central London." Continue reading →

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Man Lists Home for Sale in Terms of Bitcoins

"Taylor More is selling his family's bungalow with an asking price of $405,000 (that's Canadian dollars) or 5,521 Bitcoins. He would rather have the Bitcoins. The two bedroom room and one bath bungalow in Alberta, Canada, sits on 2.9 acres of land along the Crowsnest River. That part of the deal is easy to understand. Why More wants Bitcoins isn't. 'I just really believe in them and once I read my first article about them, I was hooked,' said More, who is 22 and said he used to be a currency trader. 'I can take control of my own money, I don't have to worry about the government stepping in and taking it and freezing my account.'" Continue reading →

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Why Bitcoins Are Just Like Gold

"Bitcoin is gold on steroids, designed for a society that lives through the internet. Bitcoin is designed with the ideals of the contemporary cyber movement in mind: decentralization, peer to peer, cryptography. Easily transferable in ones and zeros, it’s a storage of value for a virtual society. As a payment system, it's a temporal store of money that can be easily sent across the globe securely and speedily without counterparty risk. No matter the price of bitcoin, these benefits will always give it purpose. Given its self-contained nature, it eliminates the need for inherent human interference. There’s no need for a central bank because bitcoin self-regulates." Continue reading →

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