Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Russian Bank “My Bank” freezes cash withdrawals day after Russian Central Bank warns on Bitcoin

According to a report on Zero Hedge, “My Bank,” one of Russia’s top 2oo lenders by assets, has suspended all cash withdrawals.


The lockdown is expected to last for a week.



This news follows the recent statement by the Russian Central Bank warning citizens against the speculative and legal risks of Bitcoin.


The Russian Ruble is experiencing downward pressure from the current “risk-off” environment afflicting emerging market economies. It’s possible this currency situation is responsible for the bank freeze.


MyBank shuts down cash withdrawls to prevent a bank run?

My Bank shuts down cash withdrawls to prevent a bank run?

This story, together with the looming problems in the Chinese shadow-banking sector as well as HSBC’s recent bottlenecking of withdrawals and Lloyd’s ATM-withdrawal “glitch,” are all raising red flags regarding liquidity flows in the fiat financial system.



The IMF has threatened 10% wealth taxes and the German Central Bank recently proposed “one-time” levies on struggling Euro members. Even Canada’s Central Bank has proposed a bail-in regime. Cyprus is seemingly to be the template for future “resolutions” of Europe’s banking crisis. Even Canada’s


The global economic outlook has begun to sour in 2014 as the wild money printing experiments of central banks reach their limits. With the real economy sluggish and all efforts at meaningful structural reform blocked by the very financial agencies central to the problem, the seizure of private wealth is likely to be the system’s last resort.


Alternative forms of wealth like Bitcoin and precious metals, which offer people protection against wealth confiscation, are increasingly frowned upon by desperate governments.


While fiat cash remains a necessary evil for the majority of transactions, bank saving accounts represent an inflation-underperforming and increasingly exposed store of value. Very few bank depositors realise that, under current financial laws across many nations, their deposts are viewed as unsecured loans made to financial companies. As global stock markets appear toppy and bonds, the traditional “safe harbour” investment, bleed credibility due to government debt expanding beyond the mathematical possibility of repayment, good investment opportunities are scarce.


While it remains to be seen how Bitcoin price will fare in such an environment, it’s doing well so far despite negative news. Any further banking fiascos are likely to bring a fresh influx of Bitcoin entrants.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/28/russian-bank-freezes-cash-withdrawals-day-russian-central-bank-warns-bitcoin/



Monday, January 27, 2014

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Sunday, January 26, 2014

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New Bitcoin Features Revealed by Core Developer Mike Hearn

In a video released by IamSatoshi on YouTube, Bitcoin core developer Mike Hearn has revealed a few different new features that are going to be pushed onto the Bitcoin protocol this year.


There are many different upgrades that need to be made to the protocol to keep it secure, cheap, and stable, and the core developers have been working on a variety of different issues over the past few years. As the Bitcoin network continues to grow, it becomes more important to deal with the kinds of issues that could affect the basic integrity of the Bitcoin protocol. Here are some of the upgrades that Mike Hearn talked about in his presentation at the Coinscrum Networking Evening in London:


Bitcoin Wallets Will Be Standardized


While all Bitcoin wallets are able to talk to each other through the Bitcoin network, there are still some compatibility issues that can pop up from time to time. For example, if you’re trying to export a wallet from one Bitcoin client, it may not work when you try to import it into another. The Bitcoin developers are going to standardize the import and export processes to deal with these kinds of issues in the future. Hearn also discussed the importance of implementing these standards before the upcoming release of the TREZOR hardware wallets.


Attachments on Bitcoin Transactions


The first attachment mentioned by Hearn is a refund address for customers who are purchasing a good or service. Sometimes you don’t want to receive a refund at your original sending address, so this should prevent more lost bitcoins in the future. You will also be able to attach memos or messages to transactions, and receipts will also be implemented to offer some form of proof-of-purchase to Bitcoin users.


Transaction Fees Will Float


The current Bitcoin protocol has a minimum transaction fee, and that transaction fee is priced in bitcoins. This means that it has gradually become more expensive over time. You may have noticed that those nearly-free Bitcoin transactions are not so cheap these days. With floating fees, the market will be able to determine the appropriate transaction fee attached to each Bitcoin payment. Hearn also briefly mentioned the idea of the receiver paying the transaction fee rather than the sender.


Routing Traffic Through Tor


Hearn has written about the current issues when it comes to Bitcoin privacy, and it seems like he’s ready to tackle this lingering elephant in the room. It’s definitely important to prevent the prying eyes of government from seeing which individuals are behind certain Bitcoin transactions, but this kind of upgrade is also needed for general security from hackers and other bad actors. Everything about a Bitcoin transaction should be encrypted, and IP addresses should be masked as often as possible. There are some issues with providing “perfect” privacy with Bitcoin, but Hearn talks about some possible solutions near the end of his presentation.


If you’re interested in the implementation of more secure and anonymous transactions on the Bitcoin payment network, then you’ll definitely want to watch the whole video. Hearn goes into detail about the problems of preventing Sybil attacks when traffic becomes anonymous. After all, how do you know if you’re really talking to different users of the Bitcoin network if there are no true identifiers for the users? While other altcoins are attempting to implement exotic features that can grab your attention right away, the core Bitcoin developers are still focusing on the basic features of a secure payment network. These are the features that make the Bitcoin network more valuable than any of the other cryptocurrencies at this time.



Coinkite Simplified Bitcoin Merchant Integration


Coinkite has made it astonishingly easy to accept and pay using Bitcoins in stores. They have created a system that uses the ordinary merchant terminals, that accepts VISA and Mastercard transaction, to include Bitcoin and Litecoin transactions. It takes probably a few more seconds to pay with Bitcoin or Litecoin on one of the merchant terminals, but Coinkite is into something here. They could manage to lower the “adoption wall” for using Bitcoin as personal payment method.


Coinkite makes Bitcoin Purchases so Simple

Coinkite makes Bitcoin Purchases so Simple

We have earlier discussed that PayPal might start using Bitcoin in some way or the other. PayPal, Google, and VISA have been experimenting with merchant terminals that are using Near Field Communication (NFC) via your smartphone to accept payments and pay for products. This might be the next step for service like Coinkite. To make it even more simple than they have managed now.


View the great video from Coinkite below:


My Bitcoin Concern


After viewing this video I got one concern. A concern that we might be witnessing in action now. Since Overstock.com and Tigerdirect started accepting Bitcoin as a payment source, we have seen a big dip and sell-off of Bitcoins as Gordon Geeko wrote about this morning. Even though we have great news from the Bitcoin community everyday, it seems like the price is turning downwards. The concern I have is the following: If big companies like Overstock.com and Tigerdirect immediately sell all their Bitcoins to convert them into USD, we will most likely have a bigger outflow of USD from Bitcoins than vica versa. More money might be pouring out of Bitcoin than in.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/24/4-new-bitcoin-features-revealed-mike-hearn/ & http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/24/coinkite-makes-purchases-simple/



Friday, January 24, 2014

Wells Fargo Hosts “Virtual Currency: Viability, Compliance, & Direction”

Last week, here at CCN we reported on Wells Fargo calling a Bitcoin Summit to discuss “Rules of Engagement” for banks and Bitcoin.


This original private summit was held on January 14th, 2014 and was headed by Jim Richards, the Vice President in charge of Wells Fargo’s financial crimes risk management division. Presumably, at the January 14th summit, Wells Fargo and other banking officials saw a greater need for wider dialogue that included the public.



According to this flyer released by Wells Fargo yesterday, Wells Fargo and Buckley Sandler LLP are hosting a Bitcoin convention on January 28th, 2014 in New York City. The public event, titled “Virtual Currency: Viability, Compliance, & Direction” is limited to 60 seats all of which have since been filled. The lucky 60 participants will get to listen to five panelists speak for 10-15 minutes each and then participate in an audience Question & Answer session. The panelists include Margo Tank of Buckley Sandler LLP, Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures, Jeremy Allaire of Circle Internet, Seetha Ramachandran of the United States Department of Justice, and Fred Ehrsam of Coinbase. The event will be moderated by Wells Fargo’s Jim Richards.


The event has very specific stated goals:


Our panel of experts will weigh in on market trends, investment opportunities, compliance imperatives, and interoperability with traditional fiat currencies. What industries will be disrupted? Which will be enhanced? Particular attention will be given to regulatory compliance, risk management, and policy frameworks.


Whether Wells Fargo officials genuinely are seeking more educated opinions from Bitcoin-involved companies or preparing swift top-down banking regulations behind the veneer of public engagement, remains to be seen.



Wells Fargo and Bitcoin in the past


Wells Fargo, specifically Jim Richards, likely first came in contact with Bitcoin when a joint operation by multiple federal agencies seized 5.5 million USD from a Wells Fargo account owned by Mark Karpeles of Mt. Gox back in early 2013. Money that may or may not have been tied to the infamous Silk Road. From arguably the worst possible introduction to Bitcoin imaginable, Wells Fargo is now positioning itself as a forward-thinking, but still monstrously huge, bank of the people.


Wells Fargo and Bitcoin in the future


Given the long list of pro-Bitcoin speakers represented at Wells Fargo’s event, I have high hopes for this upcoming summit. Even Wells Fargo explicitly allowing businesses that handle Bitcoin to bank with them will have a long resounding effect on Bitcoin and the Bitcoin market exchange rate. Wells Fargo, according to market capitalization, is the largest bank in the United States and happens to be headquartered in San Francisco, an ideal location to capitalize on Silicon Valley’s Bitcoin Infatuation, as INC calls it. The good news is that Wells Fargo clearly recognizes the potential of Bitcoin and does not want to be left behind as the world financial system upgrades. This is in contrast to the anti-Bitcoin stance that some other banks have taken and I hope that any guidance that Wells Fargo comes up for their own branches will be emulated by banks everywhere.



GHash.IO Preventing Accumulation of 51% of all Bitcoin Hashing Power

If you haven’t been living under a rock recently, then you have probably heard about the concern of CEX.io/GHash.IO reaching critical mass and possessing 51% of the total hashrate of the Bitcoin network. Which if came to pass could potentially cause problems for Bitcoin in general. I will not go into what a 51% attack is here, but it is definitely worth learning about if you are at all interested in the future of Bitcoin.


CEX.io Cloud Mining


Well now they have answered our fearful cries, and have put out a press release which explains their intentions of mitigating such a threat. The following is from the release:


GHash.IO, the worlds largest and most powerful mining pool, has entered 2014 with overall hashing power of over 40%, making it the #1 pool currently in the Bitcoin network.


The pool has gained significant hashing power due to the 0% pool fee, merged mining of alt coins, excellent real-time data presentation as well as quality 24/7/365 support service.


The hashing power of GHash.IO consists of:


• ~45% BitFury ASIC based miners

• ~55% independent miners


Although the increase of hash-power in the pool is considered to be a good thing, reaching 51% of all hashing power is serious threat to the bitcoin community. GHash.IO will take all necessary precautions to prevent reaching 51% of all hashing power, in order to maintain stability of the bitcoin network.


We have put a plan in place to see that 51% of all hashing power, will not be maintained by Ghash.IO by executing the following actions:


• We will temporarily stop accepting new independent mining facilities to the Ghash.IO pool.

• We will implement a feature, allowing CEX.IO users to mine bitcoins from other pools. So when they purchase GH/s they can put it towards any pool they choose.


We will not be implementing a pool fee, as we believe the pool has to remain free.


GHash.IO does not have any intentions to execute a 51% attack, as it will do serious damage to the Bitcoin community, of which we are part of. On the contrary, our plans are to expand the bitcoin community as well as utilise the hashing power to develop a greater bitcoin economic structure. If something happened to Bitcoin as a whole it could risk our investments in physical hardware, damage those who love Bitcoin and we see no benefit from having 51% stake in mining.


source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/24/wells-fargo-hosts-virtual-currency-viability-compliance-direction/ & http://www.cryptonerd.co/



Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Bitcointalk User Claims Amazon to Accept Bitcoin

I recently stumbled on this thread on Bitcointalk, about a user who claims they received an email from Amazon saying that the online retailer is currently in talks of creating their own Bitcoin payment processor. As stated on the thread, the Amazon Customer Service Representative had this to say about the prospect of Bitcoin payments on Amazon:


We don’t accept bitcoins as a payment method on our website at this time.


However, I am pleased to inform you that we are in the process of creating our own Bitcoin payment processor and will be able to begin accepting this method of payment in the near future on Amazon.com.



To see if this claim is valid, I contacted Amazon myself. Of course the easiest way to record the conversation is through a Live Chat, but sadly, the results were not quite so shocking.


I was greeted by an Amazon Customer Representative, and the rep provided me with a rather bland reply when the topic of Bitcoin came up. The rep stated, “As of now we, don’t accept it as a payment method, may be in future you can find it as a payment method on our website , we will let you know by email if it will be accepted as a payment method in future.” Knowing the way Amazon’s customer reps operate, it’s obvious they will try to keep their customers as happy as possible without disappointing them in the least. After all, Amazon has coined themselves the ‘World’s Most Customer-Centric Company.’


After I asked, “So there is currently no firm plans in accepting it in the future?”, the rep replied with a simple, “yes”. So, there you have it. Amazon currently has no firm plans of accepting Bitcoin in the near future. Asked if the email posted by a user on Bitcointalk was valid, the reply was this: “We are continuously working on how we can improve and provide you best shopping experience , so it may be a part of it, however when we will accept it officially we will let you know by email.” It may be part of it. Until the uncertainty is out, it seems like Amazon will be Bitcoin-free for at least a few more months, if not a year.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/22/bitcointalk-user-claims-amazon-accept-bitcoin-payments/



Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Kim Dotcom’s Baboom Challenge Spotify with Bitcoin

Internet Entrepreneur Kim Dotcom was recently interviewed by Max Keiser, and the topic of Bitcoin eventually became the focal point of the discussion.


When asked whether or not he was a believer in Bitcoin, Kim stated that the digital currency could become “one of the most important methods of transferring assets over the next decade”. Kim Dotcom’s MEGA accepted bitcoins as payment on their first day of operation, and it would make sense for the Internet tycoon to make similar choices with his other ventures in the near future. With Kim Dotcom and the rest of MEGA team working on all kinds of different projects involving email, encryption, and more, it’s possible that he may be able to leapfrog the competition in various industries by deciding to accept bitcoins right from the jump.


Enter Baboom


Baboom, which is Kim Dotcom’s new competitor to Spotify, enjoyed a soft launch on Monday, but all you can really do with the service right now is listen to Dotcom’s new album, Good Times. While the launch may not seem like a big deal right now, it could have a leg up on other music streaming services when it comes to payments. Bitcoiners have long tried to get Spotify to accept bitcoins for subscription payments, but it doesn’t seem that the music streaming giant is looking to embrace cryptocurrencies at this time. If the full version of Baboom is released to the public in time, we could be looking at a situation where Dotcom is actually able to carve out a bit of the market space for himself. It seems most users don’t see many differences between the current music streaming services, so accepting bitcoins could give Baboom an edge in a certain demographic. It’s important to note that the number of Bitcoiners out there also seems to be growing at an exponential rate.


Bitcoin Business Sense


Kim Dotcom is playing his Bitcoin hand “close to the chest”, but you have to think he would love to accept the cryptocurrency for all of his future online products and services. He’s noted an appreciation for Bitcoin on multiple occasions, so there’s no reason to think he would leave Bitcoin out of the Baboom launch. Even if he wasn’t a fan of Bitcoin, you could argue that it would make sense for him from a business perspective. By being the first business to accept bitcoins in various online industries, he could carve out a chunk of the entire Internet pie for himself.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/21/kim-dotcoms-baboom-leapfrog-spotify-bitcoin/



Monday, January 20, 2014

Mt. Gox Seizures Linked to Silk Road in Fed Testimonies

Last summer, news that federal agents had seized a combined $5M from accounts owned by Mt.


Gox roiled bitcoin markets. The warrants enabling the action cited improper filings when the company opened its bank accounts, including unlicensed operation of a money service business. Yet, written testimonies from federal regulators for the recent Senate hearings on digital currencies indicate the seizures were actually part of the much larger crackdown on online narcotics marketplace Silk Road – insight that presumably had to remain hidden at the time of the seizures due to the ongoing investigation.


Experienced market participants will recall that before and during bitcoin’s meteoric rise in popularity through April 2013, Mt. Gox dominated the exchange landscape with upwards of 70% of global trade volume. News broke the following month that the Department of Homeland Security had executed a seizure warrant for Mt. Gox’s US bank accounts based on the company’s failure to register as a money service business or appropriately indicate activity as an MSB on their bank applications.


Prevailing sentiment at the time leaned towards the notion that the government was actively cracking down on bitcoin companies, starting with the largest. Recent testimonies by federal agencies indicate that the account seizures were in fact related to the multi-year pursuit of Silk Road operators, rather than a crackdown on money transmission infractions for their own sake. In particular, the written statements not aired on television provide additional insight into the motives behind the seizures.


Notably, the statement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) states,


“In May 2013, through an interagency taskforce led by ICE in Baltimore, Maryland, three U.S. bank accounts associated with what was then the world’s largest bitcoin exchanger, Japan-based Mt.Gox, which was moving approximately $60 million per month into a number of Internet-based hidden black markets operating on the Tor network, including Silk Road, were seized for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1960, operating a money service business in the United States without a license. The bulk of the funds were associated with the illicit purchase of drugs, firearms, and child pornography.”


The testimony clearly draws a direct connection between Mt. Gox and Silk Road to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per month, yet still cites a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1960 (money transmitting regulations) as the impetus for the actual account seizures. When a seemingly innocuous section from the testimony by the Department of Homeland Security is added to this, the underlying motive for the seizures become clearer. In particular, the DHS states,


“The USSS is responsible for the forensics and cyber analysis in this ongoing criminal investigation [of Silk Road] and, along with our interagency partners, will attempt to identify the site’s origin and the identity of the site administrator. As a result of this ongoing investigation, approximately $5.5 million has been seized by the USSS and ICE-HSI.”


The $5.5M seized ‘as a result of the ongoing investigation’ into Silk Road isn’t explicitly tied to Mt. Gox by the DHS statement, but when considered in conjunction with other data points it becomes clear that the two are almost certainly directly related.


In addition to being roughly the same amount as the Gox seizures, the statement is in a section describing work done by the Baltimore Field Office (same jurisdiction that issued the seizure warrant), was done in conjunction with the US Secret Service (the agency that pursued the Gox seizures, as listed in the warrant) and also lists the involvement of ICE (the agency that describes themselves as the leaders of the interagency task force behind the seizures in the first testimony cited above).


Looking backwards, it’s clear why the Silk Road connection couldn’t be noted in any court filings that would become public. If federal agents made known at the time that they were actively pursuing Silk Road it could interfere with their ongoing investigation. This also means that, at least in this case, it appears money transmission laws were enforced on Mt. Gox not simply for their own sake, but to gain insight and hinder the capital flow to Silk Road without exposing the larger goal of shutting down the international narcotics marketplace.



source: http://thegenesisblock.com/mt-gox-seizures-linked-silk-road-fed-testimonies/



Mediabistro’s Inside Bitcoins Conference

Inside Bitcoins recently took place in Las Vegas on December 10-11, 2013 and drew over 1,500 attendees from all over the world.


Mediabistro announced that it will be taking the Inside Bitcoins Conference on a World Tour in 2014. On February 12-13 Inside Bitcoins will make its first stop in Berlin, Germany.


Attendees will hear from industry experts including Aaron Koenig, Managing Director of Bitfilm and Organizer of Bitcoin Exchange Berlin; Malcolm CasSelle, CEO of Timeline Labs; Jaron Lukasiewicz, CEO of Coinsetter; Bobby Lee, CEO and Co-Founder of BTC China; Oliver Flaskamper, Managing Director of Bitcoin Germany; and Steve Beauregard, CEO & Founder of GoCoin.com. View the full speaker list.


The program is designed to provide an overview of where the virtual currency industry is today, and a panel of top venture capitalists will discuss what business opportunities are on the horizon. Exciting sessions include Mining for the Future, What Bitcoin Businesses Need to Know, How to Win in the Bitcoin Exchange Ecosystem and Bitcoin in China. Register here to make sure you reserve your spot at Inside Bitcoins in Berlin!


Mediabistro will soon announce firm dates for additional events taking place in 2014 in New York City; Hong Kong, China; London, England; and Las Vegas, Nevada.



source: http://cryptosource.org/mediabistros-inside-bitcoins-conference-is-going-on-a-world-tour-in-2014/



Say hello to 42

42. The answer to life, the universe, and everything…


Except what the maximum amount of coins issued for an altcoin should be. 42 continues the trend of attempting to differentiate itself through the use of gimmicks, rather than adding something of value. The way most of these new coins are marketed is like showing up at an interview wearing a clown suit. It’s funny, novel, whatever you want to call it… But it doesn’t bring lasting success. Gone are the days of new coins adding something of value, or attempting to fix a problem. Welcome to the new world of altcoins.


42 price

42 is only only getting acknowledgement from me due to it’s seemingly high price point and prominent position on cryptsy. Naturally, this coin suffers from a lot more pressing issues than a gimmicky presentation. It had a “small” 1% premine associated with it (.42 coins) which currently represents about 50% of all coins in existence, and is valued at over 300 BTC at the current price. This should throw up a huge red flag, and begs the question as to why anyone would anyone would ever invest in this garbage when there’s so much downward pressure on the price.


As for the coin itself, the design of it is exceptionally poor, even by the low standards set by it’s predecessors. A planned total of 42 coins means that you’ll always be dealing with stupidly small fractions of a number, something that humans are poor at interacting with. Can you imagine going to the store and purchasing something for 0.00000569 42? Me neither. To add insult to injury, 42 only has the standard 8 bits of decimal precision. For a coin dealing with such small units, 12 or 16 bits of precision would been beneficial. But of course, this requires the developer to have some small degree of competency with the code that he is editing, so this feature was naturally left out.


On the subject of developer incompetence, the author claims there is a max of 42 coins ever to be minted. This is not true, as one can look at the source and see that the 0.000042 block reward continues forever, with no end programmed in. However, this coin will be long dead way before it ever approaches 42 total coins, so I suppose it really doesn’t matter in the end.


42 altcoin


As with all gimmick coins, and especially with coins that have a premine, the long term price outlook for this coin is poor. It won’t be long before people get bored before they move onto the ‘latest and greatest’ coin.



source: http://cryptolife.net/the-gimmicks-continue-say-hello-to-42/



Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Russia may outlaw Bitcoin

Russia has proposed a new anti-terrorism legislation that may lay the foundation to restrict internet liberties in Russia. One particular part of the new legislation can seriously hurt cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.


We got an email today explaining it:


Officially it (the new legislation) is aimed at preventing terrorism funding, but it is probably the result of the wide use of “electronic” money transfers for support of political opposition in the recent years. It is proposed to punish (with large fines and imprisonment) all anonymous “electronic” money transfers through the border. Since Bitcoin has no borders, it may be the problem. Anonymous here means anything that it is not overseen by FSB (Russian analog of NSA). The president of the Russian Central Bank said in an interview, when he was asked about the status of Bitcoin in Russia, that “Russia is on the forefront in this area and has been using electronic currencies for many years now”, mentioning Yandex Money and other “internet payments processors”. The interview clearly showed that even the main figure in the Russian banking system does not know enough about Bitcoin as his counterparts does in China.


The part of the new proposed legislation will limit the amount of all “electronic” money transfers by 1000 RUR (30 USD) per day per person and 15000 RUR (450 USD) per month. Because of this it will be hard to withdraw and deposit money into it.


The main problem is that the law doesn’t give any strict definition of “electronic” money transfers. Right now it is defined as “any money transfers that are made by means of the computer and the internet network”. There is also that weird outdated definition of the Internet in the Law that is hilarious, but that’s another story.


I’m afraid that soon our government may simply outlaw things that they don’t (and don’t want to) understand as they did with their flawed internet censorship law. Until now Bitcoin has been in the blind spot, but things may change dramatically. They may even whitelist “internet payment processors”, considering the recent acquisition of the biggest “processor” Yandex Money by the biggest government-owned bank Sberbank, making Yandex Money the main candidate for “the national internet money system” people will be allowed to use.


Link to the article in Russian about the new legislation: http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/21316001/duma-protiv-terrora?full#cut



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/15/breaking-news-russia-may-outlaw-bitcoin-russian-voice/



Australia’s National Broadcaster Does a Story on Bitcoin

Australia’s National Broadcaster Does a Story on Bitcoin




Singapore Declares Bitcoin Taxable

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has stated in an email that gains from transactions in Bitcoin will be taxed as Income Tax, for companies and individuals based in Singapore.


It was also mentioned that if the Bitcoins were held as a long-term investment, then capital gain profits will not be taxed. Also, all transactions where Bitcoins are used as payment for physical money, services, and goods will be taxed if both parties involved are in Singapore.


While this does not mean much for the rest of the world, it impacts Singaporean companies greatly, taking off profit from their goods and services. It also means more regulations on Bitcoin transactions, as the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore would clamp down and track Bitcoin to fiat transaction, to tax them with Goods and Services tax (GST). With only a few countries around regulating the usage of Bitcoin in their respective countries, such as China preventing companies from transacting Bitcoin payments, would Bitcoin survive the tough regulations to come? Bitcoins may be anonymous while it still is in Bitcoin form, but when you exchange them into fiat and withdraw it into your bank account, that amount draws a huge red flag. Governments would be monitoring transactions more closely, and tax everything that does not seem right.


But is there a way to prevent this? There is one obvious solution: keep everything in Bitcoin. By keeping your savings and fiat into Bitcoin as a long term investment, you not only benefit from added anonymously, security, and a rising value and devaluing of fiat, but you also are not taxed on any gains that you make. Maybe one day employees will get their pay in the form of Bitcoin, preventing income tax for some as governments cannot easily track Bitcoin payments to the original senders and receivers. However, countries cannot run without tax money to pay for infrastructure, education, health care, and police, among others. This will save Bitcoiners bottom line from those tedious but necessary taxes, but would effect would it have on our countries and governments? More likely than not, regulations will toughen over the next few years, as young and defiant Bitcoin goes against the forces of a devaluing fiat world. Governments may in the future find a way to identify and tax eligible transaction in Bitcoin. But until then, we can all sleep a little better knowing Bitcoin is truly anonymous, for now.



source: http://cryptosource.org/singapore-declares-bitcoin-taxable/



Avoiding Coins Created With Coingen

Some of you might be aware of a new service launched called coingen, which allows any idiot with about 0.2 BTC to make their very own crapcoin.


Now, some of you might be saying: But Hazard, don’t you create coins for people as well? Well, yes, but the difference is that I’m always available for future developmental work and to fix any problems a coin might encounter. Coingen comes with no such guarantee, which is especially problematic since these coins come with a death sentence attached from the moment they’re created.


You see, coingen was created by one of the oldest bitcoin supporters and exists solely to discredit altcoins. Accordingly, every coin this site spits out has it’s difficulty scaling set the same as Bitcoin – 400% in either direction every 2 weeks. History has shown that this is a laughably bad idea, and that the difficulty will get stuck at some obscenely high value. This causes miners to jump ship and block generation to come to a standstill. At this point the coin is effectively dead, unless a patch is issued. Since all these coins lack a developer, no such patch will ever come. It is therefore inevitable that all coingen coins will be dead within a few days of launch.


In the end, the buyer is left with a dead coin, and the miners have wasted time mining air. Everyone gets screwed – except the coingen operator of course. He makes a nice little profit on the whole ordeal.


Thankfully, coins generated by this site are extremely easy to avoid if you know what you’re looking for. Our of sheer laziness, every coin generated through this site shares the same genesis block, so we can have a quick look at the genesis hash to see if it was created through it. In the debug console (help tab) type in getblockhash 0. If it returns either of the following, it’s a coingen coin:


SHA256 Coins


000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f


Scrypt Coins


12a765e31ffd4059bada1e25190f6e98c99d9714d334efa41a195a7e7e04bfe2



source: http://cryptolife.net/avoiding-coins-created-with-coingen/



Saturday, January 11, 2014

Bitcoin Price Breakout

The trading range Bitcoin found itself mired in for the last few days has finally broken to the upside.


After the fall from $1000 (Bitstamp rate), the Bitcoin price found strong support and bottomed around $800, as suggested in my last trading update.


Bitcoin price then struggled to rise above the 38.2% Fib or $850 level. Now broken to the upside, this level will likely act as support as Bitcoin price currently falls to retest the breakout.


The next immediate challenge is the 50% Fib, which very nearly coincides with the last fractal high at $878. At the moment, price seems to be consolidating between these two levels.


The Bigger Picture


Daily Bitcoin Price on Bistamp with Fibs, Fractals, Support/Resistance/Trend Lines and MACD.

Daily Bitcoin Price on Bistamp with Fibs, Fractals, Support/Resistance/Trend Lines and MACD.

For those of you following my trading, I’m still long. Holding through that trading range was no kind of fun but it paid off. With any luck, Bitcoin price will soon embark on another trip to $1000.


A lot of people have been wondering lately: why price didn’t crash on the GHash worries or jump on the Overstock excitement? Ultimately, it isn’t news which moves the market; it’s people buying or selling which moves the market. Although news has been mostly positive lately (I interpret the community’s effective response to the GHash story as a sign of health), there simply remained a lot of sellers to satisfy before we could move higher.


The Bitcoin Bifrost


Check this out:


4 Hour Log of Gox with Fibonacci Channel

4 Hour Log Chart of Gox with Fibonacci Channel.

This chart is copied from Hypron’s original work on TradingView.


Hypron also made this useful site which lets you monitor the Bitcoin price across (by default) Gox, BTC-e, Huobi and Bitstamp – all on one screen.


By connecting the low points in October of 2011 and 2013, then angling the channel between the 1st recorded low and high, a very interesting channel is formed. A lot of major turning points coincide with the levels formed.


I regularly use Fibonacci levels in my trading and this new Fib channel tool also seems really useful.


If nothing else, this channel shows Bitcoin price remains in a steady uptrend over the long-term. For this reason, I favour long over short trades and this reasoning is more valid the longer the timeframe. A long from a good support held over time is definitely the least risky path to profit in this market.


Update: Potential Bull Flag Forming


Breakout with bull flag pulling back to previous resistance / current support.

30 min. chart showing breakout with bull flag pulling back to previous resistance / current support.

I published this chart about a potential bull flag forming. Currently the topside is being tested. If price decisively breaches the flag, I’d consider that strongly bullish.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/11/bitcoin-price-breakout-trading-update/



eBay Merchant to Sue PayPal

Update: Seems there’s some fishiness going on about this whole deal.


http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1uw282/before_we_get_too_excited_about_the_ebay_merchant/


PayPal is known for being antagonistic towards Bitcoin. The company is known to “sever business relationships” with people who sell Bitcoin products (specifically miners) on eBay, the company that owns PayPal. It doesn’t really seem fair for PayPal to block people from selling Bitcoin mining gear. After all, Bitcoin miners are just specialised computers, and there’s nothing illegal or prohibited in eBay’s terms of service about selling computers. But since Bitcoin threaten’s PayPal’s entire business, it seems a logical (though anti-competitive) move on PayPal’s part.


However, one eBay merchant who goes by the username TerraHasher on Bitcointalk.org has had enough of PayPal’s anti-Bitcoin stance. PayPal has repeatedly frozen his account for selling Bitcoin products on eBay. His plan is to take the online payments company to court.


“I finally got a judge to allow me to file a lawsuit against PayPal, and after complying with the judges request that we send a letter of intent to sue them this week and giving them 2 weeks to reply or resolve the issues. We will be allowed to file a 4 MILLION dollar lawsuit against paypal…


after going from customer service rep, to supervisor, to specialist, to team lead, then finally to manager over the course of 1 hour 30 minutes with nobody giving me any real information. I HIT GOLD, the manager states, your selling bitcoin. i politely reply, ‘no sir, i am not, that is against paypals rules, i am selling specialized hardware which is like a computer but designed for one purpose, and that is hashing on a SHA- 256 encrypted network.’ He replies back, well it’s all the same and bitcoin is direct competition with paypal’s business model therefore we do not condone, anything bitcoin related.“


The PayPal representative outright stated that they do not like Bitcoin because it competes with PayPal. Terra’s account was repeatedly frozen and unfrozen until he finally decided to get his lawyers involved.


“By wednesday afternoon [January 1] my legal team says O.K. this is where we step in, a company cannot hold peoples money hostage because they dont like bitcoin. And the battle begins, their paralegals transcribe every phone call, copy every e-mail print every screen shot, copy hundreds of complaints from srew-paypal.com and paypal sucks.com. The start blasting it everywhere, writing senators, congress people, filing complaints with the DOJ, the FTC, the IC3, the NW3C everybody pretty much, at the same time the file a petition with the court for a ruling on letting us Sue them in court…


…[the judge] then turns his phone around and it is flashing the number 34 on it, as in 34 voice mails. He says ‘you sure know how to ruin a mans weekend, i dont know who you talked to, but i want to see all of you in my courtroom on monday morning and i will rule on your petition…’


This morning we arrive 30 minutes early at the court house and the room had like 15 people in it. The judge comes in, sits down, and says ‘Send them a letter of intent to sue, request that they reply within 2 weeks, if they do not resolve the issue, or reply, i will see this case in my courtroom.’ ”


This story is ongoing and it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds. Personally, I’m rooting for Terra. PayPal has unjustly punished too many of its users in the past and it’s time for a change.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/10/ebay-merchant-sue-paypal-anti-bitcoin-policies/



Reduce Your Carbon Footprint Using Bitcoin

My Clean Sky, an innovative company out of Australia led by CEO Guy Lane, allows users around the world to offset their carbon emissions.


Every time you drive or take a plane from point A to point B, you are creating excess carbon and contributing to global warming. In fact, every minute your computer runs, every time you download the blockchain: Carbon is emitted. Most of us have accepted this fact and don’t think twice about it because not using cars, planes, or computers is not a possibility. For those whom would still like to quiet their burning conscious, My Clean Sky provides an incredibly valuable carbon offset service: Offsetting refers to contractually connecting a client’s carbon footprint with carbon ‘abatement’ projects.


On January 8th, 2014, My Clean Sky announced that they had received their first Bitcoin payment for a carbon offset. A Scandinavian man offset 6.5 tons of CO2 for a total of 0.10223 BTC using Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) generated from a hydropower plant. The particular carbon footprint that said Scandinavian man was offsetting was an international flight: imagine his peace of mind as he slept on that plane!


I was able to catch up with CEO Guy Lane and have this interview to share with you Bitcoiners. While I do not know the exact numbers of Bitcoiners that are also environmentalists, I think we can all agree that Bitcoiners as a lot are much much more forward-facing than the general populace. Consider offsetting your carbon footprint!


Carbon Offsetting Is The First Line Against Global Warming

Carbon Offsetting Is The First Line Against Global Warming

Who is your team?


My Clean Sky is led by myself and several contractors. I have been in the carbon auditing business since 2002 and have established various green businesses over the years. See more about my background: http://www.seao2.com/about/


What is your company’s mission?


My Clean Sky’s name is our mission: to keep the sky clean. Nature knows best, she gave us 275 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, humans have added an additional 125 ppm (over 400ppm now). My Clean Sky’s role is to help clean up the excess and prevent it from getting worse.


What is VCS?


VCS is Voluntary Carbon Standard. This is one of the standards to create quality carbon credits.


http://www.v-c-s.org/


When did this idea first come about?


I was first inspired to become a carbon offsetter in 2003 by a US firm called Planktos. They were conducting experiments to promote marine plankton growth through a process called iron fertilization. They were offering carbon offset certificates called Blue Green Tags (as in Blue Green Algae). That was when I decided to establish an enterprise I tried a few different models before settling on that which I use today.


My Clean Sky was initially launched in 2007, specifically targeting air travel. However, over time we have broadened our focus as we developed more carbon audit methodologies. Now we can offset anything. Our motto is:


If you can emit it, we can measure it and offset it.


We have added some options on the website over the past few days: http://www.mycleansky.net/


Where is this hydropower station located?


Chongquin in central China. In China, most electricity comes from coal. By funding a hydropower station, this provides clean energy that displaces carbon based coal energy. As such, the hydropower station reduces total CO2 produced by the electricity network and earns one carbon credit for every tonne of CO2 it prevents.


Where are you all based?


Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Beautiful one day, perfect the next.


Why do you believe that this is but the first of many transactions in the future?


Every time there is a polar vortex or a major bushfire or drought, the public understands that we have been harsh with the planet and that we need to change. We need to conduct our global affairs in a manner that is consistent with nature – an aspiration is called the Blue Economy. The best solution is to not produce carbon emissions in the first place. However, on a planet powered by coal and oil, that requires a strategic approach towards renewable energy.


In the mean time, My Clean Sky can help mop up the carbon mess.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/10/interview-guy-lane-ceo-clean-sky-pay-carbon-offsets-bitcoin/



Friday, January 10, 2014

AnonCoin

Basic Info


Launched: June 6, 2013

By: meeh (a username on bitcointalk)

Type: POW Scrypt

Supply: 4,2 Million coins

Speed: 3.42 minutes

Retarget: 24 hours

Reward: 4.2 til block 42000; 7 til block 77777; 10 on block 77778; 5 afterwards

Reduction: 50% every 306600 blocks (2 years)

Premined: 1000 blocks

Fees: Same as LiteCoin

Website: https://anoncoin.net//

Source: https://github.com/Anoncoin/anoncoin

Summary


AnonCoin (ANC) goal is to be used on both darknets like I2P, TOR and others, and internet/clearnet. At current moment it works with SOCKS over I2P/TOR. Native support to I2P should be in place soon. It’s a scrypt based coin, forked from Litecoin but still got some nice features from other coins too.

What is Anoncoin?

Anoncoin is a coin with active development support which focus on Anonymity. It was forked out of Litecoin, but have since catched up with the Bitcoin 0.8.5.3 source, and taken it’s own way.

Features (Some will not take effect before protocol switch #3): 3 minute block targets 5 coins, then subsidy halves in 306600 blocks (~2 years) A limit on 4,2 Million coins Native I2P support (Anonymous darknet)

The I2P Network? I2P is a scalable, self organizing, resilient packet switched anonymous network layer, upon which any number of different anonymity or security conscious applications can operate.

I2P is an open source project developed in early 2003 by a group of full time developers with a group of part time contributors from all over the world.

It is fundamental to understand that inside an I2P network the “hidden” component is represented by an application in execution on the node doing, and of course the path followed by the information to reach the destination. Another important concept for I2P is the “tunnel”, a directed path which extends through an explicitly selected list of routers. The first router that belongs to a tunnel is named “gateway”.


Also for I2P a layered encryption model is implemented, known as “garlic routing” and “garlic encryption”, the information transits on network routers that are able to decrypt only the respective layer.

I2P Routing?


When Alice wants to send a message to Bob, she does a lookup in the netDb to find Bob’s leaseSet, giving her his current inbound tunnel gateways.

Alice’s router aggregates multiple messages into a single “garlic message”, encrypting it using a particular public key, in this way only the public key owner can open the message.

For typical end to end communication between Alice and Bob, the garlic will be encrypted using the public key published in Bob’s leaseSet, allowing the message to be encrypted without giving out the public key to Bob’s router.

She selects one of her outbound tunnels and sends the data include of necessary instructions message and with instructions for the outbound tunnel’s endpoint to forward the message on to one of Bob’s inbound tunnel gateways. When the outbound tunnel endpoint receives those instructions, it forwards the message according the instructions provided, and when Bob’s inbound tunnel gateway receives it, it is forwarded down the tunnel to Bob’s router.

Be aware, we have said that transmission is unidirectional, this means that if Alice wants Bob to be able to reply to the message, she needs to transmit her own destination explicitly as part of the message itself.

I2P is end-to-end encryption. No information is sent in clear or decrypted during its path including the sender and recipient. To each node is assigned an internal network address different from the network IP address that isn’t used.

Layered Encryption


The term layered encryption refers to the encryption process used during the transfer from a source to the destination through a series of peers that composes the tunnel.

Both Tor and I2P use layered cryptography. Intermediate entities have only to know how to forward the connection on to the next hop in the chain but cannot decipher the contents of the connections.

I2P is end to end encryption. No information is sent in clear or decrypted along its path, including the sender and recipient. To each node is assigned an internal network address different from the network IP address that isn’t used.

I2P uses cryptographic ID to identify both routers and end point services, for naming identifiers is used the “Base 32 Names” techniques that attributes a SHA256 digest to the base64 representation of the destination. The hash is base 32 encoded and “.b32.i2p” is concatenated onto the end of the hash.

Garlic Routing


Garlic Routing is very similar to onion routing with several differences. Let’s consider first of all that in garlic routing, it is possible to aggregate multiple messages. Another difference from Tor is that the tunnels are unidirectional.

Garlic routing in I2P is adopted mainly in three distinguished phases:

1. For building and routing through tunnels (layered encryption). In I2P communication tunnels are unidirectional; this means that each interlocutor has to create a couple of tunnels, one for outbound and one for inbound traffic. There is also the possibility of a reply from the recipient, therefore another couple of tunnels must be created for a total of four tunnels.

2. For bundling, determining the success or failure of end to end message delivery.

3. For publishing some network database entries.

The Tor network?’

The Deep Web is the set of information resources on the World Wide Web, not reported by normal search engines. It is a network of interconnected systems not indexed having a size hundreds of times higher than the current visible web.

A parallel web that has a much wider number of information represents an invaluable resource for private companies, governments, and especially cybercrime. In the imagination of many persons, the Deep Web term is associated with the concept of anonymity that goes with criminal intents that cannot be pursued because they are submerged in an inaccessible world. It’s fundamental to remark that this interpretation of the Deep Web is deeply wrong.

Tor is the acronym of “The Onion Router”, a system implemented to enable online anonymity thanks to the routing of Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers hiding user’s information.

As usually happens, the project was born in the military sector, sponsored the US Naval Research Laboratory, and from 2004 to 2005 it was supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Access to the network is possible using a Tor client, a software that allows user to reach network resources otherwise inaccessible. Today the software is under development and maintenance of Tor Project. Using a Tor Network a user could avoid his tracing, his privacy is guaranteed by the unpredictable route of the information inside the net and due to the large adoption of encrypting mechanisms.

Connecting to the Tor network

Imagine a typical scenario where Alice desire to be connected with Bob using the Tor network. Let’s see step by step how it is possible.

She makes an unencrypted connection to a centralized directory server containing the addresses of the Tor nodes. After receiving the address list from the directory server the Tor client software will connect to a random node (the entry node) through an encrypted connection. The entry node would make an encrypted connection to a random second node which would in turn do the same to connect to a random third Tor node. The process goes on until it involves a node (exit node) connected to the destination.

Consider that during Tor routing, in each connection, the Tor nodes are randomly chosen and the same node cannot be used twice in the same path.

To ensure anonymity the connections have a fixed duration. Every ten minutes, to avoid statistical analysis that could compromise the user’s privacy, the client software changes the entry node.

Up to now we have considered an ideal situation in which a user accesses the network only to connect to another. To further complicate the discussion, in a real scenario, the node Alice used could in turn be used as a node for routing purposes with other established connections between other users.


A malevolent third party would not be able to know which connection is initiated as a user and which as a node, making the monitoring of the communications impossible.

The Tor client distributed from the official web site of the project could be executed on all the existing platforms and many add-ons are freely available that allow the integration of navigation software in existing web browsers. Despite that the network has been projected to protect user’s privacy, to be really anonymous it’s suggested to go though a VPN.

A better mode to navigate inside the Deep Web is to use the Tails OS distribution which is bootable from any machine without leaving a trace on the host. Once the Tor Bundle is installed, it comes with its own portable Firefox version, ideal for anonymous navigation due to an appropriate control of installed plugins.

The user must be aware of the presence of many plugins in his browsers that expose his privacy to serious risks. Many of these plugins could be used to reveal a user’s information during the navigation.

As said, the resources inside the Tor network are not indexed and is very hard to find them if we are accustomed to classic search engines. The way to search the information is profoundly different due to the absence of indexing of the content. A practical suggestion to new users is to refer to Wikis and BBS-like sites that aggregate links, categorizing them in more suitable groups of consulting. Another difference that the user has to take in mind is that instead of classic extensions (e.g. .com, .gov), the domains in the Deep Web generally end with the .onion suffix.


Be careful, some contents are labeled with commonly used tags such as CP= child porn. PD is pedophile, stay far from them.

The Deep Web is considered the place where everything is possible, you can find every kind of material and services for sale, most of them illegal. The hidden web offers to cybercrime great business opportunity, hacking services, malware, stolen credit cards, and weapons.


We all know the potentiality of the e-commerce in the ordinary web and its impressive growth in last couple of years, well now imagine the Deep Web market that is more than 500 times bigger and where there is no legal limits on the goods to sell. We are faced with amazing businesses controlled by cyber criminal organizations.


Conclusion from the first ref. The article has the main purpose to introduce basics of the two most diffused softwares to anonymize a user’s experiences on the web, Tor and I2P. Their importance is very high; thanks to these networks it is possible to avoid censorship and monitoring. At the moment I have a meaningful experience with Tor networks, its community as said provides a great support for those users that desire or need to be anonymous on Internet.


I believe that despite the fact that I2P has existed about a decade, it is very under-utilized, the presence of a limited community represents in my opinion a brake on its growth.


I have used both and I found both efficiency effective. I tried also to sniff a package using specific software with the intent to disclose navigation data or any reference to the user’s identity, of course without success.


The success of anonymizing a network is related to their diffusion, and without doubt Tor is a step forward, and the more users have access to sharing resources, the faster will be the navigation.

Milestones belong to a series and can be created from the series page by a project owner or series release manager.

There are no milestones associated with The AnonCoin Project

trunk series Focus of Development

Bugs targeted: None

Blueprints targeted: None

The “trunk” series represents the primary line of development rather than a stable release branch. This is sometimes also called MAIN or HEAD.

News


Announcement: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=227287.0

News: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/07/bitcoin-scares-banks-governments

Websites


Main Site: http://anoncoin.net/

I2P: http://anoncoin.i2p/

Tor Link: http://futz4b7tmqzoxnc6.onion/

Wallets

In progress

Exchanges

Only a few major ones are listed here.

Cryptsy: http://cryptsy.com/


Coins-e:http://coins-e.com/


Bter: http://bter.com/

Charts

Criptovalute: http://www.criptovalute.it/anoncoin

Explorers

Explorer.Annon: http://explorer.anoncoin.net/

Altcha.in: http://altcha.in/chain/Anoncoin

Pools

Only a few major ones are listed here.

Coinpool: https://coinpool.in/

Coinpool I2P: http://coinpool.i2p/


Comparison of Pools: https://github.com/Anoncoin/anoncoin/wiki/Comparison-of-mining-pools

Forums

Anoncoin: http://forum.anoncoin.net/

Wiki

Wikipedia:

Wiki:

Merchants


Only a few major ones are listed here.

Lotto: http://lotto.anoncoin.net/

Main List of Merchants: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade



source: http://coinwik.org/AnonCoin



Thursday, January 9, 2014

Yahoo Infects 2 Million European PCs with Bitcoin Malware

For four days last week Yahoo’s European servers were the equivalent of a cyber Typhoid Mary, spreading disease to anyone who came near. Yahoo was the victim of a major security breach, which caused its servers to send out millions of malware-laden ads to an estimated two million European users.


Suspicions were first raised by Dutch security outfit Fox IT, which estimated that Yahoo’s servers were responsible for 27,000 malware infections every hour the malware was live on Yahoo’s website.


Yahoo confirmed the embarrassing attack in a statement:


“From December 31 to January 3 on our European sites, we served some advertisements that did not meet our editorial guidelines – specifically, they spread malware.”


The statement went on to point out that mobile users and Mac users were not affected, as the malware apparently targeted Windows systems, The Guardian reports.


Bitcoin mining malware was involved


One rather interesting aspect of the attack was that it involved bitcoin mining. The malware would start using infected PCs as mining rigs but it is still unclear how many computers were infected. Although the average PC with an integrated graphics processor is virtually useless for bitcoin mining, tens of thousands of PCs laden with mining malware could produce some results.


In late 2013 German police arrested two hackers who were charged with spreading mining malware to several networks and an undisclosed number of PCs. Following a preliminary investigation, authorities concluded that the duo managed to mine over €700,000 worth of bitcoins. Since they did not have to invest in mining rigs, or pay the electric bill for that matter, it seemed like a very profitable endeavour – until they were raided by the GSG-9, Germany’s elite counter-terrorist police unit.


Little is known about the bitcoin malware served by Yahoo. The German hacker-miners appear to have used a custom version of readily available malware, tweaking it to include a mining scrip and evade detection.


Cyber criminals and bitcoin


Developing and spreading bitcoin mining malware is not easy and with a rapid increase in hash difficulty it will soon be a thing of the past. PCs have not been viable bicoin mining platforms for months and the only way to make any cash on PC bitcoin mining is if you don’t have to buy the hardware or electricity. At this point a network of average PCs will waste more energy generating bitcoins than the bitcoins are worth. Of course, malware is one way of doing it.


In addition to mining malware, some malicious developers have devised a new form of ransomware. The number of bitcoin ransomware detections is going up and the trend was first noticed in the second half of 2013. Ransomware has been around for two decades, but bitcoin is making it a lot more alluring for malicious developers. The software encrypts all content on infected computers and instructs the victims to pay a ransom for the unlock key. Cryptolocker’s ransom is two bitcoins, or about $1,700.


There are a number of different ransomware models that could evolve to use bitcoin. Security experts have also voiced concerns that mobile ransomware could become a major security risk in the near future.


What makes bitcoin so valuable to cyber criminals?


Aside from the sheer value of stolen or illegally mined bitcoins, anonymity is probably the main reason hackers are embracing bitcoin. Renting a botnet costs money and bitcoin is perfect for untraceable transactions between two parties that don’t want to share their identity. The same is true of ransomware – using bitcoin to receive a ransom payment makes sense.



Acquiring specialized software, proprietary hardware, zero-day exploits and other tools used by hackers requires quite a bit of cash. Contrary to what most people think, many hackers do not operate alone. Although there are still plenty of ‘lone wolves’, the cybercrime ecosystem has evolved.


Like any economic entity, it has a hierarchy and what could only be described as division of labour is taking hold. In other words, many hackers are specializing in different niches and cybercrime syndicates are becoming more sophisticated, with a structure similar to traditional criminal syndicates or even legitimate businesses.


As bitcoin is ideal for paying accomplices and funding the whole operation, it is bound to see more use in the murky waters of the deep web.



source: http://www.coindesk.com/yahoo-infects-2-million-european-pcs-bitcoin-malware/



China's answer to Amazon, Alibaba, bans Bitcoin

Internet retailer forbids trading in the virtual currency as China attempts to tighten currency controls.


Alibaba, the Chinese internet retail giant, has banned the use of Bitcoin, the virtual currency that shot to prominence last year, the latest step in a nationwide crackdown.

Taobao, Alibaba’s third-party online marketplace, was ordered to shut down Bitcoin trading by China’s central bank, after a growing number of merchants began to accept it.

China enforces strict controls on its currency, the renminbi, and the growing popularity of Bitcoin has become problematic for the state.

Thousands of wealthy Chinese citizens are believed to have used Bitcoin to circumvent the country’s strict capital controls, threatening the government’s attempt to control the renminbi.

BTCChina, the country’s biggest Bitcoin exchange, was forced to stop taking deposits by the central bank last month. This was expected to send the value of the currency in China falling, although it has remained resilient, as Chinese users find alternative ways to use it.



source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/10558945/Chinas-answer-to-Amazon-Alibaba-bans-Bitcoin.html



Singapore issues tax guidance on Bitcoins

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has laid out tax advice regarding the purchase, sale, and exchange of Bitcoins for local businesses and individuals.


In response to queries from Coin Republic owner David Moskowitz, the IRAS provided guidance on how to treat Bitcoin in regards to income tax and goods and services tax (GST).


Under the advice provided by the IRAS, if a Singaporean business offers the buying and selling of Bitcoins, they will be subject to taxation on the gains made on the sale of Bitcoins. However, if the Bitcoins form part of the business’ investment portfolio, the IRAS considers the gains from any sale to be capital in nature and not subject to taxation.


For GST, however, the situation is a little more complicated. Selling Bitcoins in return for goods or services is considered to be subject to GST. If the seller is GST registered, they will need to account for this in the course of their business activities.


The exception to this is in the form of virtual goods, such as in virtual gaming worlds, to use the IRAS’ example. These are not subject to GST until they are exchanged for real services or goods.


Bitcoin itself is not considered a good, nor does it qualify as money or currency, according to the IRAS and under Singapore’s GST Act. Instead, the supply of Bitcoins is examined under GST and varies according to how the service is provided.


“If the company merely facilitates and is acting as an agent in the Bitcoin trade (eg, Bitcoin exchange transfer Bitcoins directly to the customer’s wallet), GST is chargeable only on the commission fees received. However, if the company is acting as a principal in the Bitcoin trade (eg, buys and onward sells Bitcoins to the customer), GST is chargeable on the full amount received, ie, the sale of Bitcoins and commission fees.”


Singapore’s GST Act already indicates that if the business supplying services belongs to another country, then the entire supply shall be deemed to have been made outside of Singapore. The IRAS states that this would mean that GST would not be imposed.


The full email response from the IRAS to Moskowitz is available on Coin Republic.



source: http://www.zdnet.com/singapore-issues-tax-guidance-on-bitcoins-7000024966/



LEALANA Physical Litecoins

If you have been into cryptocurrency for any amount of time, then you have surely heard of LEALANA Physical Litecoins.


LEALANA Physical Litecoins offers high quality and great looking physical Litecoins and Bitcoins in a wide variety of sizes. Check the link at the bottom of this article for a glimpse at these works of art.


We recently caught up with Noah Luis, owner of LEALANA, better known as Smoothie in the Bitcoin and Litecoin communities, who shared a little about himself and his great company with us.


Lealana

Noah ‘Smoothie‘ Luis is a 30 year old tech entrepreneur who resides in Kea’au, Hawaii. He was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii. Smoothie found out about Bitcoin through a Youtube channel named Davincij15.


Being that he has a background in software development, computer support, and a deep interest into the monetary system and precious metals, Bitcoin was right up his ally.


He started off mining in May 2011, and went down the “Bitcoin rabbit hole” and never looked back.


Smoothie started LEALANA Physical Litecoins in July 2013, which then morphed into LEALANA Physical Bitcoins and Litecoins.


His business sells a physical set of coins that store Bitcoins and Litecoins as a way for people to hold something that is naturally digital. The coins are a representation of his passion for precious metals and technology as well as the hope that his coins will indeed help people understand what cryptocurrencies are.


LEALANA is a reputable company, who compared to most, have been in this game a long time now. We hope you will take the time to check out their awesome products.


Links:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=315440


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=243341.0



source: http://www.cryptonerd.co/



Crapcoin of the day: Bitbar

There are some coins out there that don’t need (or deserve) a full length article to tell you how awful they are.


Perhaps the finest example of this is BitBar. Bitbar has the honor of having the largest premine/instamine in the history of cryptocurrency, putting even coins like megacoin and feathercoin to shame. Take a look:


The graph really speaks for itself. More than 6 months later, the amount generated during those first few hours still represents an astonishing 45% of all bitbars in existence.


In total, BitBar breaks 5 of the 7 rules (Anatomy of a ScamCoin). Only #3 and #4 do not apply to it.


This coin, or bar if you will, was released way back in the altcoin frenzy of April, and at one point reached price parity with bitcoin (1 BTB = 1 BTC). As if that wasn’t foolish enough, the real question is, who the hell is paying 0.09 BTC per bitbar right now?


As a note to end on, bitbar was promoted heavily by a user named TruCoin. If you go through his posts, you’ll find all sorts of outlandish things, the least of which was the claim of having developed a hybrid USB/ASIC for under $5000.



source: http://cryptolife.net/crapcoin-of-the-day-bitbar/



Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Monday, January 6, 2014

Bitcoin Documentary, Bankers Worst Fear.

Thank you for watching this documentary.




Stanford Seminar - BTC: Bitcoin, a New Value Chain in China

Topics in International Technology Management: “New Value Chains and the Rise of Open Innovation in Asia.”


This series examines the impact of new technologies on industry value chains. Focus is placed on Silicon Valley-Asia connections and on the processes of open innovation that are co-evolving with the new value chains. Lectures feature distinguished speakers from industry and government.




Bitcoin won't replace dollar

2013 has been a gamechanger for the first digital currency Bitcoin – and, increasingly, people are expecting it to go mainstream.


Free of government regulations and using peer-to-peer principles – so no middle men – it was once considered the currency only for the tech-savvy. But its price went through the roof this November after the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve said the currency may hold long-term promise. With us now to discuss the future of Bitcoin is Patrick Murck from the General Counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation.