Bitcoin-Artikel in englischer Sprache

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Ben Lawsky to Deliver Bitcoin Keynote at Money20/20

http://www.coindesk.com/ben-lawsky-deliver-bitcoin-keynote-money2020/

 

Erst Anfang November 2014 ! So lange wird der Regulation-Limbo andauern:

 

The revised BitLicense proposal should be published by the end of October.

[coco]

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/29/bitcoin-circle-cryptocurrency-jeremy-allaire

 

Bitcoin goes mainstream: Circle's payments make cryptocurrencies easy

Better funded, more secure and taking on Paypal head-on, the forthcoming wave of bitcoin firms are trying hard to make the currency mainstream

[-J-U-N-K-Y-]

Bill Gates had great things to say about bitcoin, Bloomberg interview:

 

 

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/video/bill-gates-bitcoin-is-exciting-because-it-s-cheap-dQ4qHV4~TLSnUIuIRfZBVA.html

[azu393]

Bill Gates had great things to say about bitcoin, Bloomberg interview:

 

 

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/video/bill-gates-bitcoin-is-exciting-because-it-s-cheap-dQ4qHV4~TLSnUIuIRfZBVA.html

irgendwie hat dein link nen fehler bzw. es ist die mobile version -> kommt auf dem normalen pc net so gut...

 

hier eine normale fassung:

 

Bill Gates: Bitcoin is better than currency

http://www.cityam.com/1412327050/bill-gates-bitcoin-better-currency

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Bitcoin Price Catalysts: When and Why the Price Will Rebound

http://btcgeek.com/bitcoin-price-catalysts/

 

Bitcoin’s price has been falling again as it enters a more serious bear market. The price has fallen more than 40% in the last 30 days and almost 10% in the last 2 days. Let’s take a look at some of the factors that are causing a price drop and what it would take to reverse this.

Bitcoin Mining

Contrary to the popular claims, Bitcoin isn’t deflationary, but in fact, has a significant inflation right now. It will become deflationary around 2140 when all the 21 million Bitcoins would have been mined. For now, the supply of Bitcoins is constantly on the rise through mining rewards. Justified or not, mining will always exert a downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price, as miners need to sell their Bitcoin to recoup their initial hardware investments.

It’s easy to do the math: currently, the mining rewards are 25 Bitcoins per block, with a block produced every 10 minutes, approximately. This means 25 Bitcoins every 10 minutes, 150 Bitcoins every hour or 3600 Bitcoins per day. This is a total of 1314000 Bitcoins every year! That’s a significant amount of inflation, and has been going on for quite some time already. At the current market price of around $300/Bitcoin, that’s a whopping $394 million!

The immediate catalyst is going to be around August 2016 when Bitcoin mining rewards halve. You can track this date with Bitcoin Clock if you wish. The current estimate is August 2016. Since it takes ASICs a significant time to provide a return on investment now, I anticipate an upward price pressure several months before this date, but it is still almost a year away.

Since the last block reward halving back in 2012, the network difficulty has continued on an exponentially increasing curve. It is hard to predict the effect of this significant date on mining (we might even see a drop in mining difficulty, something that has been very rare in Bitcoin’s 5 year history) but it is very likely to push up the price.

Silicon Valley Investments

Silicon valley has poured a lot of money into Bitcoin startups, almost being reminiscent of the 90s when a lot of money was poured into internet companies. Even though the ensuing bubble burst, it was healthy for the internet as a whole. More than $250 million has been poured into technology startups by venture capital funding. Even if a lot of them go bust and don’t live up to the hype, the few that end up surviving will become central to the growth of Bitcoin and the Bitcoin ecosystem.

It usually takes startups anywhere from 5 to 10 years to mature into serious companies, so this will have a longer term impact on Bitcoin and its adoption throughout the world. As these companies mature, they will take on the burden of promoting Bitcoin to a wider user base and should help in pushing the price of Bitcoin up as well. At this stage, the price of Bitcoin doesn’t seem to reflect the potential of these companies.

Merchant Adoption

Merchant Adoption is a double edged sword which helps Bitcoin grow in the long term but in the short term, exerts a significant downward pressure on the prices, as more and more merchants sell Bitcoin in the open market and convert them into fiat through payment processors like BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin. Some companies like Overstock have promised to keep a part of their Bitcoin revenues in Bitcoin and not convert to fiat, while many merchants just look at Bitcoin as an easy way to gain some publicity.

In the longer term though, if Bitcoin becomes more mainstream, it could generate economic activity without being converted into fiat at all. The holy grail of course is to have an end-to-end economy operating completely within the Bitcoin ecosystem. This might take more time, but as more and more companies start accepting Bitcoin, more of them might like to keep a part of their revenue in Bitcoin and use it to do business with another entity that also accepts Bitcoin.

For instance, Bitcoin payroll is a promising use of a firm’s Bitcoin revenues. Employees have several reasons to get paid in Bitcoin, from investment to speculation to curiosity to financial privacy. They will be less likely to convert their Bitcoin immediately to fiat, as if that’s what their intention was, they wouldn’t ask to be paid in Bitcoin in the first place.

Merchant adoption gives Bitcoin legitimacy in the eyes of mainstream customers and is needed for the long term health of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Wall Street Involvement

There has been a lot of talk of Wall Street getting seriously involved in Bitcoin but only a few companies are even taking Bitcoin seriously at this stage. There are too many questions surrounding Bitcoin to the establishment of financial industry and they are unlikely to jump onboard anytime soon. However, that could change in a few years as they understand the cryptocurrency better.

Any Bitcoin financial instruments will be interesting to watch, and I think the Bitcoin ETF will be a significant price catalyst if it gets approved. In addition, an ETF will give other financial institutions an incentive to buy and trade in Bitcoin. The market potential with Wall Street is huge, but there remain many uncertainties as well, including regulatory.

Wild Cards

There are a few wild card events that could push Bitcoin’s price up. By their very nature, these events are hard to predict, but they are the low probability high impact events. I’ll touch on a few of them briefly.

• Financial crisis: Another financial crisis is possible, or just a market crash/correction. It’s hard to predict the how it might impact Bitcoin, but it seems to be positive.
• Hyperinflation: If some country experiences hyperinflation, Bitcoin can provide an substitute to be used as money.
• Autonomous Blockchain Entities: Software entities that exist completely on the blockchain might provide useful economic activity that would provide a Bitcoin only economic zone (See Dawn of Autonomous Corporations).

Bearbeitet 5. Oktober 2014 von segeln

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Overstock.com Seeks To Build New Stock Market

http://bitcoinmagazine.com/17110/overstock-com-seeks-build-new-stock-market/

 

Dies ist der nächste "Angriff" auf die Finanzwelt. Sehr interessant,ambitioniert aber nicht aussichtsklos.

Bearbeitet 7. Oktober 2014 von segeln

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Why Are Bitcoin Prices So Low?

http://www.dailytradingprofits.com/1296/why-are-bitcoin-prices-so-low/

 

What bitcoin is doing to finance, it can also do to these 7 industries

http://upstart.bizjournals.com/companies/innovation/2014/10/06/bitcoin-disruption-in-industries.html

hier der Originalblog dazu:

Bitcoin`s killer apps

http://blog.chain.com/post/99177371581/bitcoins-killer-apps

 

Mal sehen,ob @ngt das hier findet und liest      

 

Very bullish !!!!!!

Bearbeitet 7. Oktober 2014 von segeln

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Bitcoin Price Drop: The Hysterical and the Level-Headed Among Us

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112688/bitcoin-price-drop-the-hysterical-and-the-level-headed-among-us

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Bitcoin Ebola GFC ISIS: Phase Two is Begun

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article47622.html

[ngt]

Mal sehen,ob @ngt das hier findet und liest

 

Very bullish !!!!!!

Nach Deinem zarten Wink mit dem Zaunpfahl - tatsächlich gefunden!

Und wirklich interessant!

 

Der hier geht in eine ähnliche Richtung:

 

http://time.com/3476313/can-bitcoin-save-journalism/

 

Ich frage mich, warum nicht z.B. Spiegel Online seine Premium-Artikel über eine ChangeTip-artige Plattform vertickt. Das wäre eine Möglichkeit, auch für den Kunden einen echten Mehrwert beim Einsatz von Bitcoins zu schaffen. Die Wertschwankungen spielen in so einem Kontext keine so große Rolle.

Bearbeitet 7. Oktober 2014 von ngt

[bicmac1973]

Mal was zur Legendenbildung beim Bitcoin im Zusammenhang mit der Epic Wall am Sonntag: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102070437#

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Why Apple Pay Is a Threat to Bitcoin

http://www.coindesk.com/apple-pay-threat-bitcoin/

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Here comes the internet of Money

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-soapbox/here-comes-the-internet-of-Money

 

 

Apple Pay And Digital Currency Mean Time Is Running Out For Physical Cash

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/apple-pay-and-digital-currency-mean-time-is-running-out-for-physical-cash/

 

 

 

Is Apple Pay a bitcoin killer?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101988826

Bearbeitet 14. Oktober 2014 von segeln

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We Can Police the Dark Web / Bitcoin 

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article47751.html

 

Currencies / Bitcoin Oct 15, 2014 - 05:05 AM GMT

By: Bloomberg

 

Ben Lawsky, Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, spoke with Bloomberg TV's Trish Regan today on the future of Bitcoin and virtual currencies on the internet and the ability of law enforcement to police their use as they become more anonymous.

When asked whether the dark web can really be policed, Lawsky said: "Yeah, I think so...I think prosecutors will eventually bring the hammer down if these sites are being abused and people are dealing in illicit drugs, just like they would do if it was happening in the real world, not the virtual world."

 

 

Lawsky spoke on cyber hacking and cyber security, saying "[this is] the most important issue we deal with for the remainder of this year and throughout 2015." He said, "It is an enormous threat. I don't think regulators and prosecutors alone can solve it. It's got to be something we do in collaboration with industry and the firms themselves. We have to work together. We have to spend a lot more money. We have to take it a lot more seriously, and we have to pull out all stops, and we have to be really imaginative about how bad it could get. And that's not a fun thing to do. It actually keeps you awake at night."

On Bitcoin regulations he would like to see put in place, Lawsky said: "We'd like to see consumer protection. So when people entrust their money to a bitcoin wallet or a bitcoin exchange or another service, that we don't have a situation like we had in Japan last year with Mt. Gox...We want to see sufficient cyber security to prevent terrible hacking, and we want to see enough capital requirements on the entities themselves so they don't collapse under their own weight."

TRISH REGAN: The superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services Ben Lawsky joins me now with more. Ben, in regular society you can operate on a cash basis. Shouldn't you be able to do the same maybe online?

BEN LAWSKY: Look, I think the fear that people have and the fear that law enforcement has with something like virtual currencies or the use of Tor is that it's very hard for example to travel overseas with $5 million in cash. It would be virtually impossible to do that. If you don't have the right protections though for the online world, you could see someone who wanted to engage in illicit activity, someone who wanted to fund terrorism, engage in other types of money laundering, could easily ship millions of dollars overseas.

REGAN: Is in fact bitcoin that anonymous that a terrorist could send millions of dollars to another terrorist in another part of the world with not being tracked?

LAWSKY: It's interesting. Bitcoin is not exactly anonymous because any kind of transaction in bitcoin goes on the block chain. And we could talk for a long time --

REGAN: The block chain is basically -

LAWSKY: A ledger.

REGAN: The ledger.

LAWSKY: An online ledger.

REGAN: That is not actually linked to names but to IP addresses.

LAWSKY: Correct. So law enforcement can do a pretty good job usually of finding out who's on the other end of virtual currency transactions It gets harder when someone is deliberately trying to disguise their identity using other kinds of technologies like tumblers, et cetera. But --

REGAN: And there is a community of people that are working very hard to make sure that the government can't actually detect their identity. There's something, an open source code peer-to-peer project known as the Dark Wallet, and in this project it's being designed in order to make bitcoin 100 percent anonymous.

LAWSKY: Look, there are people who definitely want to be anonymous. And some people want their privacy for perfectly good reasons. Some people want their privacy and to be anonymous for perfectly bad reasons. And I think that's what makes it hard. As regulators, we want to allow the online world to flourish, software to develop, entrepreneurs to innovate. And there are many good things that bitcoin, should it develop, could bring. At the same time, you have to do it in a way that does something about the people who want to do bad things with the anonymity that they would enjoy.

REGAN: Well I don't know how you stay ahead of this because it's - it's an environment where people are constantly trying to innovate. Let's talk for a minute about Silk Road, which had been called the eBay of drugs. The government shut it down last year and the alleged creator is in federal prison awaiting trial next month. What was interesting in this case is that instead of the fed serving as a deterrent, we've actually seen this huge increase in the number of sites online, everything form Evolution to Agora to Silk Road 2.0, and these sites have gotten more aggressive than Silk Road in terms of what they're selling. It's a whole lot more than just illicit drugs. Can you ever really police the dark web?

LAWSKY: Yeah, I think so. I think prosecutors - I'm not a prosecutor. I used to be one. But I think prosecutors will eventually bring the hammer down if these sites are being abused and people are dealing in illicit drugs, just like they would do if it was happening in the real world, not the virtual world. But you're right. They run behind and it's a question of how quickly can they catch up.

REGAN: What regulations would you like to see put into place for bitcoin?

LAWSKY: Well in the first instance as a regulator, we'd like to see consumer protection. So when people entrust their money to a bitcoin wallet or a bitcoin exchange or another service, that we don't have a situation like we had in Japan last year with Mt. Gox collapsing where the entity that was holding people's bitcoin basically just disappeared. It was in Japan. There was no regulator. There was no regulation and it just basically went away. So I think we want to see consumer protections. We want to see sufficient cyber security to prevent terrible hacking, and we want to see enough capital requirements on the entities themselves so they don't collapse under their own weight.

REGAN: Look Ben, these are all fair points and fair issues and they're issues that we're dealing with not in the cyber world necessarily but in the real world here with bank accounts like JPMorgan. Something that this takes us to here is this rise in illegal cyber activity. We've been covering this JPMorgan story obviously very carefully and closely here at Bloomberg, and according to our sources the hacker who raided the data on the banks at JPMorgan used computers that are now linked to possible attacks of at least 13 more financial companies. So again I get back to how can you police this? You're dealing with this obviously with bitcoin, but you're also doing with it with people's accounts at places like JPMorgan Chase.

LAWSKY: Yeah. The cyber hacking issue and cyber security I believe will be the most important issue we deal with for the remainder of this year and throughout 2015. It is an enormous threat. I don't think regulators and prosecutors alone can solve it. It's got to be something we do in collaboration with industry and the firms themselves.

REGAN: So the two of you work together.

LAWSKY: We have to work together. We have to spend a lot more money. We have to take it a lot more seriously, and we have to pull out all stops, and we have to be really imaginative about how bad it could get. And that's not a fun thing to do. It actually keeps you awake at night. But I think we need to sit around and game out all the possible really bad ramifications that hacking can lead to, prepare for them, and then hope they don't happen.

REGAN: Do you blame Tor at all, which I began this segment? It's known as the Onion Project and it's basically a browser that people can download onto their computers that makes them totally anonymous. It was created by the government in fact to be able to do a little cyber snooping themselves on terror activity and now it can be used by anyone rendering them entirely or mostly anonymous.

LAWSKY: I don't think I'd point the finger at any one person or place. I think that there are so many different sources for the cyber attack problem and I think we need to do just a lot better as regulators but also for the financial industry to really do something to prevent these attacks in the future.

REGAN: Ben Lawsky, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services. Thank you very much for your time

 

 

edit:Fettung und Colorierung von mir

Bearbeitet 15. Oktober 2014 von segeln

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Lawsky: Bitcoin Developers and Miners Exempt from Bitlicense

http://www.coindesk.com/lawsky-bitcoin-developers-miners-exempt-bitlicense/

 

Bitcoin developers, miners and individuals using bitcoin will generally not be regulated by the impending ‘BitLicense’ proposals, according to Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department Financial Services (NYDFS).

Speaking at the Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law, New York, Lawsky clarified that many individuals and companies working within the bitcoin space will not need regulatory approval or a BitLicense to operate in New York State.

“We are regulating financial intermediaries. We are not regulating software development,” he said, adding:

However, Lawsky stressed that companies involved in safeguarding customers’ money will not be exempt. “We do not, for example, let someone run a bank out of their garage,” he said.

“To clarify, we do not intend to regulate software or software development. For example, a software developer who creates and provides wallet software to customers for their own use will not need a license. Those who are innovating and developing the latest platforms for digital currencies will not need a license.”

 

 

Banking and tech ‘collide’

According to Lawsky, the banking industry and the tech industry are starting to “collide” and create new challenges for regulators.

The NYDFS was forced to operated with money transmitter regulations drafted at a time when there was no Internet or cryptocurrencies, he said, explaining that the department has an obligation to license and regulate such companies.

On a positive note, Lawsky said the NYDFS quickly recognised the potential of block-chain technology:

The technology has the potential to provide cheaper fees and remittances, he said.

 

 

 “As we began looking at bitcoin last year and getting deeper into it, we began to see the power of the technology that underlies it.”

 

New York residents who send money abroad usually pay fees of 8-9%, while digital currencies could operate with fees of about 1%, Lawsky pointed out. Digital currencies do not require people to disclose their credit card information and offer faster transactions, he added.

 

Lawsky clarifies provisions

The NYDFS started working on the first controversial BitLicense drafts following the fall of Mt Gox, earlier this year, said Lawsky.

The comment period for the original proposal was extended following requests from industry leaders. The revised proposal will take those comments into account and, once published, a new comment period for the revised regulation will begin.

He made it clear that the NYDFS does not intend to request more than once license for digital currency businesses and, in most cases, they will not have to obtain money transmitter licenses. Like developers, individual bitcoin users will not be affected by the regulation.

Lawsky went on to dismiss a number of criticisms of the original proposal as unsubstantiated, saying they were the result of misunderstandings.

One complaint alleged that banks would not have to comply with the new regulatory framework, but that is only true if banks do not choose do deal in digital currencies, he explained.

Regulation with benefits

Lawsky also addressed speculation regarding the department’s position on bitcoin mining:

“Mining per se will not be regulated. To the extent the miner engages in other virtual currency activities, however – for example, hosting wallets or exchanging virtual currency – a license may be required for those activities. For mining itself, there will be no license requirement.”

 

 

The NYDFS will also try to keep compliance costs down, he said, thus allowing startups to thrive.

In his speech, Lawsky conceded that some companies may choose to operate from unregulated jurisdictions to avoid the state’s regulatory requirements, but if they chose to do so, such companies may end up sacrificing competitiveness.

He explained:

“Our hope is that companies recognize, or at least some of them do, that appropriate, effective regulation will help create a race, not to the bottom, but to the top; that it will foster greater confidence and trust from both customers and investors who want to do businesses committed to customer protection. That will spur a cycle of greater adoption of virtual currencies.”

 

 

It is possible to innovate, play by the rules and make a profit at the same time, he concluded.

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Banks, Not Startups, Will Need a BitLicense in New York

http://dcmagnates.com/banks-not-startups-will-need-a-bitlicense-in-new-york/

 

Benjamin Lawksy, superintendent of financial services of New York, said on Tuesday that the state will not require developers of digital currency software to take part in its proposed licensing regime, commonly known as the “BitLicense” plan.

“We are regulating financial intermediaries. We are not regulating software development,” Lawsky said in a speech at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. “To clarify, we do not intend to regulate software as software or software development. For example, a software developer who creates and provides wallet software to customers for their own use will not need a license.”

The “BitLicense” plan, which is expected to unveil at the end of the month,  includes proposed rules on consumer protection, the prevention of money laundering, and cybersecurity. When it was first conceived many in the digital currency community warned that it might hurt New York as an innovation hub as developers will flee the state if strong and costly regulations will be applied to them. This statement seems to show the states regulators understand that risk and take it seriously.

While companies that are developing wallets or other software for virtual currencies will not need a license, nor will individual users, banks will not be exempt. “The banks we regulate cannot start providing virtual currency services without prior approval from DFS (Department of Financial Services), and they will be have to comply with any requirements that are otherwise imposed on virtual currency businesses,” Lawsky said.

Bearbeitet 15. Oktober 2014 von segeln

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New York’s Bitcoin Regulations May Not Kill Startups After All

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/bitlicense/

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BitBeat: Lawsky Outlines Changes to Bitlicense

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/14/bitbeat-lawsky-outlines-changes-to-bitlicense/

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INSIGHT: Why The Next 5 Years Are Make Or Break For Bitcoin

http://digitalmedia.strategyeye.com/article/XkquKrhRnA/2014/10/15/insight_why_the_next_5_years_is_make_or_break_for_bitcoin/

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Opinion: The NYDFS’ Proposed Regulations May Get Better, But It Won’t Be Enough

https://coinreport.net/opinion-the-nydfs-proposed-regulations-may-get-better-but-it-wont-be-enough/

In a speech a few nights ago at Cardozo law school, Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the NYDFS and official most directly responsible for the proposed “BitLicense” regulation that we’ve written about previously, did his best to dispel concerns about the upcoming regulations. For a more thorough reading of his speech, you can read our article on the subject by my colleague, Katherine Fletcher.

In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at the message behind the speech, which I feel can be summed up, not too unfairly, as follows – “We aren’t trying to hinder the development of Bitcoin – we’re simply trying to protect consumers from this dangerous new technology, and make new businesses play by the same rules as everyone else.”

 

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MintPal's Missing Bitcoin 'Essentially the New MtGox'

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mintpals-missing-bitcoin-essentially-new-mtgox-1470805

Around 3,700 bitcoins have allegedly been stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange MintPal and are being held in a personal wallet belonging to the firm's former CEO Alex Green.

The true identity of Green was called into question last week, with some claiming that he was in fact known-scammer Ryan Kennedy. In response, Green has issued a statement admitting that he had legally changed his name from Ryan Kennedy in what he described as "an attempt to start my life over and have some peace".

 

Related

• Moolah Founder Alex Green: 'My Identity is Irrelevant'
• Alex Green Quits Troubled Moolah and Bitcoin ATM Seized
• The Demise of Dogecoin: Disputes, Death Threats and Depreciation

 

It has been claimed by some within the cryptocurrency community that under the name of Ryan Kennedy, Green previously formed the company Crypto.pm and subsequently stole investors funds.

"He claimed to have suffered a heart attack and received death threats, similar to the serious health problems and death threats Alex Green claimed to have experienced, and then disappeared," Jackson Palmer, creator of the digital currency dogecoin and long-time critic of Alex Green, said in a file released last week to expose Green's past.

"According to comments in a scam accusation thread on Bitcointalk, he was accused of taking over 500 BTC."

MintPal situation the equivalent of a 'nuclear bomb'

Under his new identity Green formed Moopay, the parent company of Moolah and MintPal, and has now announced that the company is entering liquidation following the passing of a winding-up resolution.

The latest claims that Green has stolen 3,700 bitcoins - equivalent to $1.4 million (£0.87m) - from MintPal customers and is keeping them in a personal wallet were raised by former Moopay employee Eoghan Hayes.

"What happened to MintPal is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on a city, and a two-man hazard crew consisting of Mike and Ferdous (MintPal's primary shareholders) are now in charge of the clean up - and attempting to follow the trail of a 3,700BTC transaction from MintPal, which is now accused of being lodged into a personal account of Ryan Kennedy," Hayes said.

Palmer has described the MintPal debacle as "essentially the new MtGox", referring to the embattled Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed earlier this year.

Ben Doernberg, former member of the Dogecoin Foundation, has echoed these sentiments, saying in a recent interview that Green appeared to be a pathological liar.

"I believe he is flailing wildly trying to avoid legal consequences for the many crimes he has been accused of committing," Doernberg told Cointelegraph.

MintPal fall-out

MintPal is no longer controlled by Green and the firm have issued several statements on Twitter to address the issue of the missing funds and to encourage customers to contact UK Action Fraud.

Green is yet to respond to a request for comment from IBTimes UK but has issued his own statement in a blogpost released by Moolah on Sunday.

Claims that funds have been stolen were not addressed, but a "giant technical oversight" was cited by Green for the reason Moopay had been "bleeding funds from the core platform". 

"I do not believe I can ever apologise enough to customers of MintPal, investors in Moolah, third parties who trusted us, and the general digital currency community at large," Green said in a blogpost on Sunday.

"This situation should have never occurred, and I intend to never again take a position of leadership in a financial-related company of any kind.

"I do not expect that the general populace will believe anything I have said here, and as the sole director of Moopay, I fully intend to cooperate with any and all law enforcement and regulatory agencies as required.

"I am shocked and upset that this has happened, and I am fully aware that I deserve the general sentiment in relation to me. Again, words cannot express how sorry I am. I will be taking any and all possible action in order to mitigate the damage caused by this event, in turn likely caused by poor management by myself.

"And yes, I know sorry isn't good enough. I know I have f****d up on a catastrophic level. There should have been better procedures in place."

 

 

• •  

 

 

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Bitstamp: Unverified Bitcoin Accounts at Risk as Deadline Looms

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112761/bitstamp-unverified-bitcoin-accounts-at-risk-as-deadline-looms

 

zum Schluss im Artikel die Sätze, den ich voll unterschreibe:

Meanwhile, rational individuals understand that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies will eventually have to find their way into the regulatory framework of whatever nations that will allow them to be traded or used. Thus, the fact that exchanges like Bitstamp are seeking official permissions to trade and deal in virtual currencies is an ominous one indeed.

Regulation may not be liked or even approved of by most of the crypto community, but if virtual coins are ever to be taken seriously by the masses, regulations could become a necessary evil at least on some Level.

 

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More Bitcoin Companies Shut Down, Lose Customer Funds

http://www.coinsetter.com/bitcoin-news/2014/10/20/bitcoin-companies-shut-lose-customer-funds-1695

The Bitcoin community has been rocked by yet more companies shutting down, and losing customer funds. These possible scams mean that yet more people in the community will end up losing money. Last week, two major players in the space seem to have disappeared or became uncommunicative – Moolah/MintPal and Bitcoin Trader. Both these companies seem to have similar elements to the MtGox saga, although at a much smaller scale. These episodes also underscore the importance of good, solid companies in the Bitcoin ecosystem that help support the adoption of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

 

These incidents highlight the importance of transparency in Bitcoin companies and the need for vigilance by the community members before entursting their Bitcoins to a third-party. The use of multi-signature wallets should ease some of the more obvious scams in the future, as companies should be able to provide the same services without actually holding the sole ownership of Bitcoins and without the ability to transfer ownership of customer funds single-handedly.

 

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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Shares His Vision For The Future Of Bitcoin

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/21/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-shares-his-vision-for-the-future-of-bitcoin/

 

 

 

Bitcoin: US’ Next Unwinnable War? (Op-Ed

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112768/bitcoin-us-next-unwinnable-war-op-ed

 

 

 

Will Hammer is the Libertarian Party candidate for the 6th Congressional district in Virginia. He is currently running against an 11 term incumbent Republican with no Democrat in the race. Will hopes to bring another voice to the discussions in Washington and represent the ever growing group of Americans identifying as independents as well as the views of the growing Bitcoin community. “The only special interest Will will serve is you, the individual,” reads Will’s official website.

 

 

If elected, I will champion for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, fighting to keep it out of the regulatory reach of the Federal government. The internet and cryptocurrencies are some of the last frontiers of freedom, and we need to ensure that they stay those bright beacons of our remaining freedom.

 

 

@mustermax, our libertarian

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Bearbeitet 21. Oktober 2014 von segeln

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Why 2016 Will Be The Year of Bitcoin 2.0

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2016-will-be-the-year-of-bitcoin-2-0/

 

There are many reasons for optimism for Bitcoin owners and enthusiasts. Bitcoin is starting to gain a steady flow of mainstream acceptance (See corporations like The United Way, Dell Computers and ESPN integrating Bitcoin into their business offerings).

Innovations in wallet and exchange technology appear on a weekly basis. And the USD value of Bitcoin has rebounded numerous times from the annual drop in value of this still nascent currency market.

Yes, I know Bitcoin price has lost around 50% of its USD value this year, but as I explained previously in the article “Why Bitcoin Value vs The Dollar Doesn’t Matter (and never will)”, things are going to change in Bitcoin’s favor soon enough. As with anything truly great and revolutionary, the best is yet to come, and you should expect spectacular results. It took almost 25 years for Steve Jobs and Apple to come up with the iPod, which exploded Apple into a global technology superpower, and not just a niche computer company. “Colonel Sanders” of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame had to wait until he was retirement age to see KFC become a household name. Bitcoin is just in Year Six of its gestation, and many are just impatient. Many just want it to rule the world now, and are willing to sell out its core virtues in order to do so. Have a biscuit. Relax. Read an Andreas Antonopoulos Bitcoin book. Good things come to those who wait.

Today, I’m going to update you on a couple of benchmarks that should add many brighter days to “The Future of Money”. One is obvious, and one more insidious to our mainstream economic brothers, which may tilt things in Bitcoin’s favor. Many in western society see Bitcoin as a high-yield investment and won’t accept it as anything more than that. Fine. That is a very narrow scope, but Bitcoin has something for everybody, so let’s look at its future investment value potential going forward.

 

2016: The Year of Bitcoin 2.0

2013 was an incredible year of growth, with the height of Mt Gox trading bots and the desire of mainland Chinese flooding into the market in demand unabated at least initially. Bitcoin USD values rose from $13 at the start of the year to almost $800 by year end. Logic dictated that this level of growth couldn’t continue, and needed correction. Mt. Gox’s collapse and the Chinese government handled that. Now levels are much legitimate, and the future is still fraught with plenty of growth potential, as I’ll show here.

The first sign up ahead that will be a boon is the halving of Bitcoin production is 2016. Anyone with 5th-grade levels of economic understanding will agree that when you cut production or availability of an asset in half going forward, the economic value of that asset must go up in the future, if all other things remain equal. With Bitcoin acceptance and ownership only showing consistent growth over the last five years, there is no reason to foresee a drop in demand. It may level off; it may continue to grow, but a significant drop in demand is not in anyone’s crystal ball, even the most ardent of naysayers. Bitcoin has built a solid foundation of adopters who are spreading the word across the globe. Nation states are attracting more attention to Bitcoin through “The Streisand Effect” by condemning Bitcoin rather than letting nature take its course. The more people hear about Bitcoin versus common fiat currencies, the more people see the intrinsic value of a fully digital currency not directly governed by any centralized force. Bitcoin is in the right place at the right time. The only real question is how far does this rocket go upward? Governments seem only strong enough to create black markets locally, and/or move mainstream adoption to more freedom-based locals. Bitcoin is not designed to be directly assaulted by centralized interests.

So the coming future halving of Bitcoin production in about two years is going to be a boon to the overall value of each unit of measure. And an even greater catalyst looms in relation to the overall fiat currency markets. The dollar is having its own issues as I’ve gone over before, so it should be understood that the clock is ticking on that front. But what about in Europe, another emerging hotbed of Bitcoin growth?

The E.U. (The European Union) has been quite the impressive failure, at least as far as currency value and employment stability in the affiliated countries is concerned. Italy is dealing with unemployment levels for people 15-24 years of age at well over 40%. Greece has seen major economic collapse, forcing a series of handouts. And Cyrus was a beta test for a future of worldwide “bank bail-ins”, where it is deemed legal by the government to allow bank deposits to be raided by insolvent institutions at a rate of 50% of deposits held. Stealing from the citizenry is done for “The greater good”. If banks collapse, they might have to pay for their incompetence and/or unethical business practices, and we can’t have that, now can we?

During the beta test for this criminal act made legal, when Cyprus bank depositors were ripped off to protect the wealthy, Gold prices in March of 2013 were hardly affected. Bitcoin price rose from less than $20 March 1st to over $135 at the end of March, an almost 700% increase in USD Bitcoin price. Those locals affected headed for cover into the emerging Bitcoin market. Considering the fact that a mere $500 million Bitcoin market, at the time, is easily swayed by a swift influx of new money, it’s not hard to understand the explosion in value. So consider that a warning shot of what is to come. Beta test: Successful.

Now look towards 2016. The E.U. and its corrupt/insufficient economic policies have been so ineffective that they have let it be known that a massive “bail-in”, call it “E.U. Bail-In 2.0″ is coming for January 2016. How it will work is any deposit over 100,000 Euros will be absorbed by the bank. They’re proud of it! Aren’t they so clever?Trust them, it’s for their own, I mean your own good. At least they are telling you up front that they will steal Europeans’ money. I see this as a small step forward for them, ethically. You have been warned that the E.U economic system is failing, and you have plenty of time to respond to this theft in plain sight.

In Cyprus, citizens were robbed while they slept, like the Indianapolis Colts did to their city in moving to Baltimore 30 years ago, under the cover of darkness, and away from any local media/public scrutiny. It was business. Nothing personal.

The context here is if a very small country like Cyprus going under financially can cause over 600% of growth for the USD Bitcoin value, and no movement in the Precious Metals markets, what would the entire E.U. proving to Europeans that they are insolvent do for Bitcoin value going forward? If that isn’t a hint and a half that fiat currencies are on their last legs, nothing is. The governments and private banking interests they are beholden to are basically daring you to move your money out of E.U. banks into anything else. They don’t think you have any other choices but to bend over and take what new levels of corruption they give to you. Government and private financial institutional arrogance, plus corruption, equals potential exponential growth for Bitcoin in the future. Why not let experience be my guide? It’s better than some bureaucrat that’s in bed with a central banker. 2016 will be the Year of Bitcoin, at least from where I sit. If you have the heart to be a long-term player in Bitcoin, you will reap the rewards.

Of course, this is all just pie-in-the-sky speculation. Seek your investment advice, but what do you think this future mega bail-in means for the E.U., for the Bitcoin price, and for the future of fiat currency vs. Digital currency? .