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2014-01-31 14:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1351]}

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SinglePoint, Inc. Announces Development of Mobile Payment Systems for the Cannabis Industry

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/singlepoint-inc-announces-development-mobile-140000052.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

PHOENIX, AZ--(Marketwired - Jan 31, 2014) - SinglePoint, Inc. ( OTC : SING ), a state-of-the-art mobile technology and full-service mobile marketing company, announced today that it has developed a fully functional mobile payment system branded for the Cannabis and Medical Marijuana Industry -- Mobile Cannabis Currency. Concurrently SinglePoint is developing point-of-sale mobile payment systems for use by cannabis dispensaries. This system is based on payment technologies used in the field for other business applications. SinglePoint also provides text message marketing and notifications. This will enable cannabis establishments to send out messages informing their clients of the latest inventory and new products or services. Due to the nature of the industry, SinglePoints' mobile marketing technology -- the opportunity to market directly to their target market -- will be a large benefit to Cannabis and Medical Marijuana providers. Last week, the National Cannabis Industry Association applauded U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's commitment to ensure banking institution accessibility for the cannabis industry. In the meantime, Singlepoint is exploring alternative methods to capitalize on the boom, including implementation of acceptance for non-cash payments via prepaid debit cards, virtual wallets, and virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. Greg Lambrecht, President of SinglePoint states, "We are very excited to be preparing this product for the cannabis industry, the medical use of which is now legal in 20 states and quickly spreading along with recreational use now legal in Washington and Colorado." Alan Brochstein, financial analyst, writes, "Marijuana companies [stock prices] rose more than 50 percent in 2013 and opened 2014 with a bang, rising almost 150 percent in just three weeks." To see Greg Lambrecht's interview with MoneyTV on this topic click HERE About SinglePoint, Inc. Headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, SinglePoint, Inc. is a state-of-the-art mobile technology company and full-service mobile marketing agency. We operate a best-in-class mobile commerce and communication platform specifically designed to serve the needs of the non-profit community as well as for profit companies. We make any campaign instantly interactive via the mobile phone. This functionality allows our clients to conduct business transactions, accept donations and engage in targeted communication campaigns with their customers/donors through any mobile devices. Send more messages, create more awareness, and raise revenues and donations. For more information see www.singlepoint.com Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward- looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.

2014-02-01 17:53:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [146]}

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Dogecoin Is On A Gigantic Tear, And It's Not Hard To See Why

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dogecoin-gigantic-tear-not-hard-175305144.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

dogecoin Dogecoin The digital currency that started as a joke is now one of the biggest digital currencies in the world. Dogecoin — which is like Bitcoin but inspired by the absurdist Doge meme — now has a "market cap" of $62 million according to CoinMarketCap.com . When Rob Wile told the story of how Dogecoin came together back in December, the value of all extant Dogecoins were just $8 million . And it's not hard to see why Dogecoin is taking off. The community has done cool things, like help send the Jamaican Bobsled team to the Olympics . The community is also helping send athletes from India to the Sochi games. Meanwhile, the community is incredibly motivated and evangelical, but not in an annoying way. After I tweeted yesterday about the surging value of Doge, a bunch of its fans instantly offered to tip me a bunch (give me some of theirs): @tipdoge tip @TheStalwart 10 #Dogecoin #ToTheMoon — JD Raimer (@jdraimer) January 31, 2014 @tipdoge tip @TheStalwart 50 doges, thats how we got there buddy — Enigmatic (@ThatDudeMatic) January 31, 2014 @tipdoge tip @TheStalwart 8.0085 doge — Adjam (@JollyJap3s) February 1, 2014 @tipdoge tip @TheStalwart 20 doge — Lord Matt of Sealand (@_DragonFiesta) February 1, 2014 When I've written about cryptocurrencies in the past, I've argued that an important facet of them is as a social network . A social network as you think about it (like Twitter or Facebook) only has value because lots of other people you know are using them. The technology itself can easily be copied. It's the same with digital currencies. It's the social aspect and network affects that creates the value, since the actual code is easily replicated. The Doge community isn't likely to become a "mass" thing, but it seems to attract fun people that are into doing cool things. It's not that weird to see why it's taken off so much. More From Business Insider Kicking Bill Gates Off The Board Is The Best Thing Microsoft Can Do Amazing New GoPro Footage Shows What Felix Baumgartner Saw During His 128,000-Foot Space Jump How To Find Out If Your Gmail Was Hacked Why Amanda Knox Is Completely Innocent And The Italian Justice System Is Utterly Insane 24 Things Millennials Need To Realize About The Real World

2014-02-02 07:11:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [261]}

{}

Boldly Go Where No Crypto Has Gone – Star Trek SciFi Coins Exchange Launches

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boldly-where-no-crypto-gone-071100117.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

The SciFi coins community has launched a new SciFi Coins exchange. February 2nd, 2014 / On Saturday the 25th of January 2014, the first science fiction focussed cryptocurrency exchange www.scifi-ex.com launched; allowing science fiction fans worldwide to trade Bitcoin and Litecoin for new Star Trek fan based currencies Gold Pressed Latinum, Klingon Empire Darsek, United Federation Credits, UFO, and Battlestar Galactica inspired Cubits. The SciFi coins website states that their mission statement is “To boldy go where no crypto-coin has gone before…”. The goals of the SciFi coins’ team is “To provide exposure for sci-fi themed crypto-coins and cross trading opportunities for these. To seek out new community members that share such passion for all things sci-fi and wish to join others in the crypto-coin/commodity movement. To open new markets and trading opportunities for all goods and services with the transaction based on a sci-fi coin. To encourage community unity and meaningful growth. To Live long, and Prosper.” While the SciFi coins community may seem to take a light hearted approach, their coins are serious business; they are excited to see how their coins will be utilized by the online science fiction community in future, as a medium of exchange. Colonial Treasury Cubits (QBT) is a SHA256 based coin, while The United Federation of Planets Credit system (UFC) is blake-256 based, with the Klingon Empire Darsek (KED) being a scrypt based coin. As the cryptocurrency ecosystem worldwide continues to explode in popularity, niche coins serving specific communities, such as the SciFi Coins, most likely have a bright future. With their dedicated dev team, supportive community and the launching of their very own SciFi Coins exchange; the SciFi Coins community is just getting started on their own journey to seek out strange new worlds. To trade on the new SciFi Coins exchange please go to: https://www.scifi-ex.com To learn more about the SciFi Coins please go to: http://www.scificryptocoin.org/ Story continues Visit the SciFi Coins forums at: http://scificointalk.com/ Visit https://www.scifi-ex.com for more information. Contact Info Name: SciFi Coins Organization: SciFi Coins Email: info@scificryptocoin.org

2014-02-03 10:15:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [5004]}

{}

Europe’s ‘Ogre of Deflation’ Is Rapping at the Door

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-ogre-deflation-rapping-door-101500374.html

The Fiscal Times

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/

All eyes on the European Central Bank this week. Its Governing Council meets Thursday in Frankfurt, and ECB President Mario “Whatever It Takes” Draghi will have to announce an historic interest rate cut if he is to earn his middle name and fend off a crippling case of Japanese-style deflation. Analysts continue to mince words, but for my money the deflation battle was joined at the end of last week, when Eurostat, the E.U.’s number crunching agency, announced that annualized consumer price inflation fell in January to 0.7 percent , from 0.8 percent in December. Reuters had previously polled the markets and produced a forecast of 0.9 percent. So the eurozone is heading in the wrong direction faster than investors had thought. Related: Why the Global Economy Could Go Off the Rails in 2014 Deflation sets in when prices cease rising and begin to fall. But zero, well to remember, is a mathematical notion . (The Indians claim to have invented it, but they borrowed from the Babylonians, and the Mayans had already figured it out independently.) The eurozone is not technically in deflation, but Eurostat has just told us it is deflating. Draghi, then, has no business waiting for the 18–member zone’s “zero” moment. Action then would come far too late. Look at it this way and Thursday’s session in Frankfurt is not a hard call. The ECB dropped its benchmark interest rate to an historic low of 0.25 percent last November. That same month, the eurozone’s CPI tipped south and has not stopped falling since. More is needed, plainly. So in another way zero will matter greatly when Draghi convenes his crew: The central bank has to put both feet into the monetary-stimulus game and give the eurozone a zero percent interest rate. People in the markets are divided—some expect this to arrive Thursday, some next month—but there is near-unanimity that it is Draghi’s next move . Related: Mitterrand’s Shadow Looms Over Hollande’s Efforts The good old ZIRP, zero interest rate policy, is an obvious thing to do in the eurozone context. It is not exactly uncharted territory: The U.S. and Japan have both been there, done that. Draghi is staring secular stagnation in the face. Overshooting—prompting hyperinflation—cannot be among his worries. The thought of a bubble—well, let us say he should be so lucky if a modest one came along right now. Story continues Draghi appears more given to interest-rate cuts than quantitative easing, and it is not clear why. I follow Wolfgang Münchau , the Financial Times commentator, on this point: There are no risks for Europe now, and the strategy brings down long-term interest rates, which is what Draghi wants to stimulate a sustainable recovery. The U.S. and Japan have proven the point. The FT printed a good graph after Eurostat released its data last Friday, showing price changes in the U.S., Japan, and Europe over the past year. You can see just when the Fed started talking about the “tapering” policy (down went inflation) and when Ben Bernanke, then the Fed’s chairman, told the markets nothing too precipitous was in the plan (up it went again). In the Japan case, the chart is a kick. You can spot the very day (April 4) Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda announced that the BOJ was expanding asset purchases to $1.4 trillion over the next two years. Japan was deflating at nearly 1 percent at the time. The central bank announced last Friday that inflation reached 1.3 percent in December. Related: Emerging Markets Rout a Reality Check for Davos Elite Japan’s two-year target for sustained inflation is 2 percent. So is the eurozone’s. Historically, Japan shares with Europe an absolute phobia on the inflation question, reflecting periods of uncontrollable price rises in the past. (The Weimar years in Germany are an obvious example.) This in part explains why the BOJ seemed to sit on its hands for more than a decade of deflation before it got with the program. Draghi cannot now afford to fight the last war in the same fashion. The man does say some odd things. At the Davos gathering last month he told the assembled that Europe was in for “dramatic improvement” in 2014. He professed confidence that the eurozone would meet that 2 percent inflation target. On what grounds, this confidence? Draghi spoke exactly a week before Eurostat reported the January number. In hindsight his remarks read like either happy talk—very disconcerting at this moment—or complacence. At the same confab, Christine Lagarde spoke more forcefully about the “ogre of deflation,” as she called it. It is far more to the point. Europe started this year knowing that modest gains reported in third-quarter 2013 marked the beginning of the truly hard work, the end of nothing. Committing to a vigorously expansionary monetary policy is a good first step, though it will be the first of very many—and in no way the hardest. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: And the Nobel peace Prize Goes to…Edward Snowden! The Pope’s Views on Inequality Test Obama’s Mettle Bitcoin: The Future of Money or Flash in the Pan?

2014-02-03 23:30:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3727]}

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Was RadioShack’s Funny Super Bowl Ad Just a Giant Waste of Money?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/radioshack-funny-super-bowl-ad-232900624.html

The Fiscal Times

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/

While the broader market was plunging, shares of RadioShack ( RSH ) surged more than 3 percent in trading Monday, buoyed by optimism that the company’s Super Bowl advertisement signaled that better times lie ahead for the struggling retailer – a sentiment that some think is premature. In its ad, Radio Shack used irony and humor to fess up to the long-held perception that it isn’t relevant to modern consumers. The spot opens with a clerk answering a phone and then saying: “The 80’s called. They want their store back.” A slew of ‘80s stars such as wrestler Hulk Hogan, Cliff Clavin from “Cheers” (actor John Ratzenberger), rappers Kid ‘n Play and gymnast Mary Lou Retton appear in the store while Loverboy’s 1981 hit “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend” blares in the background. The stars of yesteryear proceed to ransack the store and clear its shelves of VCRs, boom boxes and radios. Then they rip out the shelves too. The self-effacing ad ends with a look at a modern Radio Shack store with displays promoting more contemporary tech gear. (Watch the full version of the ad below.) The commercial earned kudos from media outlets such as People magazine, Advertising Age and Entertainment Weekly . CNN’s Jeff Pearlman called it “pure commercial genius.” Some observers of the company, though, are less impressed. “It was kind of a waste of money,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush, who rates the shares as a sell. “People are overly optimistic. Yes, it’s clever but people aren’t going to go out and buy anything” because of it. The ad underscores CEO Joe Magnacca’s huge challenges in drawing in new customers, some of whom haven’t gone to a Radio Shack since the Reagan administration, to venture into one of its 4,400 U.S. stores. It won’t be easy. Related: Super Bowl XLVIII: Can Celebrities Break Through the Ad Clutter? For one thing, Radio Shack has loads more competitors, ranging from Walmart to Best Buy, that weren’t an issue during its heyday. Pachter expects the chain to shutter underperforming stores as it seeks to right its financial ship. Magnacca, the company’s fourth CEO in about five years, has tried to revive the brand by changing the company’s colors, overhauling the design of its stores and changing its merchandising. Last year, the chain opened a new concept store in Manhattan’s Upper West Side as a showcase for new gadgets made by Apple and Samsung while at the same trying to reduce its dependence on smartphones. None of these efforts has gained much traction. A spokesperson for Radio Shack couldn’t be reached for comment. Story continues Radio Shack shares have tumbled more than 23 percent over the past year, even as the market hit record highs. And despite Monday’s jump, they may have further to fall. The stock is currently trading above analysts’ average 52-week price target of $2.41. Wall Street analysts who follow the company expect it to report an 11-cent per share loss in the December quarter and 30 cents a share during the March period. Revenue is forecast to drop 13.2 percent in the fourth quarter and 3.2 percent in the first. The company, which has suspended its dividend, got loans of about $835 million ahead of the critical holiday season. The financing gives Radio Shack some breathing room but the company still isn’t out of the woods financially. Morningstar analyst Liang Feng noted that the stores are “burning cash at a fast pace.” “They are on a short time line,” said Feng, who dropped coverage of the company last month, in an interview. “They need to need to convince consumers that they have changed.” Unfortunately, one Super Bowl ad — as clever as it may be — can’t undo decades of consumer experiences. Top Reads From The Fiscal Times: Bitcoin: The Future of Money or Flash in the Pan? Why the Global Economy Could Go Off the Rails in 2014 Credit Card Hack Attacks Reach a Tipping Point View comments

2014-02-04 14:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [198, 318, 420, 502, 530, 779, 919, 1005, 1152, 1254, 1433, 1459, 1520, 1597, 1745, 1971, 2020]}

{"Bitcoin": [43]}

The Nymi Announces a Secure and Accessible Bitcoin Wallet

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nymi-announces-secure-accessible-bitcoin-140000143.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - Feb 4, 2014) - Bionym's wearable tech device, the Nymi, takes the first steps towards becoming the modern version of the traditional wallet. The Nymi will release with a Bitcoin wallet as one of its initial applications. The Nymi will use its ECG-based multi-factor security system to make Bitcoin transactions not only more secure, but also more accessible. As an emerging digital currency, Bitcoin functions on a peer-to-peer network of computing nodes. To participate in Bitcoin, a user must have a Bitcoin wallet, which contains a public and a private key. The public key allows anyone to deposit funds into the account. The private key allows the account owner to send funds out to different accounts. The private key is a prize for hackers. For Bitcoin to truly become more accessible, a robust security system needs to be established in order to protect it. To function securely, the Bitcoin network relies on relatively complex software that requires configuration. If Bitcoin is to become a widely used currency, its network needs to become more accessible to the general public. The Nymi is uniquely situated as a Bitcoin Wallet. A key advantage of the Nymi's technology is that it will be able to generate outgoing Bitcoin transactions without ever exposing the private key to the outside world. The Nymi also provides a simple, convenient and accessible way for Nymi owners to engage with the Bitcoin network. The Nymi Bitcoin Wallet will replace the complexities of setting up a Bitcoin account with a user-friendly, secure interface. A secure, accessible Bitcoin Wallet could change the future of the digital currency. Yevgeniy Vahlis, Bionym's Chief Cryptographer, says, "People don't know where their Bitcoin funds are stored, and who can access them. The Nymi's wallet application makes the answer clear: the wallet is physically stored on the Nymi. The Nymi's multi-factor system, including its ECG biometric, ensures secure Bitcoin storage tied to the rightful owner." The Bitcoin Wallet will be one of the first applications for the Nymi, and will be available with each device upon the Nymi's release. The Nymi can be preordered now at www.GetNymi.com . View comments

2014-02-04 19:49:21+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [35, 355, 1182, 2043]}

{"Bitcoin": [20]}

Paranoid about Your Bitcoin? This Wristband Protects It with Your Heartbeat

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paranoid-about-your-money-this-wristband-protects-your-75601270392.html

Yahoo Tech

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/

If the news anchor who flashed his Bitcoin gift certificate on air and had it promptly stolen taught us anything, it’s that you need to be careful where you store your budding digital currency . On Tuesday, Toronto biometrics startup Bionym announced a new — and somewhat paranoid — way to make sure no one else can access your precious stash: a wearable Bitcoin wallet that can be accessed only by taking your unique electrocardiography, or ECG. You may have heard about the Nymi before, as it’s been passed around the tech blogs. It’s a high-tech wristband meant to act as a protector of many things aside from your digital currency: your credit card information, online logins, customer loyalty cards, frequent flier miles — you name it. No matter what you’ve locked up behind the Nymi, no one can access it without your unique heartbeat. It works like this: You set it up in conjunction with a smartphone or a computer and then determine which applications, services and brands have access to your identity. Every time you sign up for a new service, the device generates a unique key. You have the option to remove a company’s access at any time. Bionym’s decision to integrate Bitcoin into its much-hyped device comes just a week after the very popular personal finance service Mint launched a feature that allows subscribers to watch the value of their bitcoins alongside their other investments. It’s a signal that many a tech startup is banking on the success of the still-shaky currency. As Bionym President Andrew D’Souza explains, requiring your cardiac rhythm for access to your currency is extra safe, as your ECG is much more difficult to replicate than your fingerprint, your retina or just a text-based password. “It’s the size, the shape of your heart, the orientation, how all the different muscles interact with each other,” D’Souza told Yahoo Tech. “It’s an electrical signal that’s based on your physiology, and it doesn’t change over time.” Story continues D’Souza hopes that this level of security can help to stabilize Bitcoin — which is currently a $10 billion market — and make people feel more comfortable investing in it. “We’re trying to make this currency accessible to the average consumer in a secure and convenient form factor,” D’Souza said. “We’re hoping that we can kind of be that enabling technology to help the currency take off.” So what do you think, average consumers? Ready to access some invisible currency with your heartbeat? You can pre-order a Nymi for $79 . It’s set to ship midyear. You can email the author here . Yahoo Tech is a brand new tech site from David Pogue and an all-star team of writers. Follow us on Facebook for all the latest.

2014-02-04 21:26:24+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2009]}

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Google To Developers: Don't Build Porn Apps For Our Chromecast TV Device

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-developers-dont-build-porn-212624650.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Chromecast Google Google Chromecast Yesterday, Google asked developers to write new apps for Chromecast, a dongle device that lets you stream Web content from a tablet, smartphone or PC to your TV. Today, the sharp eyes of Hot Hardware's Paul Lilly noticed a very strong caveat: Google has banned porn apps, along with a long list of other morally dubious things, from Chromecast. Or, to be more precise, Google wants the people who write apps for Chromecast to also obey the rules governing its app store, Google Play. And Google Play clearly forbids porn. It says: We don't allow content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material. Google Play also bans things like gambling, hate speech, depictions of violence and illegal activities, all of which applies to Chromecast apps, too. If a developer ignores the rules and writes an app with forbidden content, Google reserves the right to cut off the developer's access to Google's tech needed to run the app. We've seen this before. Google banned porn apps from Glass, too , and when the first porn app was released for it anyway last summer, Google said it would block the app from working on Glass. None of this will stop human beings from doing what human beings like to do with technologies like Chromecast or Glass. As we previously reported, after Google banned facial recognition technology from Glass, a young developer, Stephen Balaban, started building an alternative operating system for Google Glass that Google couldn't control, he told Business Insider. So, if Chromecast proves popular enough with consumers, we're sure some smart developer will figure out how to sidestep Google's restrictions for this device, too. But, just so you know, Google isn't messing around and wants its first crop of Chromecast apps to be clean and family friendly. More From Business Insider Look At All The Game-Changing Technology Facebook Has Invented In The Last Decade How A Horrific Killing Led This Guy To Run 3,000 Miles Raising Bitcoin For The Homeless How To Use Google To Search A Single Website

2014-02-04 22:04:17+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1399]}

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I Quit Facebook Cold Turkey And My Life Is Totally Unchanged

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/quit-facebook-cold-turkey-life-220417986.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Mark Zuckerberg REUTERS/Robert Galbraith Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg My dad created my Facebook account in 2004. The fledgling social network was becoming the hot new thing on college campuses around the country. It presented itself as a site where you could gossip and plan parties and find out what you missed in class, all while updating everyone on the details of your daily life, compelling and shallow alike. And it was closed to everyone except college students with a ".edu" email address — no embarrassing teachers or parents to hassle you online. Cool! At that time, I was a newly accepted college entrant and had contemplated joining Facebook so that I might keep on top of my uproarious social life, b ut my technophile dad beat me to the punch, registering an account using my new college email address so he, the curious and unhip adult, could check out "what kids are doing online these days." After an uneventful 30 minutes of exploring, he came clean, reset the password, and gave me control of my Facebook account. This odd origin story has colored my near-decade on the site, making me something of a Facebook agnostic. I recognize and appreciate its utility — you can look up a friend's address or birthday, for instance — but by and large I could do without it. Generally speaking, you can throw the Internet at something and that thing gets better. Money plus Internet equals Bitcoin, for instance. Facebook strikes me as the Internet's take on the phone book. It's a de-facto service that provides a common foundation for people to find each other. When Facebook first cemented itself in my mind as "a phone book plus stuff," it was awesome. The party invitation system? Tremendous. Reaching out to a stranger? Send him a Facebook message before moving to the standard email or text message. I understood it. But something changed and the phone book got complicated. Now it wants to tell people what I listen to on Spotify. It pesters me for my phone number every time I log in, even though that's information I intend never to share online. If I attempt to remove myself permanently from the site, it throws up dozens of barriers to prevent this from happening. And it does this in an effort to keep me on the site longer, so that it can make more money by showing me hyper-marketed ads based on personal details as specific as my hometown or birth date. Story continues I got tired of it and deactivated my account earlier this month. Deactivating is distinctly different from cutting the big cord and deleting your account. Facebook still retains my data, friends can still tag me in pictures, but I no longer show up in searches and have for all appearances deleted my account. If and when I want it all back, I just need to log in. Deactivating would be my way, temporary or permanent, to reassess how I communicate with people online. And you know what? A month later, my life without Facebook is largely the same as it was with, except I'm no longer devoting mental energy to reading about acquaintances from high school getting married or scrolling through lots of pictures of friends' vacation meals. Only one speed bump of note comes to mind — I missed a work-related happy hour that had been coordinated through Facebook. But that was it. I was otherwise spending my time doing what I wanted to do with who I wanted to be with. Facebook wasn't even a calculation anymore. My frustration with Facebook seems to stem from the way people use it. Because it's a platform that puts everyone in front of everyone else, it's subtlely turning communication into performance art. The temptation for one to act as his or her own publicist and post content to Facebook that "shapes the narrative," so to speak — he's a successful businessman, she's an incredible long-distance runner, etc. — is so strong that we've all done it at one point or another. Left unchecked, this feels disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst. In severing ties from the blue-and-white social Goliath, I put myself in a position where the only online interaction I had was that which I made happen for myself. There was no Newsfeed to watch tick by, no social content for me to consume passively. I was now really big into one-on-one email. And when you're emailing one-on-one or in a small group, you'll find you're much more honest, direct, and drama-free than you would be otherwise, passive aggressively posting things to Facebook that you hope so-and-so sees. It's the difference between putting up a billboard to sell a notion of yourself to others and writing a letter to a friend. No one really gave me a hard time for jumping ship. There were mild "you'll be back, Love" tongue lashings administered over the site when I posted that I'd be quitting, but never once did this spill over into the physical world. I still felt connected to my social groups because any parties, outings, or other plans always ended up trickling down to me verbally. And I was still maintaining an active Twitter presence, so I could still get my digital mainline of news from friends and others. I imagine that I'll return to Facebook eventually, but when I do, I will aggressively pare down my friends list so that it more accurately reflects my day-to-day community, the people who are actively in my life instead of the familiar strangers I used to know. More From Business Insider This Was The First News Story Ever Written About 'TheFacebook.com,' From The Site's Birth 10 Years Ago Facebook Accused Of Banning Ads From Catholic Dating Site Prior To Valentine's Day The Super Bowl's Best Real-Time Marketing Moment Was Hillary Clinton's Tweet Facebook Has Released Info On How Many National Security Requests It Gets If History Is Any Lesson, Facebook's Newest App Is Doomed To Fail

2014-02-05 14:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [673]}

{}

Vending Design Works, Ltd. Announces It Is Readying the First ZaZZZ(TM) Automated Dispensary for Shipment to Tranzbyte

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vending-design-works-ltd-announces-140000261.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TEMPE, AZ and WINNIPEG, MB--(Marketwired - Feb 5, 2014) - Tranzbyte Corporation (OTC Pink: ERBB) ( http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/ERBB/quote ) announced today that its automated dispensary manufacturing partner, Vending Design Works ( http://www.vendingdesignworks.com ) is getting ready to ship the first of its specially designed machines to Tranzbyte Corporation headquarters in Tempe, AZ. According to Vending Design Works General Manager, Don Rischuk, "We have built the vending machine of the 21 st Century for Tranzbyte that includes proprietary customer identification, live 2-way interactivity, acceptance of a myriad of payment options including the ZaZZZ Card, Bitcoin, and, of course, cash. We are very of proud of what we've produced, and look forward to rolling out machines to locations authorized for their use." Adds Stephen Shearin, Tranzbyte's new Chief Operating Officer, "Navigating uncharted waters is never an easy thing. We count ourselves very lucky to have a manufacturer as knowledgeable as Vending Design Works to work with. If it were as simple as 'plug and play,' everyone would have something as special as what we've produced, but it's not. I'm confident our partners and customers will be as elated as we are when they interface with the ZaZZZ machine." Mr. Shearin joins the company after eight months working closely as a consultant in all facets of Tranzbyte business. He brings over twenty years of experience in getting projects to market and is no stranger to working with a public entity. He was president and CEO of GetNet Inc., the first privately held Internet backbone in the US and guided that company in its IPO in May of 1996. "Everything I've done has dovetailed perfectly to provide me with the experience and tool set to build value into the Tranzbyte organization. I'm very excited to work with this team." David Gwyther, Tranzbyte's president, adds, "With the addition of Mr. Shearin, we are able to add layers of experience and accountability to our team. I'm much honored that he has accepted the position of Chief Operating Officer." Story continues Tranzbyte encourages all folks wishing to follow the progress of Tranzbyte, Altitude Organix, and its other subsidiaries and divisions to visit the Tranzbyte website at www.tranzbyte.com and sign up to receive our ' Email Alerts' which are sparingly sent to interest-holders periodically. Just click on the orange 'contact' button after arriving at the company's website or click here to go there directly. Mobile users can also sign up by navigating to the company's website on their android smart phone or iPhone. ABOUT TRANZBYTE The Tranzbyte Corporation ( www.tranzbyte.com ) is a driving force behind Altitude Organix, OneBode, The YO! Debit Card, ZaZZZ, and BancoLibre. The company expects to continue its plan to acquire, hold, or spin out successful divisions in what has been described in previous news releases as "dividend farming." Companies that qualify and decide to become public on their own will agree to carve out shares for Tranzbyte and dividends for their ERBB shareholders. Tranzbyte also houses the company's 10-year-old technology division which is actively engaged in the sale of its optical media enhancement products to potential customers in the US and Asia. Products in the Tranzbyte division include FLASHAlbum™ and FlixStix -- technologies that enable distributors of optical media (CDs, DVDs, etc.) to consolidate the best features of each medium onto a single content-protected USB flash drive. ABOUT ONE BODE One Bode was founded in 2006 by a group of health conscious professionals with backgrounds in sports, health, and nutrition that recognized the need for supplements to complement any lifestyle. Focusing on plant-based nutrients and enzymes, One Bode created an assortment of products that enable the everyday person interested in improving their health to access the kind of nutritional supplements previously enjoyed by professional athletes, entertainers, and those with the time to devote their entire lives to the pursuit of such diets. The company is combining its successful product rep program with an aggressive online campaign focusing on a realistic plan to increase sales measurably within the next 90 days of operation and throughout the coming years. The versatility of the products combined with the various dietary deficiencies present in practically everyone enables individuals to tailor a custom program designed to fit their specific needs; as such the company sees a virtually unlimited market-space for expansion. ABOUT ALTITUDE ORGANIX Altitude Organic Corporation became the first publicly traded medical marijuana dispensary brand in the world. Beginning in 2009, the company has developed retailing, branding, and commercial cultivating strategies in conjunction with its licensed medical marijuana retail dispensaries operating under the Altitude Organic Medicine brand name. While the Company is no longer associated with the Altitude Organic Medicine outlets in Colorado, it has spent the last year developing an "automated dispensary" that will offer the company's proprietary products to qualified adults in the US and around the world. The Company's newly acquired YO! Debit Card is currently being rebranded as "ZaZZZ" for use in its proprietary machines and will be accepted at participating dispensaries and other select locations who become members of the ZaZZZ Network. ABOUT PROXIMA RF AND APPLIED RFID Founded in 2006, Applied RFID and its operating subsidiaries ( www.proximarf.com ), have a versatile and leading-edge portfolio of RFID reader, sensor tag and data logging products based on the ISO 15693 standard of high frequency (13.56Mhz) RFID. Once the acquisition agreement with Tranzbyte is finalized, the company has plans to increase its network of global distributors and value-added resellers. With its "Proxima RF" line of RFID readers, sensor tags, sensor probes and data logging products, the Company seeks out opportunities with partners who have a unique software offering within market verticals where the implementation of secure data collection and temperature sensing bring real and immediate ROI to users. These key markets include: food safety, cold chain logistics and healthcare/pharmaceutical as well as factory and field maintenance applications. NOTES ABOUT FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Except for any historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission reports and filings. Certain statements contained in this release that are not historical facts constitute forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created by that Act. Reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements because they involve unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as estimates, anticipates, projects, plans, expects, intends, believes, should and similar expressions and by the context in which they are used. Such statements are based upon current expectations of the Company and speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which they are made.

2014-02-05 20:26:49+00:00

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{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Is Broken—Here's a Simple Plan to Fix It

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-broken-heres-simple-plan-202649080.html

The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/

Nerds love Bitcoin, and they think you should too. Actually, they think you will . They think it's the payments system, if not the currency, of the future. Something that will end Paypal, not the Fed. A way to send anything to anyone online for little to no fees. But mostly, they think Bitcoin is a technical marvel—because it is. Though that doesn't make it an economic marvel. At least not yet. Netscape founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is one of those nerds. He thinks Bitcoin is a game-changing technology on the scale of the PC and the Internet. In his telling, all were discounted as techie playthings, and all went on—or will go—to so fundamentally change how we live that we can't imagine life without them. There's something to that, but it's not enough on it's own. As I put it before, every big idea starts out sounding crazy, but not every crazy-sounding idea ends up being big. Some of them end up being ... Segway . That said, Bitcoin does hold a lot of promise, and it could change how we pay for things. But it's not there yet. Here's why it could be big, why it isn't, and how it could in seven steps. 1. It's called the double-spending problem. Say I send you money online. You can't tell whether I've sent the exact same money to somebody else too. It's just too easy for me to copy the money's digital information, and use it more than once. Maybe I'm honest. But maybe I'm not, and I'm "paying" you with a dollar that's already been spent. 2. That's where financial institutions come in. They sit in the middle of every online transaction, and confirm that, yes, this money hasn't been spent before. These intermediaries add trust to the system, but this trust doesn't come cheap: They typically charge 2.5 percent per transaction. 3. Bitcoin's genius is it confirms transactions with a decentralized network of people who don't charge fees instead of financial institutions that do. Who are these people doing something for nothing? Well, they're Bitcoin miners, and they're not actually working for free —they're getting paid with new bitcoins. For the uninitiated, Bitcoin is a virtual currency with a strictly limited supply that only grows at a slow, preset rate. Basically digital gold. And like actual gold , the only way to get new bitcoins is to "mine" them —but by solving computationally-taxing math problems, not with a pick and pan. In this case, though, the invisible hand is plenty easy to see. Solving these math problems doesn't just win new bitcoins for individual miners. It verifies all Bitcoin transactions for the entire network. Story continues 4. So why do people bother mining for bitcoins? Well, the question answers itself: because it's profitable, and they expect it to be even more so if Bitcoin keeps going up in value. This last point is critical. Bitcoin mining has become incredibly competitive the last few years—just look at the supercomputer fortresses in Iceland that use geothermal power and Arctic air for cooling—and that competition drives down margins. That means miners are really counting on Bitcoin to continue its journey to infinity and beyond, to keep rising forever. 5. When the price of money goes up, the price of everything else goes down. It's called deflation, and it's death for an economy. People put off buying things when they'll cost less tomorrow than today. Companies put off investing when their customers put off buying. And people who borrowed money are stuck trying to pay debts that don't change with wages that do—and have fallen. But Bitcoin's deflationary bias is a feature, not a bug. It's why miners want to mine, and why there are no transaction fees. In other words, Bitcoin can't work as a technology without deflation. The question is whether Bitcoin can work as a currency with it. Probably not. At least not when there's this much deflation. You can just how much there's been in the chart below from Peter Coy . It shows how much prices would have had to fall in 2013 if they'd been set in bitcoins instead of dollars. Now, to be fair, prices aren't set in bitcoins, and never will be. As Joe Weisenthal points out, it doesn't matter how much prices fall in bitcoins as long as prices are set in dollars—it won't hurt the real economy. But what about the Bitcoin economy? Will Bitcoin deflation hurt it? Almost certainly. 6. It's called Gresham's Law, and it's a simple idea: Bad money drives out the good. It dates back to when rulers would literally debase their currencies by reducing the amount of precious metals in coins, but kept the face values the same. (That's how inflation used to work). The government, of course, would try to collect all the old coins to burn them down, and make new ones. But it couldn't always, and this would create a two-tiered money system. There were old coins with more silver and gold, and new coins with less. So people would hoard the old, more valuable coins, and spend the new, less valuable ones. It's the same with bitcoins and dollars. Why spend a currency that might go up in value ten or a hundred times—or more!—when you can spend one that won't? People don't. The only time people do use bitcoins is when they can't use dollars (or euros or yuan)—when they want to do something illegal. Things like buying drugs, gambling online, and evading capital controls. Indeed, 60 percent of all Bitcoin activity happens on the gambling site Satoshi Dice. Other than that, people just hold on to their bitcoins; 64 percent are in accounts that have never been used. Which makes sense, if you think of Bitcoin as a dotcom stock instead of as a currency. It's not like people would use Facebook stock to buy things if they could do that instead of using dollars. 7. Bitcoin would be a clear step forward as a payments system if people actually used it to pay for things. But they don't. The people who have bitcoins don't use them, and the people who don't have them don't want them. Indeed, a new survey from The Street finds that 79 percent of people have never used a cryptocurrency, and never want to . But there's an easy fix. Just ask yourself why sellers are so happy to accept Bitcoin. It's not just that there are no fees. It's that merchants can instantly turn their bitcoins into dollars thanks to startups like Bitpay . Sure, that means paying a fee, but it's lower than what they'd have to pay the credit card companies—and it means they don't have to worry about Bitcoin's incredibly volatile value. Bitcoin needs the same thing for buyers. It needs a company that can immediately turn a buyer's dollars into bitcoins and then immediately turn a seller's bitcoins back into dollars—all for a lower fee than traditional intermediaries charge. You wouldn't have to worry about buyers not being willing to spend their bitcoins, because it wouldn't be their bitcoins. Nobody would even realize they were using bitcoins: buyers would pay with dollars and sellers would get dollars back. In other words, Bitcoin would stop trying to be a currency and start being a financial architecture. Of course, it would take a lot of bitcoins to make this work, but it would work if you had them. Bitcon's killer app is a Bitcoin monopoly. More From The Atlantic Obama Just Gave Legal Marijuana a Big Boost This Is Janet Yellen's Biggest Challenge Inside the Love Story That Brought Down DOMA View comments

2014-02-05 22:20:00+00:00

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{"Bitcoin": [27]}

PayPal Is Cracking Down on Bitcoin Sellers

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paypal-cracking-down-bitcoin-sellers-222000869.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

PayPal does not want people selling Bitcoin on its platform. It appears that related goods and services, such as Bitcoin mining rigs -- that is, specialized computers designed to mine the cryptocurrency by solving complex math problems -- may also be forbidden. Users on Bitcointalk, a popular online discussion forum for the Bitcoin community, are indignant Wednesday following a report that PayPal is enforcing a draconian ban on all things Bitcoin. User newguy05 wrote that his account had been suspended after he sold some Casascius bitcoins -- collectible coins of brass and other metals. Each coin comes with its own Bitcoin address and a private key to access an amount of the digital money equal to the purported value of the physical coin. They are often seen in pictures illustrating media reports about Bitcoin. "Paypal has largely ignored and allowed physical Bitcoin sales until beginning of this year when some kind of new policy triggered a massive account review on everything Bitcoin-related that's considered high value sales, including physical coins," newguy05 wrote. In an earlier post dated Feb. 4, newguy05 said that "PayPal has started a massive banning campaign on accounts selling anything Bitcoin-related, whether it's mining equipment, ebooks, or the currency itself." Not everyone will be shocked by this news. Some see the cryptocurrency as a natural enemy of PayPal, because the sort of transaction fees that PayPal charges as a matter of course are nonexistent in person-to-person Bitcoin transactions. According to a PayPal representative, merchants who sell Bitcoin mining equipment are in the clear and can continue to offer PayPal as a payment option. The company expects all participating merchants to follow "the policies we've put in place to protect both buyers and sellers who use PayPal," the spokesperson said. But PayPal's policies toward Bitcoin may have recently been altered, according to one employee. At time of writing, however, details on what these policies entail and when they were implemented were not available. Story continues Related: Why Businesses Will Like PayPal's Updated Checkout Process The effect of those policies is clear from PayPal's email to newguy05 notifying him that his seller account had been suspended. "We have reviewed your PayPal account and found that you are operating as an e-currency dealer/exchanger including the sale of electronic media of exchange (such as electronic money or digital currency)," the email reads. "Per our current Acceptable Use Policy for Money Service Businesses, PayPal may not be used to operate a currency exchange, bureau de change or check cashing business." The email goes on to ask for a full listing of the seller's products and services, an explanation of his business model, a list of all websites that will be used for payments and more. In order to reinstate his account, PayPal also asks the seller to sign an affidavit stating that he will comply with the company's policies. If newguy05 is to be believed, he is not alone in his plight. Last month, PandoDaily reported that an eBay merchant named TerraHasher was claiming to have had his assets frozen by PayPal for selling Bitcoin mining equipment. TerraHasher said he intended to sue PayPal if the matter was not resolved. Some users on Bitcointalk said that PayPal stands to gain more than most companies by embracing Bitcoin. Indeed, as early as April 2013, eBay's chief executive, John Donahoe, was quoted saying his company was "looking at Bitcoin closely. There may be ways to enable it inside PayPal." What's more, PayPal president David Marcus has more than once spoken favorably of the cryptocurrency. Marcus himself tweeted last month that using PayPal to sell Bitcoin mining rigs is allowed. But despite the potential for PayPal to benefit, some remain skeptical of whether the entrenched payments company and the upstart Bitcoin will become friends. "Right now [PayPal's] business does few things that Bitcoin couldn't do better and cheaper," user RodeoX said in a post on Bitcointalk. "If people start sending money around the world and shopping online for pennies per transaction, PayPal is going to have to do something different." Related: At Regulatory Hearing, Prosecutors Admit Bitcoin Is a Technological Breakthrough More From Entrepreneur In Crowdfunding, Who is Responsible for Preventing Fraud? Be Prepared: 4 Ways to Outthink Your Competitors At Regulatory Hearing, Prosecutors Admit Bitcoin Is a Technological Breakthrough

2014-02-06 05:05:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [52, 171, 419, 565, 2914, 3162]}

{"Bitcoin": [20, 66]}

The Longest Running Bitcoin Alternative – Devcoin Now Trading For Bitcoin on Cryptsy.com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/longest-running-bitcoin-alternative-devcoin-050500319.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

Ethical digital currency Devcoin is now trading for Bitcoin on Cryptsy.com. February 6th, 2014 / Long lasting ethical digital currency Devcoin is now trading directly for Bitcoin on Cryptsy.com, the largest digital currency trading platform in the world. Devcoin’s value peaked at 170 satoshis per DVC in mid December and has since settled down to a steady value ranging from 65 to 85 satoshis. With a currently stable Bitcoin price of around $800 each, this gives DVC a fiat value of around 16 DVC per cent, or 1600 DVC per dollar. Now that Devcoin is trading for Bitcoin on Cryptsy, its value is expected to enjoy another climb. Devcoin’s official website at devcoin.org has also recently been professionally redesigned. In addition to its steady value, Devcoin is one of the longest running successful digital currencies. The Devcoin project began in mid 2011 — two and a half years ago. In a world where several new cryptocurrencies are released each week, Devcoin is proving itself once again to be a relatively safe investment for anyone looking to gain a position in cryptocoins. The Devcoin team believes the world will truly be a better place when open source artists and developers can actually earn a living through their beneficial work. Devcoin’s unique form of generation, or mining, means that anyone who has reasonable engineering, composing, writing or programming skills can become involved in the Devcoin project. Devcoin’s mining algorithm is structured to give 90 percent of mining rewards to people who contribute to various Devcoin projects, including Devtome. Writers who publish their work on Devtome get paid with newly generated Devcoins. Programmers and other developers who contribute to various open source projects also receive Devcoins for their work. People who are involved in various open source Devcoin projects are very close to being able to earn an actual living through their work. For example, someone earning twelve generation shares during round 30, converting their entire earnings into fiat for one week could have earned just under $460 for that week*, enough to pay a few bills. To earn those twelve generation shares, a new writer would have needed to publish eighteen thousand words in the previous month; more established writers whose work gets more traffic get paid more. Story continues There are also a number of retailers who accept payment directly in Devcoins for their products. The number of merchants is ever growing due to Devcoin payment support on popular cryptocurrency payment gateway Coinpayments.net. Being able to spend Devcoins directly for products means avoiding trading fees and cash withdrawal fees. As the Devcoin project continues to grow, it is likely to put an end to the sad but true starving artist syndrome. With its long successful track record, its stabilizing value, its unique method of generation, and its recent addition to the Bitcoin market on Cryptsy, Devcoin continues to go grow: making the world a better place and helping artists and developers worldwide earn a living wage for their open source work. To learn more please go to http://devcoin.org To trade Devcoin for Bitcoin at Cryptsy please go to http://cryptsy.com *Past earnings do not guarantee future results when contributing to the Devcoin project. This Press Release is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Please consult with financial advisor before investing in DVC or any other digital currency. Visit http://devcoin.org for more information. Contact Info Name: Devcoin Media Organization: Devcoin Email: contact@devcoin.org

2014-02-06 05:27:19+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1290, 1410]}

{}

PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - Feb 6

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/press-digest-york-times-business-052719625.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

Feb 6 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. * CVS Caremark Corp, United States' largest drugstore chain, announced on Wednesday that it planned to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products by October. () * Despite the diminished state of late-night television and technology that has altered viewing habits, the "Tonight" show remains one of the signature franchises of broadcasting and still carries unusual resonance with Jay Leno exiting the stage for the last time on Thursday, making way for Jimmy Fallon. () * The American International Group is continuing its quest to upend an $8.5 billion settlement between Bank of America and a group of mortgage securities investors. () * After years in philanthropy, many wonder how Bill Gates, a luminary of the tech world, will choose to position Microsoft Corp going forward. The last time Bill Gates played an active role at Microsoft, as chief software architect, he witnessed the company muffing its earliest efforts to become a major player in search, smartphones and tablet computers. () * Apple Inc has taken down one of the last remaining iPhone mobile applications that allowed users to buy and sell Bitcoin. The app, named BlockChain, had been downloaded 120,000 times, and was commonly used as a way to hold and spend Bitcoins. () * Google Inc has agreed to a settlement with European competition regulators that leaves the company with a few bruises, yet victorious over all, and would end half a decade of wrangles with antitrust authorities across the globe. * Twitter has finally acknowledged what any newcomer could have told the company within five minutes of signing up: The messaging service is too hard to use. Discussing the company's fourth-quarter results in a call with analysts, Chief Executive Dick Costolo said that he was working on improving its web software and mobile apps to make it easier for new users to sign up and current ones to find the most relevant information on topics they care about. () Story continues * The makers of the blood-thinning drug Pradaxa were so worried that an internal research paper would damage drug sales that some employees not only pressured the author to revise it, but suggested it should be quashed altogether, according to newly unsealed legal documents. () * The Coca-Cola Co agreed on Wednesday to buy a 10 percent stake in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, as it seeks to cement ties with the fast-growing coffee company. () * Anheuser-Busch InBev, United States' largest brewer, has agreed to buy the Blue Point Brewing Co in a move that could help it capitalize on the popularity of craft beer. * Investigators say they believe they have identified the entry point through which hackers got into Target Corp's systems, zeroing in on the remote access granted through the retailer's computerized heating and cooling software, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. () * Lazard Ltd said on Wednesday that its profits rose 35 percent in the fourth quarter, as it benefited from improvements in its advisory and asset management businesses. () * Whether or not Mario Draghi and his European Central Bank colleagues plan to do anything about it at the monthly meeting Thursday, many economists are sounding the alarm. It is time, they say, to act defensively against the danger of deflation. () * Growth picked up in the service sector in January, with steady strength in private sector hiring, suggesting that the severe winter weather over the last several weeks had a limited effect on the economy. () * Investors' faith in Puerto Rico's debt appeared undaunted on Wednesday after Standard & Poor's cut the island's credit rating to junk a day earlier. ()

2014-02-06 13:03:52+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [50, 185, 353, 444, 814, 942, 1246, 1314, 1702, 1782, 1890, 1963]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Price Tag Brings the Volatile Virtual Currency to Real-World Stores

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-price-tag-brings-the-volatile-virtual-currency-75716468086.html

Yahoo Tech

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/

One of the most important obstacles to mainstream Bitcoin adoption is the virtual currency’s perceived volatility. For any number of reasons, from hacking to varying changes in demand, Bitcoin has the nasty habit of fluctuating wildly over short periods of time. Along with general mistrust, such frequent price changes mean that it’s hard to translate Bitcoin into a real-world setting. And though many online storefronts have begun to accept Bitcoin , few physical ones have. Designer/hacker Samuel Cox’s answer to the problem is a reimagination of the price tag: a BitTag. Since an old-fashioned analog (read: paper) price tag would require a lot of red pens to keep store pricing up to date, the technology artist is offering up an electronic version, which updates regularly according to the current price of Bitcoin. At its core, BitTag is a small box with a display screen that shows the pricing of an object in local currency and its Bitcoin equivalent. The latter is drawn from a nearby tablet, connected via Bluetooth, and updates the BitTag as fluctuations in the currency’s price occur. Give the tag a shake, and a QR code will appear on the display, which you can scan with your smartphone in order to purchase the product with your Bitcoin. Of course, BitTag has a few issues of its own, which, like Bitcoin, will likely keep the technology from reaching any kind of mainstream acceptance. Namely, the tags, which are currently in prototype, will set shopkeepers back £40 (about $65) a pop; Cox told us that once BitTag exits prototype, it will cost considerably less. Plus you need a tablet with a WiFi connection to run all those BitTags. Oh, and enough customers who want to shop with Bitcoin to make it all worth it. Anyway, BitTag isn’t alone in working to bring Bitcoin off the computer screen and into the real world. Overstock.com and Virgin Galactic will let you use Bitcoin to purchase actual goods and experiences. And a recent influx of Bitcoin ATMs let users exchange local currency for the digital variety. Yahoo Tech is a brand new tech site from David Pogue and an all-star team of writers. Follow us on Facebook for all the latest.

2014-02-07 03:14:25+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [4266]}

{}

Billionaire Larry Ellison Has A Brilliant Plan To Make Green Energy Affordable With His Hawaiian Island

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-larry-ellison-brilliant-plan-031425051.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

attached image Flickr/WLCutler Larry Ellison has huge, impressive plans for the Hawaiian island of Lanai, which he bought in 2012 . It will become "a laboratory for building the next generation two-way power grid, which will be a mix of photo-tech (solar), with a little bit of wind with a backup of liquefied natural gas," he told attendees at an event in Las Vegas Thursday evening. The island is a "special case" that can be used "to demonstrate that green energy can be economical," he explained. Ellison is CEO of Oracle and the event was held to talk about the company's HR cloud software. But in the Q&A session, he invited the audience to ask him "anything," and that was a part of the evening that he clearly relished. An Oracle employee and Hawaiian native stood up and asked about his long-term plans for Lanai. Since buying the island, Ellison, though his company Lanai Resorts LLC, has also bought two Lanai airlines, refurbished the hotels and invested in everything from wind farms to local businesses. "I was just looking at the Lanai five-year budget and wow, it's expensive," Ellison joked. He's one of the world's richest men, worth $41 billion, Forbes estimates . But his true motive has less to do with running a profitable resort than saving the planet. Ellison says that North America is not running out of fossil fuels, especially a "transitional energy called liquefied natural gas." In the past five years, North America has found 100 years worth of natural gas, he says, and we're sure to find more. In order to compete, the green energy industry needs someone to show that it can be just as affordable as traditional energy. He explained his plan in detail: We think we can demonstrate that green energy can be economical. Right now green energy is considerably more expensive than conventional fossil fuels. The island of Lanai is small enough, it can serve. One of the great things about Lanai is that the weather is always fabulous. Always 82 degrees and sunny. The problem is that, like California now, Lanai needs more water. It's in the rain shadow of Maui ... Story continues We're going to use our solar power, our wind power grid to convert sea water to fresh water ... desalination. We think we can do that in a very effective way and use that fresh water to bring back commercial agriculture. Lanai at one time grew 98% of the world's pineapples. But the world's pineapples are now grown in two places, Costa Rica and Panama, because no one wants to spend $45 for a pineapple from the United States. We're using computers to distribute the water through drip irrigation. There's sensors in the drip irrigation heads so you know when to turn the head on and off. If part of the field is in shadow, you put less water on that part of the field. If part of the field has higher acidic content, you fertilize that part of the field differently. ... We think this is what agriculture is going to look like 20-30 years from now. We're trying to model all of that and do it in a way where it can be very cost effective. ... We're empowering the locals to start their own businesses, [whether that's] in agriculture or a juice bar in Lanai City. We're providing them with the appropriate mentoring and help. If they are growing all these wonderful organic crops, we'll figure out how to get them to market. We can fly the products from Lanai to Honolulu and then ship them to Japan. We have an airline that takes people around during the day and an airline that takes produce around in the evening. Fresh produce picked on Thursday can show up in a Japanese or Chinese restaurant on Friday. We're also improving the schools and free public facilities for the people of Lanai. There are 3,200 people that live on the island. We've done a bunch of things in terms of building community pools, basketball courts and for the first time Lanai has a football field where the high school can have home games. We think if we do a good job of taking care of the locals, the locals will do a good job of taking care of our visitors. More From Business Insider Slovenia Is Still Frozen Solid: 'This Is Crazy, Really Crazy' The Government Is Paying IBM To Build A 'Vanishing' Network How A Horrific Killing Led This Guy To Run 3,000 Miles Raising Bitcoin For The Homeless

2014-02-07 10:11:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [16, 1218, 1252, 1305, 1350, 1435, 1499]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Plunges As Major Exchange Mt. Gox Halts All Withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-major-exchange-mt-101116314.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Ugly morning in Bitcoin world. Mt. Gox, the big Japan-based exchange, is temporarily halting all withdrawals as it faces technical issues. Here's their note to clients : Dear MtGox Customers, In our efforts to resolve the issue being encountered by various bitcoin withdrawals, it was determined that the increase in the flow of withdrawal requests has hindered our efforts on a technical level. To understand the issue thoroughly, the system needs to be in a static state. In order for our team to resolve the withdrawal issue it is necessary for a temporarily pause on all withdrawal requests to obtain a clear technical view of the current processes. We apologize for the sudden short notice. All bitcoin withdrawal requests will be on pause, and the withdrawals in the system will be returned to your MtGox wallet and can be reinitiated once the issue is resolved. The trading platform will perform as usual for the needs of our customers. Our team will resolve this problem as soon as possible and will provide an update on Monday, February 10, 2014 (JST). We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused, and thank you for your kind support and considerations. Sincerely, The MtGox Team Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin tanked this morning. From BitcoinWisdom : Screen Shot 2014 02 07 at 5.08.12 AM BitcoinWisdom More From Business Insider Why Bitcoin Will Never Have A Problem With Deflation Dogecoin Just Solved A Problem That Bitcoin Is Going To Face Over 10,000 People Watched This Week's Bitcoin Hearings — Here's Where They All Come From

2014-02-07 11:49:43+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [992, 1250, 1789, 1811, 1858]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plummets 20% after trading halt on Mt Gox

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plummets-20-trading-halt-114943788.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Source: Mtgox.com Virtual currency bitcoin lost nearly twenty percent of its value on Thursday evening, after major exchange Mt Gox halted trading to try to resolve ongoing technical issues. The digital currency - which is known for its wild price fluctuations - was trading at $680.52 on Friday morning, having traded around $850 for most of the week, according to CoinDesk, which tracks the price of bitcoin. Mt Gox told customers that in a effort to resolve an issue with withdrawals, the system needed to be in a static state. "In order for our team to resolve the withdrawal issue, it is necessary for a temporary pause on all withdrawal requests, to obtain a clear technical view of the current processes," Mt Gox said on its website on Friday morning. "We apologize for the sudden short notice. All bitcoin withdrawal requests will be on pause, and the withdrawals in the system will be returned to your Mt Gox wallet, and can be reinitiated once the issue is resolved." ( Read More : Bitcoin back: Major exchange resumes yuan trading ) An update from the Japan-based company is due on February 10. Mt Gox is the third-biggest bitcoin exchange in the world, representing around 14 percent of total bitcoin trade in the last week, according to Bitcoinity.org. However, it has recently experienced lengthy delays when exchanging bitcoin into U.S. dollars (Exchange:USD=) . It has also suffered a series of public relations disasters, including when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized its bank account in May 2013, saying it had never property registered as a money services company. Customers took to social media this Thursday to express their dissatisfaction about the latest halt to trade, but reminisced about Mt Gox's pioneering service during the fledgling days of Bitcoin. ( Read more: Bitcoin crashes 20% on China clampdown fears ) Bitcoin is a "virtual" currency that allows users to exchange online credits for goods and services. While there is no central bank that issues them, bitcoins can be created online by using a computer to complete difficult tasks, a process known as mining. Some 12 million bitcoins are believed to be in circulation, with a cap of 21 million - meaning no more bitcoins can be created after that point. - By CNBC.com's Matt Clinch; Follow him on Twitter @mattclinch81

2014-02-07 11:49:43+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [992, 1250, 1789, 1811, 1858]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plummets 20% after trading halt on Mt Gox

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plummets-20-trading-halt-114943788.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Source: Mtgox.com Virtual currency bitcoin lost nearly twenty percent of its value on Thursday evening, after major exchange Mt Gox halted trading to try to resolve ongoing technical issues. The digital currency - which is known for its wild price fluctuations - was trading at $680.52 on Friday morning, having traded around $850 for most of the week, according to CoinDesk, which tracks the price of bitcoin. Mt Gox told customers that in a effort to resolve an issue with withdrawals, the system needed to be in a static state. "In order for our team to resolve the withdrawal issue, it is necessary for a temporary pause on all withdrawal requests, to obtain a clear technical view of the current processes," Mt Gox said on its website on Friday morning. "We apologize for the sudden short notice. All bitcoin withdrawal requests will be on pause, and the withdrawals in the system will be returned to your Mt Gox wallet, and can be reinitiated once the issue is resolved." ( Read More : Bitcoin back: Major exchange resumes yuan trading ) An update from the Japan-based company is due on February 10. Mt Gox is the third-biggest bitcoin exchange in the world, representing around 14 percent of total bitcoin trade in the last week, according to Bitcoinity.org. However, it has recently experienced lengthy delays when exchanging bitcoin into U.S. dollars (Exchange:USD=) . It has also suffered a series of public relations disasters, including when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized its bank account in May 2013, saying it had never property registered as a money services company. Customers took to social media this Thursday to express their dissatisfaction about the latest halt to trade, but reminisced about Mt Gox's pioneering service during the fledgling days of Bitcoin. ( Read more: Bitcoin crashes 20% on China clampdown fears ) Bitcoin is a "virtual" currency that allows users to exchange online credits for goods and services. While there is no central bank that issues them, bitcoins can be created online by using a computer to complete difficult tasks, a process known as mining. Some 12 million bitcoins are believed to be in circulation, with a cap of 21 million - meaning no more bitcoins can be created after that point. - By CNBC.com's Matt Clinch; Follow him on Twitter @mattclinch81

2014-02-07 16:15:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [5651, 5891, 5967]}

{}

10 Surprising Taxes You May Have to Pay

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-suprising-taxes-may-pay-161700344.html

The Fiscal Times

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/

Quick: Name all the products and services that charge you taxes. Most likely, your answer misses the whole picture. “The average American thinks he’s only taxed on what he gets a 1099, K-1 or a W-2 for,” says Mark Alaimo, a certified financial planner with at Wealth Management Advisors LLC in Boston, Mass. “What’s taxable income for you goes far beyond that – and can get you into a lot of trouble if you don’t pay the taxes owed.” Related: The 10 Worst States for Taxes in 2014 To be safe, assume any income you receive is taxable, unless the IRS specifically says otherwise. Here are 10 items that people are often astonished to discover are taxable. If you earned money from any of these sources last year, you’ll need to add it on your tax return: 1. Social Security. This one can be a shock for those who recently started drawing benefits. Why doesn’t the government just give less in the first place? The reason: You don’t automatically pay taxes on all your Social Security. How much you pay depends on your total income . For your 2013 taxes, if half of your Social Security income plus all your other income totaled between $25,000 and $34,000 as a single filer, then you may pay tax on half of your Social Security benefit. If that amount is more than $34,000, you could owe taxes on as much as 85 percent of it. If you’re married and filing jointly, the income thresholds are between $32,000 and $44,000, and greater than $44,000. Depending on where you live, you could owe state taxes on Social Security as well. 2. Unemployment benefits. Surprise. Although you were unemployed, your unemployment checks, both federal and state, are treated just like wages. So they’ll be taxed at graduated rates. It’s a good idea to withhold a percentage of your benefits to cover these taxes so you aren’t slapped with a huge bill at tax time. Related: Slammed by New Taxes - Why You’re Poorer Than You Think 3. State Income Tax Refund. If your state withholding is $100, but you only owed $85, then you’ll pay taxes on the $15 check from the state (if you itemize your deductions). 4. Winnings. Any winnings – whether from church fairs, gambling, Super Bowl pools, or getting a car from Oprah – are taxed, though the money you put in or what you lost is not taxed. If you’re at a casino, whatever you lost for the year can offset your taxable winnings, as long as you can prove it. If you purchase a $100 raffle ticket as part of a school fundraising event and then win the $10,000 prize, you owe taxes on $9,900. The rate you pay depends on the rest of your tax profile. If you’re a casino regular, you can request win-loss statement from the casino to offset your winnings. Story continues Related: How Obamacare Could Affect Your Taxes This Year 5. Alimony. Payers of alimony get a deduction on what they paid, but recipients pay taxes on what they received at their marginal tax rate. Child support payments are not taxed. 6. Most Rental Income. Almost all rental income, whether it’s from Airbnb or from a vacation home, is taxed, although you can deduct the portion of expenses your renters don’t pay. If renters stay for 90 days, or 25 percent of the year, and don’t pay for the water bill or Internet or insurance or any other household expense, you can use 25 percent of those bills to offset your rental income. One exception to the rental income rule: If you rent a personal home for fewer than 15 days, you don’t have to pay income tax on that income. 7. Cancellation of Debt. Let’s say you took out a $100,000 loan to start a business that later failed. If the bank writes off your debt because you’re unable to repay the loan, the balance of the loan is considered income by the IRS, unless you declare bankruptcy, says Drew Porter, a certified public accountant at Bay-Area firm Commyns, Smith, McCleary, Deaver LLP . 8. Barter Income. In today’s sharing economy, this kind of transaction is becoming more popular. Maybe you’re an accountant in the market for a Louis Vuitton bag. If you spot someone offering one on a barter site like Tradeya.com and that person needs a room painted, you can initiate a barter in which you paint their house and receive the bag in exchange. Related: Slammed by New Taxes – Why You’re Poorer Than You Think Here’s where the taxes apply: If you trade a good or service that you would have made a profit on in the open market, you have to pay taxes on the estimated profit. So in the above example, if you would have normally charged $100 to paint a room, but the cost to you is $60, you owe taxes on the $40 profit. 9. Crowdfunding. This is still a gray area, since the IRS has not definitively stated how they’ll treat this type of income. “It’ll take either the IRS issuing specific regulations or a big enough case where the IRS investigates someone who may have been too aggressive,” Alaimo says. What it boils down to is intent – and for that reason, there’s a conservative way to treat such funds on your tax return and an aggressive one. The conservative one would be to treat any crowd-funded earnings as taxable income. (If you raise $20,000 in credit card transactions, then like anyone else processing that amount of money via credit card, you’ll be issued a 1099-K that will definitely put you on the IRS’s radar.) The aggressive approach, which some might take, especially if they pull in less than the $20,000, is to treat the money as a gift. If a crowd-funding campaign does not have the characteristics of a sale (i.e., if person raising money does not give anything back to the giver), then it could be treated as a non-taxable gift, much the way a friend might buy you a coffee. 10. Bitcoin. The rules around the virtual currency are still pretty murky, but at this point, it’s being treated as a capital asset, which means any gain or loss will be treated as capital gains or capital losses, Alaimo says. If you engage in Bitcoin mining, however, in which you answer math questions in order to win Bitcoin, then that is taxed as ordinary income, like other winnings. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: 10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Work-Life Balance Taxes 2014: 10 Apps to Make Filing Easier Don’t make These Top 10 Tax Mistakes View comments

2014-02-07 16:21:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [13, 99, 403, 797, 818, 873, 1134, 1334, 1948, 2034, 2069, 2126], "BTC": [487, 703, 1273]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Plunges After Mt. Gox Blocks Withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-mt-gox-blocks-162100655.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

The price of Bitcoin dropped sharply today after Mt. Gox announced that it was temporarily halting Bitcoin withdrawals on its trading platform. For months now, some Mt. Gox users have found it difficult to withdraw funds from their accounts; the withdrawal freeze will help Mt. Gox's team get to the root of the problem, the exchange said. Mt. Gox, which is based in Tokyo, is the world's third-largest Bitcoin exchange by recent trading volume. For years it was the No. 1 exchange, but BTC China took the top spot last fall, riding a huge wave of Asian interest in digital currencies. Since the Chinese government forbid banks and payment processors from handling bitcoins this past December, however, BTC China has fallen to fourth place. Related: How the World's Richest Nations Are Regulating Bitcoin The price of Bitcoin plummeted following the news. According to the Bitcoin Price Index, which provides an average of bitcoin prices across top exchanges around the world, the cryptocurrency has dropped about $61 since today's open of $784, losing nearly 8 percent of its exchange value relative to the U.S. dollar. The value of Bitcoin often varies slightly from one exchange to another. At 10:47 a.m. EST, the price of a single bitcoin was $716 on BitStamp, $718 on BTC-e and $725 on Mt. Gox. These are currently the top three Bitcoin exchanges in the world. An increased number of withdrawal requests "has hindered our efforts on a technical level," Mt. Gox said in a statement . "In order for our team to resolve the withdrawal issue it is necessary for a temporarily pause on all withdrawal requests to obtain a clear technical view of the current processes." Withdrawals are being returned to user wallets "and can be reinitiated once the issue is resolved," the exchange added. Mt. Gox said its team would be working on the problem through the weekend and would provide an update on Monday, Feb. 10. Related: PayPal Is Cracking Down on Bitcoin Sellers More From Entrepreneur How the World's Richest Nations Are Regulating Bitcoin PayPal Is Cracking Down on Bitcoin Sellers At Regulatory Hearing, Prosecutors Admit Bitcoin Is a Technological Breakthrough

2014-02-07 22:35:43+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [106, 321, 550, 958, 1316, 1732, 1800, 2023, 2196, 2242, 2499, 2905, 2935, 3043, 3135, 3228, 3463, 3523, 3626, 3684, 3971]}

{"Bitcoin": [50]}

Development Capital Group Discusses the Future of Bitcoin and Who Is Opposing It

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/development-capital-group-discusses-future-223543026.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

MIAMI, FL --(Marketwired - February 07, 2014) - When Development Capital Group went to the North American Bitcoin Conference we met with many of the leading people in the industry on cryptocurrencies, and received a lot of opinions on the future of the market. Last week, Development Capital published an article called "Bitcoin Arrives" which went over cryptocurrency from a historical and ideological perspective by highlighting some key information in the industry. It seems that people are moving past the idea that these cryptocurrencies, like "Bitcoin," will be used for illegal activity. Whether it was a payment processor, a merchant, a banker, or a government official, each had their individual opinions about how to properly handle it. One side is talking about how the United States government will come in and regulate the newly adopted payment processor, while some are arguing about how it's a temporary thing and going away. In New York, the Bitcoin community met with regulators to negotiate how to handle this new form or system of payment. The New York Department of Financial Services discussed about "BitLicense" as a potential requirement since the digital currency exchange platforms that are popping up are now deemed "transmitters of money." If the company is accepting a FIAT currency into Bitcoin, and exchanging it among users as well as different currencies, the company is being categorized as a transmitter of money, and this is a place where the government is required to regulate how these transactions are handled. The New York State Attorney's Office charged Charlie Shrem, CEO of BitInstant , for facilitating in a money laundering scheme, who oddly enough was suppose to be at the North America Bitcoin Conference. The focus in this case though is not the use of Bitcoin itself but the way he transacted with Silk Road users. The same process of money laundering can be done with cash, gold, or wire fraud. Government officials are looking at the lack of regulation that is surrounding Bitcoin. Story continues Other than regulation, it's important to watch how companies are reacting to this lack of government oversight. Yesterday, we saw a big blow to the Bitcoin community when Apple removed the last Bitcoin wallet app Blockchain from their app store. Bitstamp dropped as low as $752 yesterday with the release of this information, which seems to be a reaction to the news. This still seems to be pretty stable compared to the 50% drop when China's biggest Bitcoin exchange, BTCChina, stopped accepting deposits in Chinese yuan in December. The market has seemed to be less volatile recently when China allowed the acceptance of the Chinese yuan again this past week. As more governments are opening up to digital currencies, we are seeing more support from big companies. Overstock's CEO Jonathan Johnson is active in the limelight on his personal investment in Bitcoin and started accepting Bitcoin at Overstock. Now Overstock is discussing about accepting the less talked about altcoins. Accepting Bitcoin for companies has brought in some pretty good press and sales. TigerDirect accepted Bitcoin, and did $250,000 in sales in 17 hours. Now we see more companies that are accepting Bitcoin like Tesla, Zynga, Domino's Pizza, Virgin Galactic, Wordpress, and many more. There is much speculation about the market with numerous articles covering various movements. The Google support team discusses their integration of Bitcoin for Google Play, while Google Ventures has funded a Bitcoin startup called Ripple . Overstock.com's CEO claims it's a matter of time before Amazon accepts Bitcoin. Ebay has publicly backed the idea of integrating Bitcoin while Coinbase has recently received $25 million from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. What we are seeing is a pretty positive growth in the market, and a lot of attention from various venture capital and investment companies . If we look at the price of Bitcoin we are seeing it continue to go up with some reversals, but ultimately in an upward trend. We see a lot of activity in this market and continue to monitor what is happening in the industry. You can read Development Capital Groups original article here .

2014-02-08 15:27:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [57]}

{}

Dogecoiners Held A Party in The Financial District, And It Ended With Them Putting Their Logo On The Wall Street Bull

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dogecoiners-held-party-financial-district-152755783.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

The burgeoning digital currency Dogecoin — which is like Bitcoin except that the driving ethos is not libertarian but rather lolz — held a big party last night in NYC's Financial District. Well, to be more precise, the growing number of the currency's fans (who hang out on the R/Dogecoin page on Reddit ) threw the party. We only had a chance to stop by for a minute, these photos should give you an idea of what it was like. There we people in costumes alongside the Shiba Inu puppies that are the coin's logo. doge dogecoin Joe Weisenthal There was a DJ. dogecoin Joe Weisenthal There were Dogecoin T-Shirts for sale, and apparently they were made in one day with the help of the Reddit community. dogecoin Joe Weisenthal We had to leave early, so we probably missed some festivities (apparently there was a raffle). But then later on in the night, the party made its way to Wall Street's famous bull. These photos were sent in to us by Dogecoin enthusiast Justin Friedman. dogecoin Joe Weisenthal Doge Justin Friedman So there you have it, a glimpse of the future in our doge-based financial system. More From Business Insider BEACONS: What They Are, How They Work, And Why Apple's iBeacon Technology Is Ahead Of The Pack Here's Everything You Missed From The Olympic Opening Ceremony 25 Horrible Things That Happen If You Don't Get Enough Sleep

2014-02-09 09:24:45+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [74, 353, 706, 1197]}

{"Bitcoin": [24]}

Russian authorities say Bitcoin illegal

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russian-authorities-bitcoin-illegal-092445116--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian authorities have issued warnings against using Bitcoin, saying the virtual currency could be used for money laundering or financing terrorism and that treating it as a parallel currency is illegal. "Systems for anonymous payments and cyber currencies that have gained considerable circulation - including the most well-known, Bitcoin - are money substitutes and cannot be used by individuals or legal entities," the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said on February6. It added that Russian law stipulates that the rouble is the sole official currency and that introducing any other monetary units or substitutes was illegal. Russia's central bank also said on January 27 that Bitcoin trade was highly speculative and that the unit carried a big risk of losing value. "Citizens and legal entities risk being drawn - even unintentionally - into illegal activity, including laundering of money obtained through crime, as well as financing terrorism," it warned. The Prosecutor's General Office said it was working with the central bank and other law enforcement agencies to tighten regulations and prevent legal offences committed with the use of pseudo-currencies. The Bitcoin community in the United States, far more developed than the one in Russia, has already come under intense scrutiny as authorities crack down on illegal activity carried out using the digital currency. (Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) View comments

2014-02-09 10:55:23+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [74, 353, 706, 1197]}

{"Bitcoin": [24]}

Russian authorities say Bitcoin illegal

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russian-authorities-bitcoin-illegal-105523191.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian authorities have issued warnings against using Bitcoin, saying the virtual currency could be used for money laundering or financing terrorism and that treating it as a parallel currency is illegal. "Systems for anonymous payments and cyber currencies that have gained considerable circulation - including the most well-known, Bitcoin - are money substitutes and cannot be used by individuals or legal entities," the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said on February6. It added that Russian law stipulates that the rouble is the sole official currency and that introducing any other monetary units or substitutes was illegal. Russia's central bank also said on January 27 that Bitcoin trade was highly speculative and that the unit carried a big risk of losing value. "Citizens and legal entities risk being drawn - even unintentionally - into illegal activity, including laundering of money obtained through crime, as well as financing terrorism," it warned. The Prosecutor's General Office said it was working with the central bank and other law enforcement agencies to tighten regulations and prevent legal offences committed with the use of pseudo-currencies. The Bitcoin community in the United States, far more developed than the one in Russia, has already come under intense scrutiny as authorities crack down on illegal activity carried out using the digital currency. (Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) View comments

2014-02-09 16:26:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [5863, 6014]}

{}

Tim Cook Admits Apple Has Stopped Growing In North America

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-admits-apple-stopped-162606280.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Tim Cook Getty Images, Justin Sullivan Apple CEO Tim Cook. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published an excellent Q&A with Tim Cook , CEO of Apple. Cook was coming off his fiscal Q1 2014 earnings call, on which was savaged by investors. The stock fell immediately by 8% after Wall Street analysts began asking whether there was any growth left at Apple . In the Journal's Q&A, there's a startling admission from Cook that — perhaps unsurprisingly — was not highlighted by the Apple fanboy tech blogs that generate so much interest around the company's products. Cook was asked about the companies revenues in various countries. And then he began talking about America (emphasis added): North America was a challenge. We had no growth basically as you could see from our results and that of course pulls down the top line because the weight is so large. "We had no growth." It's an honest and forthright answer. But it's also the kind of thing that CEOs tend not to say publicly, even if they are true. That is why it is so surprising, and why it's even more surprising that the statement has gotten so little coverage. (Can you imagine what the headlines would be if Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had said the same thing? "Microsoft is dead in America!" would be the mild version.) There is some context here, of course. Apple has still shown robust growth worldwide, as this chart of its total revenues shows: AppleQuarterlyRevenueSegments Business Insider Intelligence Cook put that growth in perspective. Basically, because Apple is so huge, it's hard to continue producing amazing percentage leaps in growth even when you're adding billions in sales every year: Last year, we grew (revenue) by $14 billion to $15 billion. Yes, those percentages are smaller compared to a year earlier and two years earlier and so forth. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not a growth company. We were in hyper-growth, or whatever is above growth. We went from $65 billion to over $100 billion to $150 billion to $170 billion. These are historic, unprecedented numbers. I don’t know any companies adding growth at that level. So when you say $14 billion to $15 billion compared to those numbers, it’s clearly smaller and a smaller percentage, but, to put it in some context, that’s like adding three Fortune 500 companies in a year. I think that’s hard to say that’s not a growth company. Story continues And yet, Apple's growth in the U.S. — the world's richest market — is threatened. Cook said on his earnings call that the contraction in North American iPhone sales was due to wireless carriers not giving upgrade deals and a lack of iPhone 5S supply. That suggests, in part, that Apple is not making phones people want to buy at full price unless they are offered an incentive to do so. Here's what declining growth at Apple looks like in the form of iPhone sales ... iPhoneSales BII ... and iPad sales: ipad sales q4 2013 BII That is why Apple fans need to do some more serious thinking about the growth of Android. By some measures, Android's share of the smartphone market has reached 80%. It may be the case that the phones running the Android operating system as not as slick as iPhone, and it may be that the amount of cool apps available for Android is fewer than those for Apple's iOS system. The market tends not to ignore 80% dominance for long. (You can debate just how dominant Android is in various countries. Here are some market share charts . But there is broad agreement that Android has more users in than Apple in huge stretches of the world.) Cook, however, does not seem to be worried that Apple may get boxed in to a minority of high-end users, the way its Macs were in the 1980s and 1990s: I look at the mobile phone market as having three kinds of phones: feature phones, smartphones that function as or are used as feature phones, and real smartphones. I care about the market share of the last one. I don’t care how many feature phones are sold. The more that are sold I look at as good because those are all potential future customers for real smartphones. The same thing goes for the second category. I’d like to convert as many of those as possible to real smartphones. When Cook refers to "smartphones that function as or are used as feature phones" he appears to be referring to Android phones. We've noted repeatedly that Android users use the functionality of their phones a lot less than iPhone users do, which is one reason why app developers prefer to create stuff for iPhone. But Apple fans ought to worry that Cook has a mistaken view of how powerful Android is. Android phones — particularly the high-end ones — can do 95% of what iPhones can do, at a fraction of the cost. There is a good chance that many of those users are simply never going to convert to Apple, for the same reason that Ford drivers never convert to Rolls Royce. Sure, a Rolls is nicer than a Ford. But both get from A to B equally fast, and the Ford does it cheaper. This goes to the core of Apple's growth problem. Growth has halted in North America, yet Apple does not see Android as a threat. That's a very optimistic view to take, because the price of that view being wrong will be very high indeed. Postscript: Cook also made it obvious that Apple was working on at least one brand new product category. In recent years, Apple has gotten all its growth from simply inventing new products that didn't exist before like the iPhone, the iPod and the iPad. So this entire debate may be moot — Apple may shrug at declining growth in mobile device sales the same way it shrugs at the dwindling desktop and laptop business, because in the future it will be generating its new sales from Apple TV or iWatch or some other amazing new gadget. More From Business Insider HOUSE OF THE DAY: Live Next Door To Tim Cook In Palo Alto For Under $3 Million Apple Won't Let Bitcoin Apps In Its App Store, But This Guy Found A Way Around All That Firefox Wants To Make Your Phone Useful Again Why Apple Just Removed A Popular Bitcoin App From The App Store Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak Says Apple Should Make An Android Phone

2014-02-10 10:57:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [37, 51, 113, 866, 977, 1373, 1466, 1995, 2268, 2484, 2850, 3100, 3371, 3459, 3579, 3624, 5725, 5764, 6123, 6206, 6299, 6840, 6897, 6956, 6973, 7041, 7126]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Just Completely Crashed As Major Exchange Says Withdrawals Remain Halted

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-just-completely-crashed-major-105751675.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Screen Shot 2014 02 10 at 5.53.50 AM BitcoinWisdom Bitcoin just completely fell out of bed. The chart above, via BitcoinWisdom , shows the move. The news comes as major trading exchange Mt. Gox says in a new press release that bitcoin withdrawals remain halted. (On Friday, Mt. Gox issued a statement that amid the volume of withdrawals it was seeing, that it was suspending withdrawals until it could address a technical issue). Mt. Gox was at one point the foremost bitcoin market site, though its volume and share of bitcoin activity has declined considerably. Withdrawals in actual currency are working, so traders can get cash out of the site, which is good news. The bad news is that in addition to the direct matter of users not being able to withdraw bitcoins, they say the technical issue that they're dealing with is something that pertains to the broader Bitcoin community: The problem we have identified is not limited to MtGox , and affects all transactions where Bitcoins are being sent to a third party. We believe that the changes required for addressing this issue will be positive over the long term for the whole community. As a result we took the necessary action of suspending bitcoin withdrawals until this technical issue has been resolved. The letter is long, but here's the conclusion: To put things in perspective, it's important to remember that Bitcoin is a very new technology and still very much in its early stages. What MtGox and the Bitcoin community have experienced in the past year has been an incredible and exciting challenge, and there is still much to do to further improve. MtGox will resume bitcoin withdrawals to outside wallets once the issue outlined above has been properly addressed in a manner that will best serve our customers. More information on the status of this issue will be released as soon as possible. We thank you for taking the time to read this, and especially for your patience. And here's the full letter: Dear MtGox Customers and Bitcoiners, Story continues As you are aware, the MtGox team has been working hard to address an issue with the way that bitcoin withdrawals are processed. By "bitcoin withdrawal" we are referring to transactions from a MtGox bitcoin wallet to an external bitcoin address. Bitcoin transactions to any MtGox bitcoin address, and currency withdrawals (Yen, Euro, etc) are not affected by this issue. The problem we have identified is not limited to MtGox, and affects all transactions where Bitcoins are being sent to a third party. We believe that the changes required for addressing this issue will be positive over the long term for the whole community. As a result we took the necessary action of suspending bitcoin withdrawals until this technical issue has been resolved. Addressing Transaction Malleability MtGox has detected unusual activity on its Bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely. Non-technical Explanation: A bug in the bitcoin software makes it possible for someone to use the Bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of bitcoins to a bitcoin wallet did not occur when in fact it did occur. Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly, the bitcoins may be resent. MtGox is working with the Bitcoin core development team and others to mitigate this issue. Technical Explanation: Bitcoin transactions are subject to a design issue that has been largely ignored, while known to at least a part of the Bitcoin core developers and mentioned on the BitcoinTalk forums. This defect, known as "transaction malleability" makes it possible for a third party to alter the hash of any freshly issued transaction without invalidating the signature, hence resulting in a similar transaction under a different hash. Of course only one of the two transactions can be validated. However, if the party who altered the transaction is fast enough, for example with a direct connection to different mining pools, or has even a small amount of mining power, it can easily cause the transaction hash alteration to be committed to the blockchain. The bitcoin api "sendtoaddress" broadly used to send bitcoins to a given bitcoin address will return a transaction hash as a way to track the transaction's insertion in the blockchain.Most wallet and exchange services will keep a record of this said hash in order to be able to respond to users should they inquire about their transaction. It is likely that these services will assume the transaction was not sent if it doesn't appear in the blockchain with the original hash and have currently no means to recognize the alternative transactions as theirs in an efficient way. This means that an individual could request bitcoins from an exchange or wallet service, alter the resulting transaction's hash before inclusion in the blockchain, then contact the issuing service while claiming the transaction did not proceed. If the alteration fails, the user can simply send the bitcoins back and try again until successful. We believe this can be addressed by using a different hash for transaction tracking purposes. While the network will continue to use the current hash for the purpose of inclusion in each block's Merkle Tree, the new hash's purpose will be to track a given transaction and can be computed and indexed by hashing the exact signed string via SHA256 (in the same way transactions are currently hashed). This new transaction hash will allow signing parties to keep track of any transaction they have signed and can easily be computed, even for past transactions. We have discussed this solution with the Bitcoin core developers and will allow Bitcoin withdrawals again once it has been approved and standardized. In the meantime, exchanges and wallet services - and any service sending coins directly to third parties - should be extremely careful with anyone claiming their transaction did not go through. Note that this will also affect any other crypto-currency using the same transaction scheme as Bitcoin. Conclusion: To put things in perspective, it's important to remember that Bitcoin is a very new technology and still very much in its early stages. What MtGox and the Bitcoin community have experienced in the past year has been an incredible and exciting challenge, and there is still much to do to further improve. MtGox will resume bitcoin withdrawals to outside wallets once the issue outlined above has been properly addressed in a manner that will best serve our customers. More information on the status of this issue will be released as soon as possible. We thank you for taking the time to read this, and especially for your patience. Best Regards,MtGox Team More From Business Insider Another Major Bitcoin Exchange May Be Under Threat The World's Largest Bitcoin Fund Just Took A Preliminary Step To Creating A US Bitcoin Exchange Bitcoin Plunges As Major Exchange Mt. Gox Halts All Withdrawals Why Bitcoin Will Never Have A Problem With Deflation Dogecoin Just Solved A Problem That Bitcoin Is Going To Face

2014-02-10 12:19:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1137]}

{}

10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-things-know-opening-bell-121917332.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

philippines schoolchildren hats REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco Elementary school pupils use doormats as improvised protective headgears as they stay in a safe area during an earthquake drill in Paranaque city, metro Manila February 10, 2014. Good morning! Here's what you need to know. European economies are still in big trouble. Italian industrial production fell 0.9% in December , and its service and retail sectors are said to be contracting. In France, industrial production fell 0.3% . Analysts including JPMorgan believe the European Central Bank's monetary stance remains too hawkish. The lone standout in Europe appears to be the UK. According to a new report , there are now 23 buyers for every high-end home in London, compared with 14 a year ago. The average time on market for a home in the city's costliest neighborhoods is now just two weeks. Japan's current account surplus shrunk to the smallest level on record, about $32 billion , as the country's measure of trade with other nations showed the largest one-month deficit on record in December. The FT says Japanese companies have refused to cut prices, which has hurt exports. Bitcoin prices are down big this morning after MtGox, a major exchange, said withdrawals remain suspended while it addresses a technical glitch. Some fear that when withdrawals are restarted there will be a mass exodus out of the Japan-based market, sending prices even lower. Gold, meanwhile, is at a two-week high. Stocks in Asia were up. U.S. futures were lower. European markets were slightly higher. Australia will soon be without a single automaker on its shores as Toyota has announced it will shut down all its factories Down Under by the end of 2017 , the result of a too-strong Aussie dollar and rising production costs. 40,000 people country-wide are expected to lose their jobs. The New York Times' Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess report on an email showing a top Chinese regulator personally asking JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon for a "favor" to hire a young family friend. The acquaintance works for the megabank today. Meanwhile Reuters' Fiona Lau reports UBS has suspended two Hong Kong employees in connection with the hiring of an employee related to a Chinese corporate client. China's Alipay, owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, says it has surpassed PayPal to become the world's largest online payment service, having processed $150 billion in transactions last year. Square and PayPal combined only did $50 billion last year, it said, according to Marketwatch's Lauren He . Michael Sam, a former Missouri defensive end entering the 2014 NFL draft, announced he is gay. BI's Tony Manfred has the league reaction covered . There is no major economic data today coming out today. Hasbro, Loews, and Urban Outfitters announce earnings today. More From Business Insider 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

2014-02-10 14:30:43+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [237, 415, 550, 650, 761, 892]}

{"Bitcoin": [117]}

Security First International Holdings, Inc. Capitalizing on the Widespread Adoption of Crypto-Currency by Converting Bitcoin to USD Through Cryptsybids.com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/security-first-international-holdings-inc-143043141.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

LAS VEGAS, NV --(Marketwired - February 10, 2014) - Security First International Holdings, Inc. ( SCFR ) , a leading provider of mobile financial products and services for consumers, is pleased to provide a trouble-free means to convert Bitcoin to USD through, Cryptsybids.com . Cryptsybids.com, the company's penny auction auction environment, allows players to purchase bids with eligible crypto-currency such as Bitcoin to participate in live auctions and win selected offers and get USD cash back rewards. "With some of the challenges converting Bitcoin into USD through the traditional exchanges, I see this as a great alternative to converting Bitcoin into cash" said Brian Fowler, President. In effort to recognize the issue being encountered by various Bitcoin exchanges, Security First International Holdings, Inc. intends to provide full user control and flexibility for converting Bitcoin to USD cash back rewards with Cryptsybids.com , the first-of-its-kind penny auction environment. Visit Cryptsybids.com to learn more. About Security First Holdings International Inc. ( SCFR ) Security First International Holdings is a company focused on providing innovative financial payment products and services to consumers globally. We provide new possibilities for the mobile commerce market through technology and platforms that will create a meaningful financial impact on all consumers. Through a mobile technology that works in combination with Android devices, direct carrier billing and prepaid reloadable cards; Security First International Holdings, Inc. is re-defining the conventional application of funding sources for prepaid reloadable cards. A technology company redefining mobile shopping, Security First International Holdings, Inc. is bringing together alternative consumer financing solutions designed to create a consumer mobile shopping lifestyle that is a more connected, powerful experience. Our mission is to be the leader in innovative consumer financial products. Story continues More information about Security First International Holdings, Inc. is available at: www.scfrinc.com www.cryptsybids.com FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including statements about the business plan and prospective financial condition of Security First Holdings International, Inc. The forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including that the parties may not complete the transaction or that when completed, the transaction might be different than presently contemplated. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Security First Holdings International, Inc. does not undertake any obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. In addition, any forward-looking statements regarding expected industry patterns and other financial and business results that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from results expressed or implied by this press release. Such risk factors include, among others: whether Security First Holdings International, Inc. can successfully execute its operating plan; its ability to integrate acquired companies and technology; its ability to retain key employees; its ability to successfully combine product offerings and customer acceptance of combined products; general market conditions; and whether Security First Holdings International, Inc. can successfully develop new products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements in this press release. ©2012 Security First International Holdings, Inc. ( SCFR ). The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for SCFR products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. SCFR shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

2014-02-10 15:46:04+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1997]}

{}

Cramer: Can't shake faith in this fast food stock

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/cramer-cant-shake-faith-fast-154604409.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Getty Images Despite a sharp decline in McDonald's ( MCD ) same-store sales in the U.S. and increasing concerns about the food chain, CNBC's Jim Cramer says it's hard to write off the global fast food company. One good month of same-store sales in the United States could push the stock to $103 per share-up from its $94.65 in early trading Monday-Cramer said on " Squawk on the Street ." While Cramer remains cautiously optimistic on McDonald's stock potential, he has made a habit of avoiding fast food, he said. "That's because people have faith that [McDonald's CEO] Don Thompson is going to pull it out, and you know what?" Cramer said. "I do too. In the end this is a place for people who are not wealthy to enjoy a meal. I stopped taking my kids here years and years ago. I'm concerned about the food chain." ( Read more : Europe, China help McDonald's offset soft U.S. sales in January ) McDonald's on Monday reported better-than-expected growth abroad as sales in Europe and China helped overcome a marked decline in U.S. revenue. The company credited the domestic slowdown on frigid weather that kept consumers indoors. Cramer, however, linked the slowdown to a growing movement toward natural and organic foods. Cramer said McDonald's has a "Buck Marshall" problem, referring to the antagonist from the coming original online series, "Farmed and Dangerous." The show pokes fun at industrial-scale farming and corporate influence over the food chain. (Read more: Chipotle blurs lines with a satirical series about industrial farming ) Chipotle Mexican Grill ( CMG ) is producing the series and plans to release it through streaming-TV service Hulu on Feb. 17. "This is unbranded," Cramer said. "This is a new kind of messaging, basically taking aim at the food chain. That is going to hurt McDonald's." -By CNBC's Jeff Morganteen. Reuters contributed to this report. Follow him on Twitter at @jmorganteen and get the latest stories from "Squawk on the Street." Disclaimer More From CNBC Bitcoin drops another 20% as Mt Gox highlights bug World's most successful hedge fund manager is... Icahn: I won't squeeze Apple on buyback anymore

2014-02-10 19:09:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [315, 406, 873, 914]}

{}

Bill Gates Says Digital Currencies Could Be Huge

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-bill-gates-thinks-bitcoin-190931890.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Bill Gates AMA Twitter Bill Gates is hosting an AMA on Reddit right now. Redditors have asked questions about everything from his new role at Microsoft to what his most expensive guilty pleasure purchase was (for the record: his private plane). One user asked him what his thoughts were about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Here's how Gates replied : The foundation is involved in digital money but unlike Bitcoin it would not be anonymous digital money. In Kenya M-pesa is being used for almost half of all transactions. Digital money has low transaction costs which is great for the poor because they need to do financial transactions with small amounts of money. Over the next 5 years I think digital money will catch on in India and parts of Africa and help the poorest a lot. More From Business Insider Reddit Users Are Going Nuts Because Apple Blocked Their Favorite Bitcoin App Apple Drops The Most-Popular Bitcoin Wallet From The App Store Here's Bill Gates' Vision For The Future Of Computing

2014-02-10 20:56:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [41, 207, 482]}

{"Bitcoin": [29]}

Bing now shows how much your Bitcoin is worth in other currencies

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2014-02-10-bing-bitcoin-conversion-tool.html

Engadget

https://www.engadget.com/

While some may be opposed to the idea of Bitcoin , others are doing all they can to adjust to the recent digital currency rush. Today, Bing, in partnership with Coinbase , announced it has added support for Bitcoin within its currency-conversion tools. Simply put, you can now use Microsoft's search engine to see what the value of your new-age money is in, say, dollars, pesos, euros or any of the other 50-plus currencies Bing has indexed. And it's all done in real time, too. No Bitcoin? No problem -- there's nothing wrong with entering some random numbers for fun's sake.

2014-02-10 21:39:54+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [20, 134, 191, 330, 419, 500, 525, 829, 1257, 1354, 1458, 1719], "BTC": [402, 1070]}

{"Bitcoin": [50]}

The Bing Search Engine Can Now Convert Dollars to Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-bing-search-engine-can-now-convert-dollars-to-76249725427.html

Yahoo Tech

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/

Microsoft has added Bitcoin conversion to Bing’s ever-growing arsenal of tricks, making Bing the first major search engine to support Bitcoin conversion and further solidifying the fledgling Bitcoin as a legitimate alternative currency. With Bing’s new trick, finding out how much, say, an off-contract iPhone 5s would run you in Bitcoin is as simple as heading over to Bing.com and typing in “$649 to BTC.” (It’s 0.96 Bitcoin, by the way. Everything seems way more affordable when you convert it to Bitcoin.) Bing draws its Bitcoin valuations from Coinbase , a year-and-a-half-old startup based in San Francisco that converts the currency to dollars and offers an online wallet for storing the virtual money. In May of last year, the service noted that users were converting the equivalent of $15 million a month. ( For more on Bitcoin, read my colleague Rob Pegoraro’s beginner’s guide .) Microsoft’s move will likely be seen as adding yet more legitimacy to the virtual currency, which has suffered at the hands of some fairly wild fluctuations. At present, a single BTC unit is valued at around $677. Last month, the price of the currency fluctuated between $750 and $1,000, with prices ranging between $350 and $1,250 back in November. The reasons for Bitcoin’s wild pricing ride are just as wide ranging, from investor concern to hacker attacks on Bitcoin servers. For its part, Google has yet to throw any of its own currency conversion weight behind Bitcoin. Still, a number of mainstream outlets — including Overstock.com, WordPress and the Sacramento Kings basketball team — have begun to accept the currency as payment. Absent from that list? Microsoft. So if you’re looking to buy an Xbox One with it (0.74 Bitcoin), you’ll have to find another method. (Disclosure: Bing provides search results for Yahoo. You can read more about the partnership here .) Yahoo Tech is a brand new tech site from David Pogue and an all-star team of writers. Follow us on Facebook for all the latest.

2014-02-10 22:47:57+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2482, 3853]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plunges after marketplace indefinitely halts withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-major-platform-indefinitely-halts-withdrawals-212503433--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." The bitcoin price varied dramatically from one exchange to another, with Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, the best known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace, recording one of the biggest drops for the day. On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price of $692, according to the Mt. Gox website. It last traded at $595.74, off nearly 14 percent from Friday. "This technical issue is of a much larger intensity than we've seen in the past," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies." The bitcoin in recent months started to gain wider acceptance, with Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings basketball team both saying they would begin to accept the currency. More recently, the digital currency has drawn increased scrutiny. New York state's top bank regulator in late January revealed plans to regulate businesses handling transactions in bitcoin this year. TRANSACTIONS COULD BE ALTERED The bitcoin price started falling fast on Friday when Mt. Gox said it was temporarily halting withdrawals due to unexplained technical issues. In an updated statement on Monday, Mt. Gox said withdrawals were on hold indefinitely after it "has detected unusual activity on its bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely." Mt. Gox said a "bug in the bitcoin software" could allow transaction details to be altered. In effect, someone on the network could alter transaction details to make it appear a transfer of bitcoins from one digital wallet to another had not occurred when in fact it had. This might cause the transfer to be repeated. A bitcoin wallet is an application that stores bitcoins for the currency's users. Mt. Gox said the issue was not limited to the exchange and "affects all transactions where bitcoins are being sent to a third party." It said the withdrawal suspension would be in effect until the issue has been resolved. CoinDesk, which launched the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index in September, removed Mt. Gox from its index Monday, citing its "persistent failure to meet the index's standards for inclusion." "These recent withdrawal restrictions are just the latest in a series of issues which have made Mt. Gox's inclusion in the BPI problematic," CoinDesk said. On CoinDesk's bitcoin index, the bitcoin price was lower but not by nearly as much as on the Mt. Gox platform. The CoinDesk index showed bitcoin at $667.79 on late Monday afternoon, down about 5 percent from Friday's close of $703.57. Its low for the day was around $540 versus $500 on Mt. Gox. On both platforms, the price was still around the lowest since late December. The price had topped $1,000 as recently as late January. "With the volatility in the currency being as much as it is, it's going to take some time before we get enough of a comfort level from investors and merchants to enable it to be used ubiquitously," said Darrin Peller, managing director at Barclays in New York. The arrest of a prominent bitcoin advocate just over two weeks ago threw a spotlight on the currency. Charlie Shrem, 24, operator of the Bitinstant bitcoin exchange company, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering by helping to funnel cash to illicit online drugs bazaar Silk Road. The following day Shrem resigned as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group. (Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Dan Burns and Leslie Adler)

2014-02-10 22:47:57+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2498, 3869]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plunges after marketplace indefinitely halts withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-major-platform-indefinitely-212503850.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." The bitcoin price varied dramatically from one exchange to another, with Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, the best known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace, recording one of the biggest drops for the day. On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price of $692, according to the Mt. Gox website. It last traded at $595.74, off nearly 14 percent from Friday. "This technical issue is of a much larger intensity than we've seen in the past," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies." The bitcoin in recent months started to gain wider acceptance, with Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings basketball team both saying they would begin to accept the currency. More recently, the digital currency has drawn increased scrutiny. New York state's top bank regulator in late January revealed plans to regulate businesses handling transactions in bitcoin this year. TRANSACTIONS COULD BE ALTERED The bitcoin price started falling fast on Friday when Mt. Gox said it was temporarily halting withdrawals due to unexplained technical issues. In an updated statement on Monday, Mt. Gox said withdrawals were on hold indefinitely after it "has detected unusual activity on its bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely." Mt. Gox said a "bug in the bitcoin software" could allow transaction details to be altered. In effect, someone on the network could alter transaction details to make it appear a transfer of bitcoins from one digital wallet to another had not occurred when in fact it had. This might cause the transfer to be repeated. Story continues A bitcoin wallet is an application that stores bitcoins for the currency's users. Mt. Gox said the issue was not limited to the exchange and "affects all transactions where bitcoins are being sent to a third party." It said the withdrawal suspension would be in effect until the issue has been resolved. CoinDesk, which launched the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index in September, removed Mt. Gox from its index Monday, citing its "persistent failure to meet the index's standards for inclusion." "These recent withdrawal restrictions are just the latest in a series of issues which have made Mt. Gox's inclusion in the BPI problematic," CoinDesk said. On CoinDesk's bitcoin index, the bitcoin price was lower but not by nearly as much as on the Mt. Gox platform. The CoinDesk index showed bitcoin at $667.79 on late Monday afternoon, down about 5 percent from Friday's close of $703.57. Its low for the day was around $540 versus $500 on Mt. Gox. On both platforms, the price was still around the lowest since late December. The price had topped $1,000 as recently as late January. "With the volatility in the currency being as much as it is, it's going to take some time before we get enough of a comfort level from investors and merchants to enable it to be used ubiquitously," said Darrin Peller, managing director at Barclays in New York. The arrest of a prominent bitcoin advocate just over two weeks ago threw a spotlight on the currency. Charlie Shrem, 24, operator of the Bitinstant bitcoin exchange company, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering by helping to funnel cash to illicit online drugs bazaar Silk Road. The following day Shrem resigned as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group. (Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Dan Burns and Leslie Adler)

2014-02-10 22:47:57+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2482, 3853]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plunges after marketplace indefinitely halts withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-major-platform-indefinitely-halts-withdrawals-212503433--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." The bitcoin price varied dramatically from one exchange to another, with Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, the best known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace, recording one of the biggest drops for the day. On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price of $692, according to the Mt. Gox website. It last traded at $595.74, off nearly 14 percent from Friday. "This technical issue is of a much larger intensity than we've seen in the past," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies." The bitcoin in recent months started to gain wider acceptance, with Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings basketball team both saying they would begin to accept the currency. More recently, the digital currency has drawn increased scrutiny. New York state's top bank regulator in late January revealed plans to regulate businesses handling transactions in bitcoin this year. TRANSACTIONS COULD BE ALTERED The bitcoin price started falling fast on Friday when Mt. Gox said it was temporarily halting withdrawals due to unexplained technical issues. In an updated statement on Monday, Mt. Gox said withdrawals were on hold indefinitely after it "has detected unusual activity on its bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely." Mt. Gox said a "bug in the bitcoin software" could allow transaction details to be altered. In effect, someone on the network could alter transaction details to make it appear a transfer of bitcoins from one digital wallet to another had not occurred when in fact it had. This might cause the transfer to be repeated. A bitcoin wallet is an application that stores bitcoins for the currency's users. Mt. Gox said the issue was not limited to the exchange and "affects all transactions where bitcoins are being sent to a third party." It said the withdrawal suspension would be in effect until the issue has been resolved. CoinDesk, which launched the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index in September, removed Mt. Gox from its index Monday, citing its "persistent failure to meet the index's standards for inclusion." "These recent withdrawal restrictions are just the latest in a series of issues which have made Mt. Gox's inclusion in the BPI problematic," CoinDesk said. On CoinDesk's bitcoin index, the bitcoin price was lower but not by nearly as much as on the Mt. Gox platform. The CoinDesk index showed bitcoin at $667.79 on late Monday afternoon, down about 5 percent from Friday's close of $703.57. Its low for the day was around $540 versus $500 on Mt. Gox. On both platforms, the price was still around the lowest since late December. The price had topped $1,000 as recently as late January. "With the volatility in the currency being as much as it is, it's going to take some time before we get enough of a comfort level from investors and merchants to enable it to be used ubiquitously," said Darrin Peller, managing director at Barclays in New York. The arrest of a prominent bitcoin advocate just over two weeks ago threw a spotlight on the currency. Charlie Shrem, 24, operator of the Bitinstant bitcoin exchange company, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering by helping to funnel cash to illicit online drugs bazaar Silk Road. The following day Shrem resigned as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group. (Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Dan Burns and Leslie Adler)

2014-02-11 01:39:43+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2498, 3869]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plunges after marketplace indefinitely halts withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-marketplace-indefinitely-halts-013943617.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." The bitcoin price varied dramatically from one exchange to another, with Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, the best known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace, recording one of the biggest drops for the day. On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price of $692, according to the Mt. Gox website. It last traded at $595.74, off nearly 14 percent from Friday. "This technical issue is of a much larger intensity than we've seen in the past," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies." The bitcoin in recent months started to gain wider acceptance, with Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings basketball team both saying they would begin to accept the currency. More recently, the digital currency has drawn increased scrutiny. New York state's top bank regulator in late January revealed plans to regulate businesses handling transactions in bitcoin this year. TRANSACTIONS COULD BE ALTERED The bitcoin price started falling fast on Friday when Mt. Gox said it was temporarily halting withdrawals due to unexplained technical issues. In an updated statement on Monday, Mt. Gox said withdrawals were on hold indefinitely after it "has detected unusual activity on its bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely." Mt. Gox said a "bug in the bitcoin software" could allow transaction details to be altered. In effect, someone on the network could alter transaction details to make it appear a transfer of bitcoins from one digital wallet to another had not occurred when in fact it had. This might cause the transfer to be repeated. Story continues A bitcoin wallet is an application that stores bitcoins for the currency's users. Mt. Gox said the issue was not limited to the exchange and "affects all transactions where bitcoins are being sent to a third party." It said the withdrawal suspension would be in effect until the issue has been resolved. CoinDesk, which launched the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index in September, removed Mt. Gox from its index Monday, citing its "persistent failure to meet the index's standards for inclusion." "These recent withdrawal restrictions are just the latest in a series of issues which have made Mt. Gox's inclusion in the BPI problematic," CoinDesk said. On CoinDesk's bitcoin index, the bitcoin price was lower but not by nearly as much as on the Mt. Gox platform. The CoinDesk index showed bitcoin at $667.79 on late Monday afternoon, down about 5 percent from Friday's close of $703.57. Its low for the day was around $540 versus $500 on Mt. Gox. On both platforms, the price was still around the lowest since late December. The price had topped $1,000 as recently as late January. "With the volatility in the currency being as much as it is, it's going to take some time before we get enough of a comfort level from investors and merchants to enable it to be used ubiquitously," said Darrin Peller, managing director at Barclays in New York. The arrest of a prominent bitcoin advocate just over two weeks ago threw a spotlight on the currency. Charlie Shrem, 24, operator of the Bitinstant bitcoin exchange company, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering by helping to funnel cash to illicit online drugs bazaar Silk Road. The following day Shrem resigned as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group. (Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Dan Burns and Leslie Adler)

2014-02-11 02:06:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [5378]}

{}

Here's Why Tim Armstrong Knew About His Employees' 'Distressed Babies'

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-tim-armstrong-knew-020600597.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Tim Armstrong REUTERS/Jim Urquhart AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Last week, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong chose to tell a company-wide conference call that two AOL employees had "distressed babies" requiring health care expenditures of around $1 million each — which was one of the reasons he had to make 401(k) benefits less generous. Here's one aspect of the AOL story we thought people might want a clearer explanation of: Why did Armstrong know so much about his employees' health care usage in the first place? Weren't those high costs a matter between AOL's employees and AOL's health insurer? In fact, like most large companies, AOL is its own health insurer . A source close to AOL senior management confirmed to Business Insider that the company self-insures for health coverage. Employees carry cards with the name of an outside insurer on them (Cigna, in AOL's case) but that company is just acting as an administrator; it sends a bill to AOL for whatever claims get paid out. Since AOL is paying the bills, it needs to know something about what kind of medical care its employees are getting. This information informs the company's decisions about changes to the health plan in future years; depending on what functions it's contracting out, it may also need to make decisions about what claims to pay and appeal. In general, reports about high-cost claimants that get up to the CEO level should have identifying employee information stripped out. " You're not going to know who the employees are," said Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefits Research Institute. That is, whatever report Armstrong saw that described the medical costs related to these two births, it likely wouldn't have named Huffington Post editor Peter Goodman as the employee making the claims. (Goodman's wife, Deanna Fei, wrote a piece for Slate over the weekend responding to Armstrong's singling out of her baby, who was born four months premature but has since recovered well.) Except, in some cases, a high-cost employee's identity might be pretty easy to figure out. M anagers could deduce the employee's identity through workplace gossip or claims for related benefits, like short-term disability and family leave. Story continues "E ven at large companies this kind of anecdotal evidence can get connected to claims reports – gossip travels fast," Kyle Healy, Vice President at benefits consulting firm Lenox Advisers, told Business Insider in an email. But, Healy added, legal protections exist to protect employees from being punished for incurring high costs. While it may be uncomfortable to think about your employer knowing about the details of your medical needs, it's important to note AOL and other firms can't just react to an employee's high costs by cutting off payment. Benefits consultants contacted by Business Insider were consistent in saying that health benefits are contractual — each year, the company agrees to a set of health plan terms, and if claims meet plan criteria, the company has to pay them. "There is really no wiggle room here at all," said Cheryl Swirnow, co-founder of Sherpaa, which advises firms on health benefits. " They would not have discretion over claims as they are occurring or have the power to reach out to an administrator and have that administrator stop benefits or limit benefits on an individual basis with no medical justification," said Healy. Firms like AOL can use these cost reports to inform changes to future years' health benefits, in an effort to prevent similarly high costs from arising again. But because the Affordable Care Act prohibits annual or lifetime benefit limits, employers are limited in their ability to cut off claimants for simply being too expensive. (And even before the ACA, it was "highly unusual" for large employers like AOL to impose such limits, said Fronstin.) Firms might react by imposing other cost-control measures, such as excluding high-cost medical providers from their networks or raising out-of-pocket cost sharing, but the savings from such measures would come from reduced costs for claimants broadly, not just from those with extraordinarily high costs. The necessity of continuing to pay for high-cost health events — as Fei pointed out in Slate, a key purpose of health insurance is to cover unpredictably high medical expenses like hers and her child's — may be why Armstrong thought it made sense to say AOL was cutting its 401(k) benefit because of the need to care for premature babies. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 prohibits employers from disclosing certain personally-identifying health information about their employees. " Since he didn't use the women's names, and presumably there were many pregnancies at AOL last year, it would be tough to say he violated HIPAA," said Swirnow. Still, Swirnow adds that it was an ethical violation, even if it wasn't a legal one. Hopefully, the negative press Armstrong has drawn to AOL will remind self-insuring employers about the importance of safeguarding employees' private health information, given that they have it. More From Business Insider The Life And Sudden Death Of 'Flappy Bird': How A Guy Making $50,000 Per Day Grew To 'Hate' His Own Game An Austrian Artist Has Completely Reinvented The Door Starbucks Hits Back At 'Dumb Starbucks' Ridiculously Photogenic Gold Medalist Cries During Her National Anthem Bitcoin Just Completely Crashed As Major Exchange Says Withdrawals Remain Halted

2014-02-11 06:11:14+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [373, 698]}

{}

PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - Feb 11

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/press-digest-york-times-business-061114370.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

Feb 11 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. * Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors Co, will earn as much as $14.4 million in compensation during her first year on the job, the company said on Monday. () * What was once the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, appeared near collapse on Monday, the latest symbol of the woes facing early players in the world of virtual currencies. A few days after cutting off withdrawals for customers, Mt. Gox said on Monday that its problems were a result of a more fundamental flaw in the computer program that underlies Bitcoin. * Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is closing two mutual funds less than two years after it started them, a setback for the private equity giant as it looks to attract smaller investors. () * The court-appointed monitor in the Apple e-book price-fixing case can get back to work. A federal appellate court on Monday rejected Apple's request to stay the monitor, Michael Bromwich, a Washington lawyer, from doing any more work pending the outcome of its challenge to a judge's earlier order appointing the monitor in the first place. () * According to a lawsuit filed against the Justice Department on Monday, the crucial details of the $13 billion settlement deal with JPMorgan Chase were for the government's eyes only. The lawsuit filed by Better Markets, a nonprofit group critical of Wall Street, challenged the constitutionality of the deal, a landmark settlement stemming from accusations that JPMorgan overstated the quality of mortgage securities it sold before the financial crisis. () * Goldman Sachs Group on Monday named Ashok Varadhan as co-head of the securities division, a significant promotion that has in the past paved the way to the bank's upper echelons for other top-ranking executives. () * After six months of urging Apple Inc to pay out more money to shareholders, the billionaire Carl Icahn dropped his effort on Monday. His decision came after strong opposition from other big investors and an influential shareholder advisory firm. Still, Icahn may have prevailed in the end anyway, as Apple continued to emphasize returning money to investors. () * More people have gone to work during the past three months than at any time in decades. Those same three months have seen fewer jobs created than during any similar stretch in more than a year. ()

2014-02-11 09:15:56+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2498, 3869]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plunges after marketplace indefinitely halts withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-marketplace-indefinitely-halts-091556453.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." The bitcoin price varied dramatically from one exchange to another, with Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, the best known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace, recording one of the biggest drops for the day. On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price of $692, according to the Mt. Gox website. It last traded at $595.74, off nearly 14 percent from Friday. "This technical issue is of a much larger intensity than we've seen in the past," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies." The bitcoin in recent months started to gain wider acceptance, with Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings basketball team both saying they would begin to accept the currency. More recently, the digital currency has drawn increased scrutiny. New York state's top bank regulator in late January revealed plans to regulate businesses handling transactions in bitcoin this year. TRANSACTIONS COULD BE ALTERED The bitcoin price started falling fast on Friday when Mt. Gox said it was temporarily halting withdrawals due to unexplained technical issues. In an updated statement on Monday, Mt. Gox said withdrawals were on hold indefinitely after it "has detected unusual activity on its bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely." Mt. Gox said a "bug in the bitcoin software" could allow transaction details to be altered. In effect, someone on the network could alter transaction details to make it appear a transfer of bitcoins from one digital wallet to another had not occurred when in fact it had. This might cause the transfer to be repeated. Story continues A bitcoin wallet is an application that stores bitcoins for the currency's users. Mt. Gox said the issue was not limited to the exchange and "affects all transactions where bitcoins are being sent to a third party." It said the withdrawal suspension would be in effect until the issue has been resolved. CoinDesk, which launched the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index in September, removed Mt. Gox from its index Monday, citing its "persistent failure to meet the index's standards for inclusion." "These recent withdrawal restrictions are just the latest in a series of issues which have made Mt. Gox's inclusion in the BPI problematic," CoinDesk said. On CoinDesk's bitcoin index, the bitcoin price was lower but not by nearly as much as on the Mt. Gox platform. The CoinDesk index showed bitcoin at $667.79 on late Monday afternoon, down about 5 percent from Friday's close of $703.57. Its low for the day was around $540 versus $500 on Mt. Gox. On both platforms, the price was still around the lowest since late December. The price had topped $1,000 as recently as late January. "With the volatility in the currency being as much as it is, it's going to take some time before we get enough of a comfort level from investors and merchants to enable it to be used ubiquitously," said Darrin Peller, managing director at Barclays in New York. The arrest of a prominent bitcoin advocate just over two weeks ago threw a spotlight on the currency. Charlie Shrem, 24, operator of the Bitinstant bitcoin exchange company, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering by helping to funnel cash to illicit online drugs bazaar Silk Road. The following day Shrem resigned as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group. (Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Dan Burns and Leslie Adler)

2014-02-11 09:15:56+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2498, 3869]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin plunges after marketplace indefinitely halts withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-plunges-marketplace-indefinitely-halts-091556453.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." The bitcoin price varied dramatically from one exchange to another, with Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, the best known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace, recording one of the biggest drops for the day. On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price of $692, according to the Mt. Gox website. It last traded at $595.74, off nearly 14 percent from Friday. "This technical issue is of a much larger intensity than we've seen in the past," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies." The bitcoin in recent months started to gain wider acceptance, with Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings basketball team both saying they would begin to accept the currency. More recently, the digital currency has drawn increased scrutiny. New York state's top bank regulator in late January revealed plans to regulate businesses handling transactions in bitcoin this year. TRANSACTIONS COULD BE ALTERED The bitcoin price started falling fast on Friday when Mt. Gox said it was temporarily halting withdrawals due to unexplained technical issues. In an updated statement on Monday, Mt. Gox said withdrawals were on hold indefinitely after it "has detected unusual activity on its bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely." Mt. Gox said a "bug in the bitcoin software" could allow transaction details to be altered. In effect, someone on the network could alter transaction details to make it appear a transfer of bitcoins from one digital wallet to another had not occurred when in fact it had. This might cause the transfer to be repeated. Story continues A bitcoin wallet is an application that stores bitcoins for the currency's users. Mt. Gox said the issue was not limited to the exchange and "affects all transactions where bitcoins are being sent to a third party." It said the withdrawal suspension would be in effect until the issue has been resolved. CoinDesk, which launched the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index in September, removed Mt. Gox from its index Monday, citing its "persistent failure to meet the index's standards for inclusion." "These recent withdrawal restrictions are just the latest in a series of issues which have made Mt. Gox's inclusion in the BPI problematic," CoinDesk said. On CoinDesk's bitcoin index, the bitcoin price was lower but not by nearly as much as on the Mt. Gox platform. The CoinDesk index showed bitcoin at $667.79 on late Monday afternoon, down about 5 percent from Friday's close of $703.57. Its low for the day was around $540 versus $500 on Mt. Gox. On both platforms, the price was still around the lowest since late December. The price had topped $1,000 as recently as late January. "With the volatility in the currency being as much as it is, it's going to take some time before we get enough of a comfort level from investors and merchants to enable it to be used ubiquitously," said Darrin Peller, managing director at Barclays in New York. The arrest of a prominent bitcoin advocate just over two weeks ago threw a spotlight on the currency. Charlie Shrem, 24, operator of the Bitinstant bitcoin exchange company, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering by helping to funnel cash to illicit online drugs bazaar Silk Road. The following day Shrem resigned as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group. (Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Dan Burns and Leslie Adler)

2014-02-11 11:51:20+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [119, 242, 777, 831, 1245, 2500, 3340, 3477, 3993, 4636, 4979]}

{"Bitcoin": [28]}

Israeli startups dream of a Bitcoin world

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/israeli-startups-dream-bitcoin-world-115120549.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Ari Rabinovitch TEL AVIV (Reuters) - "Welcome to the new economy," boasts a sign at the entrance of the self-styled Bitcoin Embassy in the heart of Tel Aviv. The sparely furnished property opened a few months ago to support a community of Bitcoin fanatics, perhaps the most active in the world, who are out to build just that - a next-generation trading system based on the digital currency. At least two dozen startups have popped up in Israel over the past year with a view to creating tools that will allow the currency to be used in almost any kind of transaction - from buying shoes to sending remittances or issuing company stock. Israeli companies are pioneers in hi-tech fields like cryptography, fraud prevention, and semiconductors, all of which interact with the Bitcoin universe. That makes the country as much of a Bitcoin hotspot as Singapore or California's Silicon Valley, says Eli Novershtern, principal of Israel's biggest venture capital firm Pitango, which manages assets worth over $1.6 billion. "We see a lot of activity here and are certainly looking to invest (in such firms), even significant sums if we recognize an attractive opportunity," he said, without offering details of specific plans. As a crypto-currency, Bitcoin is passed between two parties digitally and can be traded on exchanges for real-world currencies. Its value fluctuates according to user demand but it is not backed by any government or central bank. New bitcoins come from a process called mining. Computer programmers around the world compete to crack an automatically generated code and the first to do so is rewarded with a small stash. This happens about every 10 minutes. The maximum potential number of bitcoins in circulation is 21 million compared with around 12 million currently - meaning that, over time, the payoffs get smaller. Enthusiasts hope the circulation limit and wider acceptance of the currency will mean its value goes up. One bitcoin is currently worth about $700, giving the currency a total potential market value of about $9 billion. Story continues As recently as 2012 it was changing hands for $10. Netanel Goldberg, 42, heads GetReal Platforms, a company he and two other graduates of Israel's military cyber intelligence unit founded last year. He foresees a "bloodbath" as ever stronger computer networks compete to mine the most bitcoins - a market he expects to grab a sizable chunk of, thanks to a silicon-based chip that GetReal is developing. SECONDARY MARKET Bitcoin was spawned by a still unidentified developer known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, when the global financial crisis meant distrust of banks and governments was high. Initially there was a libertarian appeal, said Ron Finberg, who runs the website Digital Currency Magnates. But in Israel, technology had always been the currency's driving force, he said. Now the "boundary-less system" was fostering ever more innovative applications. Mathematician Meni Rosenfeld said his team is developing a product called "colored coins" that will allow bitcoins to carry a secondary value, such as equity in a company. A company will be able to take small fractions of a bitcoin, give them a digital marker, or "color", and distribute them to shareholders. "They represent stock in every way," said Rosenfeld, who is also chairman of the Israeli Bitcoin Association. The same could be done with bonds or car ownership, he said. REGULATORY RESPONSE There has been a mixed reaction to Bitcoin around the world. Supporters are drawn to its decentralized platform and say it is here to stay. Detractors call it a bubble and expect it to be forgotten in a year or two. But its growing popularity is undeniable, and governments and regulators have been searching for the best way to respond. "The Bank of Israel is ...examining the need for some sort of regulation regarding electronic, virtual and other similar currencies," said Yoav Seffer, spokesman for the central bank. Most retailers do not accept Bitcoin, making it hard for users to shop. One Tel Aviv startup, however, has shown that the convenience of using digital money can draw enormous interest. AppCoin developed a program that easily generates virtual currencies and teamed up with an online community of mothers in a trial run. The moms were given a new tender, called "hearts", and agreed to use it to buy and sell items. A year later the network swelled to 50,000 members with hundreds of transactions carried out each day. The company plans to offer a service so anyone, anywhere can create their own currency, but for now it is focused on a beta-version it just released of a Bitcoin bazaar, called Satoshi Marketplace, accessible by phone to anyone in the world. "Just as the internet revolutionized the way we exchange information, smartphones will redefine how people exchange value - by using digital currencies and virtual marketplaces," said Eyal Hertzog, product architect at AppCoin. Last month, members of the Bitcoin community and officials from the private sector and government gathered at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange to discuss the future of the digital currency. The assembly was hosted by Eden Shochat, founder of venture capital firm Aleph, which manages about $150 million. "The ability to transfer value in a frictionless way without transaction fees represents a tidal wave, and when that happens our role is to help, advise and fund these kinds of companies," he said. (Graphic by Christian Inton; Editing by John Stonestreet)

2014-02-11 18:19:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [135, 195, 536, 806, 1184, 1357, 1400, 1546, 1574, 1679]}

{"Bitcoin": [14]}

Lots Of Major Bitcoin Exchanges Are Under A 'Concerted And Massive Attack' Right Now

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lots-major-bitcoin-exchanges-under-181949995.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

nyse new york stock exchange trader REUTERS/Carlo Allegri Andreas Antonopolous is chief security officer at Blockchain.info, a popular Bitcoin wallet service, and he tells CoinDesk that numerous Bitcoin exchanges are experiencing a "massive and concerted" denial of service attack right now. This is a type of attack on one's digital real estate in which nefarious hackers bombard servers with junk requests over and over until they become useless. It's akin to filling a glass of water until it overflows. In Antonopolous' words: "As [Bitcoin] transactions are being created, malformed/parallel transactions are also being created so as to create a fog of confusion over the entire network, which then affects almost every single implementation out there." In other (simpler) words: this attack may cause Bitcoin to behave weirdly. He added that no money has actually been lost, as exchanges halt withdrawals as needed in order to keep everything synchronized. One exchange affected by the attack, Bitstamp, sent an email to its customers to that effect. Antonopolous predicts things will be operating normally in between one and three days. The attacks come on the heels of popular Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox having to halt a number of its exchanges as customers withdraw their money and even go so far as to protest outside the company's offices in Japan. Bitcoin's price has taken a big dip since. Bitcoin is currently sitting at ~$670. More From Business Insider Guy Shoots Up His iPhone With An Enormous Sniper Rifle After Apple Bans Popular Bitcoin App Apple Won't Let Bitcoin Apps In Its App Store, But This Guy Found A Way Around All That Why Apple Just Removed A Popular Bitcoin App From The App Store

2014-02-11 23:32:49+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [916, 1300]}

{}

New York planning a reality check for virtual currencies

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/york-regulator-moving-ahead-bitcoin-204120701.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Douwe Miedema and Karen Freifeld WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's financial regulator on Tuesday revealed new details on how the state plans to govern virtual currencies such as bitcoin, just as problems in the nascent market took a turn for the worse. Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, expects to adopt consumer disclosure rules, capital requirements and a framework for permissible investments with consumer money. "Our objective is to provide appropriate guard rails to protect consumers and root out money laundering without stifling beneficial innovation," Lawsky said in a speech at the New America Foundation in Washington. Lawsky said last month that his agency plans to issue rules for businesses handling virtual currencies, including a "BitLicense", which could make New York the first U.S. state to regulate virtual currencies such as bitcoins. Bitcoin proponents like the fact that it and a host of other currencies generated by computer programs are not backed by a government or central bank, and that their value fluctuates only according to demand. But the industry has been plagued by scandals. Last month, the vice chairman of a trade group was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering using Bitcoin. On Tuesday, Slovenia-based Bitstamp became the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals in the past several days, citing "inconsistent results", and blaming a denial-of-service attack. That was a day after the value of bitcoin slid to its lowest in nearly two months after Mt. Gox, the best known digital marketplace operator, said a halt on withdrawals would continue indefinitely. The price of bitcoin, which has gained wider acceptance in recent months, also varied dramatically from one exchange to another. On Tuesday, it was quoted at $645 per coin on Bitstamp's exchange, down 6 percent on the day. TRICKY QUESTIONS Still, Lawsky also highlighted positive aspects of the new technology, saying there was room for a thriving industry as long as it stuck to the rules, avoided money laundering, and did not duck regulation off-shore. Story continues "I'm hoping we'll make New York an attractive place for those who want to do this the right way," he said. Consumers needed to be told clearly about risks in the virtual currency, such as the fact that transactions are generally irreversible, and that they could lose their money if they hold onto bitcoins for an extended period. More challenging questions include capital requirements for firms to absorb unexpected losses, and how many risks they can take with investments. One issue is whether the firms should be allowed to invest in virtual currencies. "The really tricky question for regulators is how we structure those type of rules in light of the fact that the funds these firms hold are not denominated in dollars or other forms of traditional fiat currencies," Lawsky said. Lawsky expected to release the regulations in the spring or the summer of this year, and said the agency would seek public comment once it had published the plan in a so-called notice for proposed rule making. His agency is still wrestling with whether to ban or restrict the use of "tumblers", which obscure the record and source of virtual currencies. Tumblers are a concern to law enforcement, but they might also have legitimate uses. He said most virtual currencies have public ledgers which, when combined with know-your-customer guidelines, could serve as anti-money laundering controls. Lawsky added that he is grappling with what types of firms and transactions to regulate. The remarks follow two days of hearings in New York on the potential regulation of virtual currencies. Witnesses at the late January hearings included state and federal prosecutors, as well as industry participants such as the investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Also on Tuesday, Canada said it will toughen rules targeting money laundering and terrorist financing to keep a closer eye on the use of virtual currencies. (Reporting by Douwe Miedema in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York. Editing by Andre Grenon)

2014-02-12 00:23:25+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [916, 1300]}

{}

New York planning a reality check for virtual currencies

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/york-planning-reality-check-virtual-002325742.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Douwe Miedema and Karen Freifeld WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's financial regulator on Tuesday revealed new details on how the state plans to govern virtual currencies such as bitcoin, just as problems in the nascent market took a turn for the worse. Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, expects to adopt consumer disclosure rules, capital requirements and a framework for permissible investments with consumer money. "Our objective is to provide appropriate guard rails to protect consumers and root out money laundering without stifling beneficial innovation," Lawsky said in a speech at the New America Foundation in Washington. Lawsky said last month that his agency plans to issue rules for businesses handling virtual currencies, including a "BitLicense", which could make New York the first U.S. state to regulate virtual currencies such as bitcoins. Bitcoin proponents like the fact that it and a host of other currencies generated by computer programs are not backed by a government or central bank, and that their value fluctuates only according to demand. But the industry has been plagued by scandals. Last month, the vice chairman of a trade group was charged by U.S. prosecutors with conspiring to commit money laundering using Bitcoin. On Tuesday, Slovenia-based Bitstamp became the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals in the past several days, citing "inconsistent results", and blaming a denial-of-service attack. That was a day after the value of bitcoin slid to its lowest in nearly two months after Mt. Gox, the best known digital marketplace operator, said a halt on withdrawals would continue indefinitely. The price of bitcoin, which has gained wider acceptance in recent months, also varied dramatically from one exchange to another. On Tuesday, it was quoted at $645 per coin on Bitstamp's exchange, down 6 percent on the day. TRICKY QUESTIONS Still, Lawsky also highlighted positive aspects of the new technology, saying there was room for a thriving industry as long as it stuck to the rules, avoided money laundering, and did not duck regulation off-shore. Story continues "I'm hoping we'll make New York an attractive place for those who want to do this the right way," he said. Consumers needed to be told clearly about risks in the virtual currency, such as the fact that transactions are generally irreversible, and that they could lose their money if they hold onto bitcoins for an extended period. More challenging questions include capital requirements for firms to absorb unexpected losses, and how many risks they can take with investments. One issue is whether the firms should be allowed to invest in virtual currencies. "The really tricky question for regulators is how we structure those type of rules in light of the fact that the funds these firms hold are not denominated in dollars or other forms of traditional fiat currencies," Lawsky said. Lawsky expected to release the regulations in the spring or the summer of this year, and said the agency would seek public comment once it had published the plan in a so-called notice for proposed rule making. His agency is still wrestling with whether to ban or restrict the use of "tumblers", which obscure the record and source of virtual currencies. Tumblers are a concern to law enforcement, but they might also have legitimate uses. He said most virtual currencies have public ledgers which, when combined with know-your-customer guidelines, could serve as anti-money laundering controls. Lawsky added that he is grappling with what types of firms and transactions to regulate. The remarks follow two days of hearings in New York on the potential regulation of virtual currencies. Witnesses at the late January hearings included state and federal prosecutors, as well as industry participants such as the investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Also on Tuesday, Canada said it will toughen rules targeting money laundering and terrorist financing to keep a closer eye on the use of virtual currencies. (Reporting by Douwe Miedema in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York. Editing by Andre Grenon)

2014-02-12 02:29:33+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [67, 507, 2698]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin hit by denial of service attacks as regulators prepare clampdown

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-hit-denial-attacks-regulators-prepare-clampdown-022901111--sector.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Emily Flitter and Douwe Miedema WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin is being hit by attacks from unknown computer hackers who are sending "mutated" lines of code into the program that runs the virtual currency, a spokeswoman from its main trade organization said in a statement on Tuesday. The attacks are responsible for problems experienced by two bitcoin exchanges that caused them to temporarily halt withdrawals by customers who stored bitcoins in digital wallets provided by the exchanges, the Bitcoin Foundation said in a statement. "This is a denial-of-service attack," said the spokeswoman, Jinyoung Lee Englund. "Whoever is doing this is not stealing coins, but is succeeding in preventing some transactions from confirming. It's important to note that DoS attacks do not affect people's bitcoin wallets or funds." Englund said a team of core software developers who focus on bitcoin were working to fix the problem, but until it was solved some users would not be able to do anything with their bitcoins, and the affected bitcoins would appear to be "tied up" in transactions. "Only users who make multiple transactions in a short period of time will be affected," she said. On Tuesday, Slovenia-based Bitstamp became the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals in the past several days, citing "inconsistent results", and blaming a denial-of-service attack. That was a day after Mt. Gox, the best-known digital marketplace operator, said a halt on withdrawals would continue indefinitely. Traders reacted to the halt by sending the value of bitcoin to its lowest in nearly two months. The price of bitcoin, which has gained wider acceptance in recent months, varied dramatically from one exchange to another. On Tuesday, it was quoted at $645 per coin on Bitstamp's exchange, down 6 percent on the day. NEW MOVES BY REGULATORS Also on Tuesday, Canada said it will toughen rules targeting money laundering and terrorist financing to keep a closer eye on the use of virtual currencies. Meanwhile, in Washington, Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, expects to adopt consumer disclosure rules, capital requirements and a framework for permissible investments with consumer money. "Our objective is to provide appropriate guard rails to protect consumers and root out money laundering without stifling beneficial innovation," Lawsky said in a speech at the New America Foundation in Washington. Lawsky said last month that his agency plans to issue rules for businesses handling virtual currencies, including a "BitLicense", which could make New York the first U.S. state to regulate virtual currencies such as bitcoins. Bitcoin proponents like the fact that it and a host of other currencies generated by computer programs are not backed by a government or central bank, and that their value fluctuates only according to demand. "The really tricky question for regulators is how we structure those types of rules in light of the fact that the funds these firms hold are not denominated in dollars or other forms of traditional fiat currencies," Lawsky said. Lawsky expected to release the regulations in the spring or the summer of this year, and said the agency would seek public comment once it had published the plan in a so-called notice for proposed rule-making. His agency is still wrestling with the question of whether to ban or restrict the use of "tumblers", which obscure the record and source of virtual currencies. Tumblers are a concern to law enforcement, but they might also have legitimate uses. He said most virtual currencies have public ledgers which, when combined with know-your-customer guidelines, could serve as anti-money laundering controls. The remarks follow two days of hearings in New York on the potential regulation of virtual currencies. Witnesses at the late January hearings included state and federal prosecutors, as well as industry participants such as the investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. (Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York. Editing by Andre Grenon and Ken Wills)

2014-02-12 03:09:51+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [67, 507, 2714]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin hit by denial of service attacks as regulators prepare clampdown

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-hit-denial-attacks-regulators-030951297.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Emily Flitter and Douwe Miedema WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin is being hit by attacks from unknown computer hackers who are sending "mutated" lines of code into the program that runs the virtual currency, a spokeswoman from its main trade organization said in a statement on Tuesday. The attacks are responsible for problems experienced by two bitcoin exchanges that caused them to temporarily halt withdrawals by customers who stored bitcoins in digital wallets provided by the exchanges, the Bitcoin Foundation said in a statement. "This is a denial-of-service attack," said the spokeswoman, Jinyoung Lee Englund. "Whoever is doing this is not stealing coins, but is succeeding in preventing some transactions from confirming. It's important to note that DoS attacks do not affect people's bitcoin wallets or funds." Englund said a team of core software developers who focus on bitcoin were working to fix the problem, but until it was solved some users would not be able to do anything with their bitcoins, and the affected bitcoins would appear to be "tied up" in transactions. "Only users who make multiple transactions in a short period of time will be affected," she said. On Tuesday, Slovenia-based Bitstamp became the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals in the past several days, citing "inconsistent results", and blaming a denial-of-service attack. That was a day after Mt. Gox, the best-known digital marketplace operator, said a halt on withdrawals would continue indefinitely. Traders reacted to the halt by sending the value of bitcoin to its lowest in nearly two months. The price of bitcoin, which has gained wider acceptance in recent months, varied dramatically from one exchange to another. On Tuesday, it was quoted at $645 per coin on Bitstamp's exchange, down 6 percent on the day. NEW MOVES BY REGULATORS Also on Tuesday, Canada said it will toughen rules targeting money laundering and terrorist financing to keep a closer eye on the use of virtual currencies. Story continues Meanwhile, in Washington, Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, expects to adopt consumer disclosure rules, capital requirements and a framework for permissible investments with consumer money. "Our objective is to provide appropriate guard rails to protect consumers and root out money laundering without stifling beneficial innovation," Lawsky said in a speech at the New America Foundation in Washington. Lawsky said last month that his agency plans to issue rules for businesses handling virtual currencies, including a "BitLicense", which could make New York the first U.S. state to regulate virtual currencies such as bitcoins. Bitcoin proponents like the fact that it and a host of other currencies generated by computer programs are not backed by a government or central bank, and that their value fluctuates only according to demand. "The really tricky question for regulators is how we structure those types of rules in light of the fact that the funds these firms hold are not denominated in dollars or other forms of traditional fiat currencies," Lawsky said. Lawsky expected to release the regulations in the spring or the summer of this year, and said the agency would seek public comment once it had published the plan in a so-called notice for proposed rule-making. His agency is still wrestling with the question of whether to ban or restrict the use of "tumblers", which obscure the record and source of virtual currencies. Tumblers are a concern to law enforcement, but they might also have legitimate uses. He said most virtual currencies have public ledgers which, when combined with know-your-customer guidelines, could serve as anti-money laundering controls. The remarks follow two days of hearings in New York on the potential regulation of virtual currencies. Witnesses at the late January hearings included state and federal prosecutors, as well as industry participants such as the investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. (Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York. Editing by Andre Grenon and Ken Wills)

2014-02-12 12:11:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1505, 1752, 1844]}

{}

10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-things-know-opening-bell-121100983.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

elon musk and wife REUTERS/Joshua Roberts Entrepreneur Elon Musk and his wife Talulah Musk arrive for the State Dinner being held for French President Francois Hollande at the White House in Washington February 11, 2014. Good morning! Here's what you need to know. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a "clean," no-strings-attached bill to raise the debt ceiling through March 2015. It's expected to be approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate in the coming days. An interesting detail from BI politics reporter Brett LoGiurato: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) cast a rare vote in favor of the legislation. In a surprising vote against leadership, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) voted 'no.' " China exports climbed 10.6% year-over-year in January, crushing forecasts of 2%. Imports also trounced expectations, rising 10% versus 3% expected. Trade growth was "much stronger than we had expected," said RBS economist Louis Kuijs in a report . "This should make markets more relaxed about both global demand and demand in China's own economy. The Bank Of England raised the UK's 2014 GDP Forecast to 3.4% from 2.8%, based on reduced uncertainty and falling unemployment. Eurozone industrial production fell 0.8% year-over-year in 2013. And it fell 0.7% month-over-month in December. Australian consumer confidence declined for the third-straight month on fears of a jobless recovery. Markets are rallying around the world, led by Hong Kong's Hang Seng at 1.47%. Bitcoin prices are off yesterday's lows, after a worldwide hack caused most major exchanges to temporarily halt withdrawals. Prices are now $648 according to Coindesk. As we reported last night , although such an attack seemed to undermine one of Bitcoin's key premises — that the cryptocurrency was immune to such a coordinated assault — Bitcoin evangelists remain mostly unfazed. Toyota announced a global recall of 1.9 million Priuses because of faulty software that could cause the vehicle to slow down suddenly. It's the largest ever recall for the hybrid car. Agriculture and construction equipment maker Deere earnings came in at $1.81 versus $1.53 expected. Cisco and Whole Foods also report. There is no major economic data being released today. The Treasury will release its monthly budget report at 2 p.m. More From Business Insider 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning View comments

2014-02-12 13:18:12+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2646]}

{}

Historic bull market only in 'middle innings': JPM

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/historic-bull-market-only-middle-131812408.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Adam Jeffery | CNBC There are many reasons the stock market could advance double-digits again in 2014 and in years to come, JPMorgan ( JPM ) chief U.S. Equity strategist Tom Lee told CNBC on Wednesday, a day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow Jones Global Indexes: .DJI) and the S&P 500 Index ( ^GSPC ) each gained more than 1 percent. "This could be only the middle innings of what could be one of the longest bull markets in history," Lee said in a " Squawk Box " interview. "There is a lot of firepower to fuel this rally. There is a lot of cash on the sidelines, consumers have delevered." The tone of the market really changed late last week, after a three-week buyers' strike, said Lee. "All of a sudden ... we got the 'long onlys' coming back and the hedge funds." ( Read more : Bulls ready to reach new highs; caution on rally ) Lee has been bullish for four years, during which the Dow and the S&P 500 more than doubled. A day before the worst February start since 1982 for the Dow and since 1933 for the S&P, he was optimistic-telling CNBC that he did not expect the downturn to reach the 10 percent correction level. At the time, he predicted, "we're within a couple percent of the bottom." It turned out that the Dow and the S&P bottomed out for the year on Feb. 3, the first trading day of February. Since then, those indexes are each up over 4 percent as of Tuesday. But the Dow is still down 3.5 percent for 2014, while the S&P is off about 1.5 percent. In many ways, this year's pattern is similar to what happened in early 2013 when stocks returned 30 percent, Lee said. "When we look back at last year, about half the market had a tough time until March and May." The market did not go straight up in 2013, he added. "It was really a year that started off as utilities and defensives-led, and then all of sudden we switched to March to a traditional to a bull market-type rally." Lee said he's still "very optimistic this is a double-digit year for the S&P." His year-end target for the index is 2,075, which would be a 14 percent increase from Tuesday's close. Story continues Comments on Capitol Hill from new Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen fueled that rally, as she reassured Wall Street that the Fed would continue its policy of providing monetary stimulus to bolster the economy. "Yesterday was a reminder that even if we're transitioning to a new central bank chief, we've got a lot of continuity," Lee said. (Read more: Yellen's new program: Same as the old one ) - By CNBC's Matthew J. Belvedere . Follow him on Twitter @Matt_SquawkCNBC . More From CNBC 'Catastrophic' storm hits Atlanta, targets Northeast Bitcoin hit by denial of service attacks Obama to sign order on federal minimum wage hike

2014-02-12 14:10:32+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3233]}

{}

How former DEA agents became pot proponents

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/former-dea-agents-became-pot-141032316.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Source: Paul Schmidt Paul Schmidt knows a thing or two about drugs. Everything from cocaine to heroin to marijuana. Schmidt is an expert on sophisticated grow lights and hydroponic systems. He easily can figure out how to tap into electrical grids to supply power to cultivate cannabis. But he's not a pot farmer or drug dealer. He spent the last three decades in a law enforcement career, including 23 years at the Drug Enforcement Administration. Schmidt has been working with marijuana-specifically cracking down on it-since the early 1980s. Schmidt has investigated over 100 organized groups and organizations that focused on the propagation of cannabis, smuggling and distribution of marijuana, and the unlawful sales of the product. His investigations resulted in arrests and successful convictions. But after retiring with honors from the DEA as Oregon's highest ranking agent, Schmidt is now teaching seminars and advising medical marijuana dispensaries on how to best run their businesses legally. "No one screams when a DEA agent retires and goes to work for a pharmaceutical company. We look forward to the day where the cannabis industry is legitimized," said Schmidt. ( Read more : Career switch: From pot busters to pot protectors ) There are new job opportunities for people who have similar skills as Schmidt. Privateer Holdings, a Seattle-based venture capital firm focused on the cannabis industry, also hired a DEA agent, Patrick Moen. Moen is now managing director of compliance and senior counsel to Privateer Holdings, which recently purchased the website Leafly.com , commonly known as the "Yelp of pot." ( Read more : The best cities to live for marijuana lovers ) Moen and Privateer Holdings's CEO Brendan Kennedy spend their days listening to shark-tank like pitches from pot entrepreneur hopefuls-from chocolatiers to growers to vaporization companies. Kennedy says hiring Moen was a no-brainer. "Patrick is someone who's throwing a brick off of the Berlin Wall of cannabis prohibition." Story continues But not everyone agrees that legalization is a good thing. ( Read more : Marijuana refugees face real estate challenges ) "We don't need a generation of stoners. I predict within about four to six years Colorado will want to turn this around because of the devastating impact of what this does to our country," said Thomas Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in Colorado. Gorman, who actually worked on marijuana investigations with former DEA agent Schmidt decades ago, is not the only one who feels this way. James Capra, the DEA's chief of operations, recently testified in Congress and addressed the legalization issue. "Going down the path to legalization in this country is reckless and irresponsible," Capra told Congress. Still, Moen feels a DEA crackdown on marijuana is a waste of time and money. "Fifteen years in law enforcement, I came to realize that targeting marijuana offenders was not a good use of resources," Moen said. "And so, I believe that prohibition needs to end. I believe the end of it is inevitable." -By CNBC's Dina Gusovsky. Follow her on Twitter @DinaGusovsky . More From CNBC 'Catastrophic' storm hits Atlanta, targets Northeast Bitcoin hit by denial of service attacks Obama to sign order on federal minimum wage hike

2014-02-12 14:47:16+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [26, 175, 210, 907, 970, 1236, 1325, 1474, 1602, 1703, 1772], "BTC": [323]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin entrepreneurs bullish despite tech trouble

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-entrepreneurs-bullish-despite-tech-trouble-122036010.html

Associated Press

https://apnews.com/

BERLIN (AP) — A freeze on Bitcoin withdrawals imposed by three major exchanges won't cause any long-term harm to the digital currency's credibility, entrepreneurs attending a Bitcoin conference said Wednesday. Bitcoin's value, which topped $1,100 in November, dropped below $630 Wednesday after the news overnight that the BTC-E and Bitstamp exchanges have stopped customers from converting their funds back into traditional currencies. They cited an apparent technical glitch that allows fraudsters to flood exchanges with fake withdrawal requests — a problem first reported by the Mt. Gox exchange when it announced a freeze on withdrawals last week. "It is kind of like someone sending a receipt and then someone coming back to the store with a photocopy of that receipt and asking for a refund," said Nicolas Cary, chief executive of Blockchain.info, a site that provides users with digital wallets for Bitcoins. "I'm confident they will get it resolved," he said. "Bitcoin is very resilient ... and it can handle this." David Bailey, who sells physical coins based on the virtual currency, said he was "a bit unnerved" when two of his transactions simply disappeared earlier this week. They eventually returned. "If I was fresh to Bitcoin, I would have been very scared," said Bailey. Many of those attending the Inside Bitcoins conference in Berlin saw government regulation as the more pressing problem. Recent crackdowns in China, Russia and elsewhere have prompted Bitcoin enthusiasts to form alliances to lobby decision makers and the public. Wednesday saw the launch in Berlin of the Global Bitcoin Alliance, an umbrella group for organizations that promote the cybercurrency. "You can't ban Bitcoin," said Oliver Flaskaemper, head of the Germany-based website Bitcoin.de. "Governments would only drive it underground if they tried." ___ Jona Kallgren contributed to this report.

2014-02-12 14:47:16+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [27, 176, 211, 908, 971, 1237, 1326, 1475, 1603, 1704, 1773], "BTC": [324]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin entrepreneurs bullish despite tech trouble

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-entrepreneurs-bullish-despite-tech-121952934.html

Associated Press

https://apnews.com/

BERLIN (AP) -- A freeze on Bitcoin withdrawals imposed by three major exchanges won't cause any long-term harm to the digital currency's credibility, entrepreneurs attending a Bitcoin conference said Wednesday. Bitcoin's value, which topped $1,100 in November, dropped below $630 Wednesday after the news overnight that the BTC-E and Bitstamp exchanges have stopped customers from converting their funds back into traditional currencies. They cited an apparent technical glitch that allows fraudsters to flood exchanges with fake withdrawal requests — a problem first reported by the Mt. Gox exchange when it announced a freeze on withdrawals last week. "It is kind of like someone sending a receipt and then someone coming back to the store with a photocopy of that receipt and asking for a refund," said Nicolas Cary, chief executive of Blockchain.info, a site that provides users with digital wallets for Bitcoins. "I'm confident they will get it resolved," he said. "Bitcoin is very resilient ... and it can handle this." David Bailey, who sells physical coins based on the virtual currency, said he was "a bit unnerved" when two of his transactions simply disappeared earlier this week. They eventually returned. "If I was fresh to Bitcoin, I would have been very scared," said Bailey. Many of those attending the Inside Bitcoins conference in Berlin saw government regulation as the more pressing problem. Recent crackdowns in China, Russia and elsewhere have prompted Bitcoin enthusiasts to form alliances to lobby decision makers and the public. Wednesday saw the launch in Berlin of the Global Bitcoin Alliance, an umbrella group for organizations that promote the cybercurrency. "You can't ban Bitcoin," said Oliver Flaskaemper, head of the Germany-based website Bitcoin.de. "Governments would only drive it underground if they tried." ___ Jona Kallgren contributed to this report.

2014-02-12 14:47:16+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [26, 175, 210, 907, 970, 1236, 1325, 1474, 1602, 1703, 1772], "BTC": [323]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin entrepreneurs bullish despite tech trouble

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-entrepreneurs-bullish-despite-tech-trouble-122036010.html

Associated Press

https://apnews.com/

BERLIN (AP) — A freeze on Bitcoin withdrawals imposed by three major exchanges won't cause any long-term harm to the digital currency's credibility, entrepreneurs attending a Bitcoin conference said Wednesday. Bitcoin's value, which topped $1,100 in November, dropped below $630 Wednesday after the news overnight that the BTC-E and Bitstamp exchanges have stopped customers from converting their funds back into traditional currencies. They cited an apparent technical glitch that allows fraudsters to flood exchanges with fake withdrawal requests — a problem first reported by the Mt. Gox exchange when it announced a freeze on withdrawals last week. "It is kind of like someone sending a receipt and then someone coming back to the store with a photocopy of that receipt and asking for a refund," said Nicolas Cary, chief executive of Blockchain.info, a site that provides users with digital wallets for Bitcoins. "I'm confident they will get it resolved," he said. "Bitcoin is very resilient ... and it can handle this." David Bailey, who sells physical coins based on the virtual currency, said he was "a bit unnerved" when two of his transactions simply disappeared earlier this week. They eventually returned. "If I was fresh to Bitcoin, I would have been very scared," said Bailey. Many of those attending the Inside Bitcoins conference in Berlin saw government regulation as the more pressing problem. Recent crackdowns in China, Russia and elsewhere have prompted Bitcoin enthusiasts to form alliances to lobby decision makers and the public. Wednesday saw the launch in Berlin of the Global Bitcoin Alliance, an umbrella group for organizations that promote the cybercurrency. "You can't ban Bitcoin," said Oliver Flaskaemper, head of the Germany-based website Bitcoin.de. "Governments would only drive it underground if they tried." ___ Jona Kallgren contributed to this report.

2014-02-12 19:53:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [55, 238, 290, 399, 500, 881, 988, 1043, 1076, 1126, 1290, 1500, 1613, 1710, 1926, 2179, 2356, 2745, 2907, 3214, 3368, 3541, 3763, 4018, 4136], "BTC": [307, 919]}

{"Bitcoin": [15]}

JPMorgan Slams Bitcoin as Exchanges Halt Withdrawals

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-slams-bitcoin-exchanges-halt-195300294.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

First Mt. Gox, then Bitstamp: Two of the three largest Bitcoin exchanges by trading volume have halted withdrawals in the past week, following a " massive and concerted attack " by a bot network that has exploited the method by which the Bitcoin network confirms transactions. As a result, Bitcoin exchange BTC-e, which rounds out the top three, announced possible delays in crediting transactions. Bitcoin's core developers, who are charged with managing the open-source software that underlies the Bitcoin ecosystem, are working rapidly to fix the problem, while exchanges work to improve their internal systems. No funds were lost to the attacks, which essentially disrupted the back-end accounting systems of the targeted exchanges. Nevertheless, the currency has lost a significant chunk of its exchange value in the past week. As of 12:36 p.m. EST on Wednesday, the price of Bitcoin was $668 on Bitstamp, $657 on BTC-e and $556 on Mt. Gox, which has suffered the most, according to Bitcoincharts.com. Related: PayPal Is Cracking Down on Bitcoin Sellers According to the Bitcoin Price Index, which provides an average of Bitcoin prices across top exchanges around the world, a single bitcoin was worth $837 on the night of Feb. 5, before the slide began. CoinDesk, which publishes the Bitcoin Price Index, removed Mt. Gox from the index following its decision to halt withdrawals. These troubles add bite to a deeply negative assessment of the cryptocurrency given in a report, "The Audacity of Bitcoin," released Tuesday by JPMorgan. In the report, John Normand, the company's head of forex strategy, calls Bitcoin "incredibly illiquid" and "extremely volatile." "At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, Bitcoin looks like an innovation worth limiting exposure to," Normand says in the report. "As a medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value, it is vastly inferior to fiat currencies." While admitting that Bitcoin's price swings over the past year -- which have added up to tremendous growth overall -- "may represent simply normal volatility for a start-up currency," Normand concludes that its price uncertainty "make[s] it impossible to seriously consider Bitcoin as a unit of account or store of valuefor an material amount of corporate or investor exposure." Story continues Related: How the World's Richest Nations Are Regulating Bitcoin In his analysis, however, Normand neglects to mention services, such as those offered by Coinbase and BitPay, that allow merchants to accept payment in bitcoins while limiting their exposure to the digital currency's volatility by instantly converting it into U.S. dollars. Jonathan Johnson, the executive vice chairman of online retailer Overstock, which recently began accepting Bitcoin as a payment method, discussed his company's partnership with Coinbase last month at hearings organized by the New York Department of Financial Services. Bitcoin could allow businesses to add two to three percent to their bottom line by eliminating credit card transaction fees, Johnson said. He also noted that payments in bitcoins arrive instantly, unlike credit card payments. Already, some 21,000 merchants are using Coinbase to accept customer payments in Bitcoin. Overstock announced its acceptance of the digital currency on Jan. 9, and by the end of January the retailer had received nearly 3,000 orders in Bitcoin, with a total value of more than $600,000. As for the halted exchanges, Andreas Antonopoulos, the chief security officer of Blockchain.info, one of the most popular Bitcoin wallet providers, told CoinDesk that withdrawals should be "flowing again within 24 and 72 hours, and in the meantime, any withdrawals that were cancelled will reappear in customer account balances." "The death of Bitcoin has been prematurely announced so many times already that the obvious conclusion is that bitcoin is far more resilient than its critics would like to think," Antonopoulos added. "I am confident that in a few days, those who predicted the death of Bitcoin will once again be proven wrong." Related: SecondMarket CEO: Wall Street Will Put 'Hundreds of Millions' Into Bitcoin More From Entrepreneur Should You Launch a Subscription-Commerce Business? How to Get Customers to Trust Your Ecommerce Business (Infographic) Student Raises $15K on Kickstarter Without Spending a Dime

2014-02-12 22:51:50+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [949, 1008, 1129, 1156, 1868, 1986, 2440]}

{}

Cyber attack on bitcoin a big warning to currency's users

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/cyber-attack-bitcoin-big-warning-225150446.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Emily Flitter NEW YORK (Reuters) - A massive cyber attack from unknown sources that has been spamming bitcoin exchanges is highlighting some of the dangers people can encounter when they exchange cash for digital currencies like the bitcoin, experts said on Wednesday. The attack, which is technically known as a distributed denial of service attack, involved thousands of phantom transactions, forcing at least three of the online platforms that store bitcoins and trade them for traditional currencies to halt withdrawals of bitcoins until they can determine which transactions were real. It showed that bitcoin, which exists solely in cyberspace and operates on a software code written by an unknown programmer or group of programmers, is as vulnerable to such an assault as any other Internet-based business. It exposes the higher risks involved in owning and trading the instrument compared with the dollar and other traditional currencies. Bitcoins slumped in value as a result of the disruptions. "Bitcoin is still an experimental protocol in its infancy," said Micky Malka, a venture capitalist who is on the board of Bitcoin's trade group, the Bitcoin Foundation. "It will grow and mature over time," he added. "No one should be investing an amount they cannot afford to lose." This week's attack was not the first, said Andreas Antonopoulos, chief security officer for blockchain.info, a website that tracks bitcoin activity and provides online storage services for bitcoin users. Antonopoulos is also a member of a group of core bitcoin programmers and is part of an emergency response team of programmers who have been working to fix the flaws in the code governing some bitcoin transactions that the attackers were exploiting. He said that work that should be completed by the middle of next week, echoing an estimate provided by a spokeswoman for the Bitcoin Foundation who said its core developers were all participating in the effort to fix the code. Story continues Bitcoin is a decentralized digital system of value transfers that is not governed by any central bank, company or government. No assets back the bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated widely as its visibility has increased. Last September, a bitcoin was worth around $150. By late December the value was near the $1,000 mark. Regulators around the world are struggling how to categorize the bitcoin. Some want to call it an asset class, others a commodity. Bitcoin users call it a currency and many advocate for its mass adoption, claiming it can help solve problems created by expensive and time-consuming bank transactions. Early adopters also liked the anonymity bitcoin has offered, since it can be transferred between users without any exchange of personal identification information. However, moves by various authorities to pursue bitcoin users who they say have laundered money using the currency and attempts to regulate bitcoin exchanges could soon lower the level of anonymity in transactions. On Tuesday, Slovenia-based Bitstamp became the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals in the past several days, citing "inconsistent results" and blaming a denial-of-service attack. That was a day after Mt. Gox, based in Tokyo and the best-known digital marketplace operator, said a halt on withdrawals would continue indefinitely. Traders reacted to the halt by sending the bitcoin value to its lowest level in nearly two months. A Bulgaria-based bitcoin exchange also had to halt withdrawals, Antonopoulos said. The price of bitcoins, which have gained wider acceptance in recent months, dropped in the wake of the attacks from around $850 late last month. On Wednesday, they were quoted down nearly 2 percent for the day at $656 per coin on the bitcoin tracking website CoinDesk. "Anyone who plays in this space, you better have a plan for when an attack happens because it's going to be a when, not an if," said Brian Krebs, a Washington-based cyber security expert who runs the blog KrebsOnSecurity.com. The lesson for investors was that the bitcoin wasn't as liquid as initially advertised, said Jason Scharfman, a financial due diligence expert and managing partner at consulting firm Corgentum. "These types of attacks, they're effectively freezing some of the accounts because the exchanges don't want to pay out to the wrong person," he said. "If something's frozen or there's a question about me being able to redeem my bitcoins, the value of them drops." "Does this spook financial investors?" he added. "The answer is yes." Scharfman said one way to mitigate the risks of such attacks would be to spread holdings of bitcoins out among several different online storage facilities. That way if one were attacked the other might still have a chance at being safe. Scharfman said the more regulatory scrutiny that bitcoin exchanges received, the safer they were likely to be. "Regulation will sort of normalize which exchanges are the most secure. They'll mandate security measures and smaller exchanges just won't be able to afford it," he said. (Reporting by Emily Flitter; Editing by Leslie Adler)

2014-02-12 22:51:50+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [949, 1008, 1129, 1156, 1868, 1986, 2440]}

{}

Cyber attack on bitcoin a big warning to currency's users

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cyber-attack-bitcoin-big-warning-225150446.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Emily Flitter NEW YORK (Reuters) - A massive cyber attack from unknown sources that has been spamming bitcoin exchanges is highlighting some of the dangers people can encounter when they exchange cash for digital currencies like the bitcoin, experts said on Wednesday. The attack, which is technically known as a distributed denial of service attack, involved thousands of phantom transactions, forcing at least three of the online platforms that store bitcoins and trade them for traditional currencies to halt withdrawals of bitcoins until they can determine which transactions were real. It showed that bitcoin, which exists solely in cyberspace and operates on a software code written by an unknown programmer or group of programmers, is as vulnerable to such an assault as any other Internet-based business. It exposes the higher risks involved in owning and trading the instrument compared with the dollar and other traditional currencies. Bitcoins slumped in value as a result of the disruptions. "Bitcoin is still an experimental protocol in its infancy," said Micky Malka, a venture capitalist who is on the board of Bitcoin's trade group, the Bitcoin Foundation. "It will grow and mature over time," he added. "No one should be investing an amount they cannot afford to lose." This week's attack was not the first, said Andreas Antonopoulos, chief security officer for blockchain.info, a website that tracks bitcoin activity and provides online storage services for bitcoin users. Antonopoulos is also a member of a group of core bitcoin programmers and is part of an emergency response team of programmers who have been working to fix the flaws in the code governing some bitcoin transactions that the attackers were exploiting. He said that work that should be completed by the middle of next week, echoing an estimate provided by a spokeswoman for the Bitcoin Foundation who said its core developers were all participating in the effort to fix the code. Story continues Bitcoin is a decentralized digital system of value transfers that is not governed by any central bank, company or government. No assets back the bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated widely as its visibility has increased. Last September, a bitcoin was worth around $150. By late December the value was near the $1,000 mark. Regulators around the world are struggling how to categorize the bitcoin. Some want to call it an asset class, others a commodity. Bitcoin users call it a currency and many advocate for its mass adoption, claiming it can help solve problems created by expensive and time-consuming bank transactions. Early adopters also liked the anonymity bitcoin has offered, since it can be transferred between users without any exchange of personal identification information. However, moves by various authorities to pursue bitcoin users who they say have laundered money using the currency and attempts to regulate bitcoin exchanges could soon lower the level of anonymity in transactions. On Tuesday, Slovenia-based Bitstamp became the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals in the past several days, citing "inconsistent results" and blaming a denial-of-service attack. That was a day after Mt. Gox, based in Tokyo and the best-known digital marketplace operator, said a halt on withdrawals would continue indefinitely. Traders reacted to the halt by sending the bitcoin value to its lowest level in nearly two months. A Bulgaria-based bitcoin exchange also had to halt withdrawals, Antonopoulos said. The price of bitcoins, which have gained wider acceptance in recent months, dropped in the wake of the attacks from around $850 late last month. On Wednesday, they were quoted down nearly 2 percent for the day at $656 per coin on the bitcoin tracking website CoinDesk. "Anyone who plays in this space, you better have a plan for when an attack happens because it's going to be a when, not an if," said Brian Krebs, a Washington-based cyber security expert who runs the blog KrebsOnSecurity.com. The lesson for investors was that the bitcoin wasn't as liquid as initially advertised, said Jason Scharfman, a financial due diligence expert and managing partner at consulting firm Corgentum. "These types of attacks, they're effectively freezing some of the accounts because the exchanges don't want to pay out to the wrong person," he said. "If something's frozen or there's a question about me being able to redeem my bitcoins, the value of them drops." "Does this spook financial investors?" he added. "The answer is yes." Scharfman said one way to mitigate the risks of such attacks would be to spread holdings of bitcoins out among several different online storage facilities. That way if one were attacked the other might still have a chance at being safe. Scharfman said the more regulatory scrutiny that bitcoin exchanges received, the safer they were likely to be. "Regulation will sort of normalize which exchanges are the most secure. They'll mandate security measures and smaller exchanges just won't be able to afford it," he said. (Reporting by Emily Flitter; Editing by Leslie Adler)

2014-02-13 10:09:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [111, 152, 216, 312, 526, 628, 657, 795, 1110, 1312, 1998, 2120, 2171, 2603, 3345, 3456, 3629, 3757]}

{"Bitcoin": [37]}

Mainstream Consumer Protection Meets Bitcoin Thanks To Innovative Startup Bitrated

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mainstream-consumer-protection-meets-bitcoin-100900458.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

Bitrated offers an open arbitration marketplace, buyer fraud protection mechanisms, niche experts and more for Bitcoiners. February 13th, 2014 -- While Bitcoin has been exploding worldwide, many have argued that for Bitcoin to reach the next level of mainstream adoption there needs to be a mechanism to protect Bitcoin users from scams and fraudsters. New innovative open source start-up Bitrated is doing just that – bringing the standards of consumer protection customers have come to expect from legacy payment systems to Bitcoiners worldwide. In a world first Bitrated offers consumer protection for the safe purchasing of Bitcoin and other goods with Bitcoin, an open arbitration marketplace, buyer fraud protection mechanisms, niche experts and more. In the past, the permanent nature of Bitcoin transactions has made it potentially unfavorable for the everyday consumer, who might previously have had no recourse in case of fraud. With Bitrated’s arbitration process , a trusted third party can reverse payments in case of fraud and help consumers resolve possible disputes with merchants. This allows Bitcoiners to transact in an environment more conducive to their safety, especially if dealing with new or unknown merchants. It is not just consumers who are the victims of fraud: merchants in the non-Bitcoin world have a serious problem with buyer fraud, where an individual buys a product, receives it, and then issues a chargeback request. In many cases, the dispute resolution process of companies like Visa or PayPal automatically protects the consumer at the expense of the merchant. Bitrated lowers the barriers to entry, allowing new and smaller players to enter the market, and making the dispute resolution process is more innovative, fair and comprehensive. Buyer fraud is estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars per year for online merchants. Bitrated may help reduce the number of fraudulent chargebacks online merchants receive, giving them a strong incentive to use Bitcoin instead of traditional payment methods. Story continues Bitrated’s arbitrators are not required for releasing the Bitcoin payment. Due to the use of multi-signature Bitcoin transactions, if the transaction ends well, both parties can easily release the funds without any intervention from the arbitrator. Arbitrators also never have full control over the funds. They can only move the funds with the permission of either the buyer or the seller, and cannot control them in any way without their approval. Instead of using a traditional escrow payment holding and release system, Bitrated utilizes Bitcoin’s inbuilt multi-signature transactions feature. This means that the strict escrow regulations, licensing requirements and associated high costs are not applied: making it possible for anyone to offer arbitration services, and not just large companies as was the case until now with fiat money. Individuals with specific knowledge about a specific market, such as software development, can offer arbitration services for that specific market; having the ability to use their knowledge to resolve disputes. This is not possible today with legacy payment platforms. Bitrated, while packed full of features, has been designed to be as easy and intuitive to use as possible. Through bringing consumer protection for everyday people to the Bitcoin ecosystem, and also enhancing merchant protection from customer fraud, Bitrated not only improves upon Bitcoin, but also solves some of the key problems which have plagued ecommerce generally for years. With its innovative open arbitration marketplace, use of multi-signature Bitcoin transactions, buyer fraud protection mechanisms, niche experts and more: Bitrated may play a key role in propelling the Bitcoin ecosystem onwards to the next great wave of adoption. Visit https://www.bitrated.com/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Nadav Ivgi Organization: Bitrated Email: nadav@bitrated.com Source:http://bitcoinprbuzz.com/mainstream-consumer-protection-meets-bitcoin-thanks-to-innovative-startup-bitrated/

2014-02-13 12:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [238, 315, 609, 982, 1253]}

{"Bitcoin": [111]}

AlumiFuel Power Corporation Annnounces Formation of Subsidiary to Pursue Early Stage Business Opportunities in Bitcoin and Other Digital Cryptocurrencies

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alumifuel-power-corporation-annnounces-formation-120000723.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

CENTENNIAL, CO--(Marketwired - Feb 13, 2014) - Early production stage hydrogen generation company AlumiFuel Power Corporation ( OTCQB : AFPW ) (AlumiFuel or the "Company") announced today that it has formed a new wholly-owned subsidiary, Bitcoin Capital Corporation, to pursue early stage business opportunities in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency focused companies and projects. It intends to provide angel funding and assistance in business development and consulting services related to these activities. Management believes this approach will offer a simplified entry for the investor to gain exposure to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by eventually providing a diversified portfolio of early stage companies and projects in this up and coming realm. In a press release dated February 6, 2014, the Company announced a change in its strategic direction to which this newly formed subsidiary marks the next step following NovoFuel. Henry Fong, Chief Executive Officer, said, "Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that is not issued by any government, bank or central financial organization. We believe that its increased acceptance and popularity over time will make this an alternative to traditional currencies and forms of payment. We also believe that Bitcoin may eventually become a revolutionary payment medium and feel that early adopters and investors may well reap the benefits of dramatic returns should that prove true." About AlumiFuel Power Corporation AlumiFuel Power Corporation, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, NovoFuel, Inc., is an early production stage alternative energy company that generates hydrogen gas and heat through the chemical reaction of aluminum, water, and proprietary additives. This technology is ideally suited for multiple applications requiring on-site, on-demand fuel sources, serving National Security and commercial customers. The Company's hydrogen generation feeds fuel cells for backup and portable power, provides lift gas for weather balloons, and can replace costly, hard-to-handle and high pressure K-Cylinders. Its hydrogen/heat output is also being designed and developed to power fuel cell-based and turbine-based undersea propulsion and auxiliary power systems. The Company has significant differentiators in performance, adaptability, safety and cost-effectiveness in its target market applications, with no external power required and no toxic chemicals or by-products. Safe Harbor for Forward-looking Statements This news release may contain forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey to the public the company's progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, they are based on management's current beliefs and assumptions as to future events. However, since the company's operations and business prospects are always subject to risk and uncertainties, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this news release might not occur, and actual results could differ materially from those described, anticipated or implied. For a more complete discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

2014-02-13 14:15:00+00:00

{}

{"Bitcoin": [51]}

Efftec Initiates Acquisition Process of BitBank, a Bitcoin Market and Valuation Application for iOS

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/efftec-initiates-acquisition-process-bitbank-141500400.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TULSA, OK--(Marketwired - Feb 13, 2014) - Efftec International, Inc. ( OTC : EFFI ): The Company is pleased to announce that it has initiated the acquisition of BitBank from a private firm. The terms, conditions, and price have already been agreed to and memorialized between Efftec and the private seller, and we expect the transaction to fully consummate within a short time. Efftec targeted this particular application for a variety of reasons, to be expanded on once we fully close this transaction. Our general strategy which compelled us to make this acquisition is centered around our belief that cryptocurrencies represent, at once, a novel currency, a novel marketplace, and a unique financial instrument which is only in its infancy. It is not often that an entirely new sector is born, and we believe the potential for commerce in this sector holds almost unlimited potential for expansion, and increased adoption in the years to come. Along with the very likely growth of the entire cryptocurrency sector will come opportunities for those involved, and properly positioned, to reap the rewards. The Company will release further details on our plans and strategy surrounding this acquisition once fully complete. We expect the transaction to be closed within 1 week's time. Efftec International, Inc. ( OTC : EFFI ) is a holding company with four operating subsidiaries. Efftec's core focus is on the acquisition and development of proprietary technologies. The Company is actively expanding its footprint in the technology marketplace through acquisitions of profitable, revenue-producing companies with proven business models. Safe Harbor: This Press Release may contain, among other things, certain forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, (i) statements with respect to the Company's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions; and (ii) other statements identified by words such as "may," "could," "would," "should," "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "intends," "plans" or similar expressions. These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the Company's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that are subject to change based on various factors (many of which are beyond the Company's control).

2014-02-13 19:38:24+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [48, 791, 1438, 2108, 2284, 2828, 2875]}

{"Bitcoin": [38]}

It Is Now Possible to Buy Tulips With Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/now-possible-buy-tulips-bitcoin-193824678.html

The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/

The floral startup BloomNation is now accepting Bitcoin for its products. That means it’s now possible to buy floral arrangements with bitcoin—and, more importantly, to convert bitcoins into tulips, exchanging one famously volatile currency for another. BloomNation began to accept the digital currency last week. It’s partnered with Coinbase , a San Francisco-based startup that’s handling the formal conversion process. “We’re setting [the price of] everything in U.S. dollars,” BloomNation CEO Farbod Shoraka told me on the phone on Wednesday. It’s Coinbase that converts the U.S. dollar price to bitcoin, accepts bitcoin from the customer, and pays the florist in dollars. The rise and fall of tulip prices, according to economist Earl Thompson (Jay Henry, (CC)) I first wrote about the Bitcoin-Tulip exchange rate in December. In the Netherlands in the 1630s, speculators pushed the price of a single tulip bulb to more than ten times a craftsman’s annual salary. Tulip prices surged, then collapsed, by a factor of 20 in two weeks. The incident—called “tulip mania”—constitutes one of the modern world’s first documented speculation bubbles. “This is worse than the tulip mania,” a former Dutch central banker said of bitcoin in December. “ At least then you got a tulip [at the end], now you get nothing.” At the time, I estimated that a single bitcoin could purchase more than 700 flowering tulips. I also tracked that figure—the Bitcoin-Tulip exchange rate—over the previous two years, and graphed its soaring rise: Now, my own estimate of the bitcoin/tulip exchange rate—according to a live counter at the top of that December post —shows the cryptocurrency’s massive depreciation. At publication, I calculated that a single bitcoin could purchase only about 320 tulips. Perhaps my own estimate was off. BloomNation says the exchange rate is far lower: According to the company, a single bitcoin can purchase but 220 tulips. You could also purchase 130 roses with that solitary ’coin. Even if the exchange rate has fallen, it doesn’t seem to have taken the bloom off of bitcoin buyers. The average Bitcoin customer spends $150 on the site—far more, Shoraka told me, than the average credit card-using customer. A spokeswoman for the company said there have been hundreds of Bitcoin orders since the feature rolled out 11 days ago. Story continues BloomNation is a competitor to 1-800-Flowers and Flowers Online . It connects customers to local florists. Instead of presenting users with the “cookie-cutter” arrangements that those sites make available, each floral designer can specify the bouquets they’re best at creating, and customers can order directly from the florists themselves. Both Coinbase and BloomNation have received funding from the massive venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. Shoraka said Coinbase made Bitcoin payments possible in the first place. “Bitcoin in general is more volatile than any other currency at this time,” Shoraka told me. Only with Coinbase could they move money in and out of the currency. The BloomNation staff isn’t unused to volatility, though. According to an October 2013 TechCrunch article , it was initially funded with the winnings of a Los Angeles poker tournament. More From The Atlantic Silicon Valley's Paydays Are Outrageous—So, Where's the Outrage? The Zombie Numbers That Rule the U.S. Economy Happy Birthday, Stimulus! You Saved the World

2014-02-13 21:49:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [448, 714, 1232]}

{"Bitcoin": [66]}

Major Online Marketplace Silk Road Hacked — Someone Stole All Its Bitcoins

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/improved-silk-road-hacked-someone-214953723.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

There's not much to see on Silk Road right now: Screen Shot 2014 02 13 at 4.32.43 PM Screenshot The anonymous marketplace for illegal drugs has been hacked. Defcon, a pseudonymous administrator for the site, shares the following details: Nobody is in danger, no information has been leaked, and server access was never obtained by the attacker. Our initial investigations indicate that a vendor exploited a recently discovered vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol known as "transaction malleability" to repeatedly withdraw coins from our system until it was completely empty. Despite our hardening and pen-testing procedures, this attack vector was outside of penetration testing scope due to being rooted in the Bitcoin protocol itself. You probably recall a major attack that went out against several major bitcoin exchanges earlier this week, which was also made possible by transaction malleability . No money was lost then, but all bitcoins associated with Silk Road have been stolen, according to DeepDotWeb . Defcon ends his missive with a notice on what to expect for the future. In short, they plan to rebuild and change the way money moves from buyer to seller using a technical "multi-signature" system possible through Bitcoin instead of a standard escrow. Those missing their bitcoins, which are reported to total over $2 million , are simply out of luck for now. [Thumbnail image of a camel from hazelowendmc on flickr.] More From Business Insider COMCAST TO BUY TIME WARNER CABLE FOR $159 PER SHARE This Brilliant Map Renames Each US State With A Country Generating The Same GDP These Old Family Photos Put Another Face On The Man Accused Of Being The Silk Road Boss Who Ordered 6 Assassinations

2014-02-14 14:53:33+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2719]}

{}

Will Gold Become Worthless?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-become-worthless-145333773.html

Zacks

http://www.zacks.com/

I made some money in the past year being short gold after the downtrend really accelerated in 2013. I thought that this would continue into 2014. But with a double-bottom at $1180 on the monthly chart, the enthusiasm for the gold trade has been revived. As I write this morning, the barbarous relic is surging through its downward sloping 200-day moving average and igniting feverish passions everywhere. My fundamental argument against gold is that it has little fundamental value. Other than the jewelry business, it generates no earnings or income. In fact, there is a net cost to own and store gold that should bring into question old ideas about it being a "store of value." The strongest argument in favor of gold's value has been the "currency inflation" religious school. In the fall of 2009, I was on Maria Bartiromo's Closing Bell show to talk about this driving force with Fed QE inspiring central banks in China and India to hedge their US dollar risks with the accumulation of gold. On that day, gold was making new all-time highs at $1,165. I explained to Maria the reasons why it could go to $2,000 very quickly if the central banks were behind the idea of it being the only solution to currency debasement. As you know, gold when quickly to $1,900 one year later. I still thought gold was Keynes' relic, but I played the "valuation is perception" game in 2009 and 2010 and made some money off of the gold miners and digger-makers (CAT and JOY) anyway. But in 2013 as the shiny yellow metal flirted with a breakdown through $1,600 I came back to my senses and saw the bearish opportunities. Everybody loved gold and thought it should be on it's way to $2,000 (infinity) and beyond. I saw that the "maximum pain trade" for gold-loving PMs like John Paulson was due to get worse. What were my best fundamental arguments against the gold bugs and their currency inflation beliefs? Simply these four facts that (1) we had no inflation, (2) despite massive QE, (3) in the era of elaborate credit facilities and electronic super-highways for money, mining and storing gold was beyond an anachronism, and (4) the dollar wasn't plummeting, it was simply doing what it had always done -- fluctuate. And so now, gold is ignoring all these facts, especially as the appetite from China and India stays strong. It seems the perception is still that gold has a place as the hardest "common currency" anyone in the world can bank on. As I was summarizing my views for my Market Timer group about our short gold trade yesterday, my fellow trader and friend Brian Lund was typing up his views in a piece I just found this morning titled Why Gold Will Eventually Be Almost Worthless? Brian doesn't take the hard road that Bitcoin will replace gold (although that is something we should consider), but he does make some compelling arguments about the new fields of gold which may need another century to make gold worth a whole lot less: the Internet. Lots of sides to this issue to be sure. I just want to know today, do you think gold has value as a hard currency and that you should have investment exposure to limit your fiat money risk? Or do you think it is all a "valuation is perception" game to stay away from? Read the analyst report on GLD Zacks Investment Research

2014-02-14 15:08:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1364]}

{}

Apple Has Simple But Brilliant Cure For Spam Email

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-simple-brilliant-cure-spam-150832221.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Tim Cook Getty Images, Justin Sullivan Apple CEO Tim Cook Apple has filed a patent for "disposable email address generation and mapping to a regular email account," reports Apple Insider . It's a cure for spam, the unwanted ransom emails we all get. Spam has been out of control for years. It's not just marketing companies that acquire huge lists of email addresses. At times, 88% of all email traffic has been spam , mostly to use malware and bots. Apple's system would fight junk email at the server level, allowing you to teach the server some cool anti-spam tricks. For example, your main first-name-last-name email address could be kept safe under Apple's system by generating a disposable email address and giving that out instead of your main email. The disposable address is mapped to your main account, so emails sent to it would appear in your main account without any extra steps. Any replies you send would show up as having come from the disposable account. Want more disposable addresses? Want to delete an old one if it becomes unusable? Apple's system would allow for that as well. People have often used disposable accounts as a means of fighting spam, but Apple's system would enable you to continue checking a single inbox for all your communication. More From Business Insider Major Online Marketplace Silk Road Hacked — Someone Stole All Its Bitcoins Verizon Is Lowering Prices For Its Data Plans By $10-$20 Per Month This Video Is A Hilarious Reminder Of How Shallow People Are Even When They Say They're Looking For Love

2014-02-14 15:30:05+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [36, 459, 592, 683, 839, 1191, 3133, 4595, 5043, 5108, 5180, 5222]}

{"Bitcoin": [23]}

Should You Jump on the Bitcoin Bandwagon?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jump-bitcoin-bandwagon-153005263.html

Money Talks News

http://www.moneytalksnews.com

Dollar, euro, yen … bitcoin? If the Bitcoin Foundation has its way, the virtual currency will eventually be on equal footing with the world’s other monetary heavyweights. It certainly seems plausible, too, when stories circulate on the Internet about how a $30 investment yielded nearly $900,000 in four short years. Those of us who missed out on investing in Google, Amazon and Facebook during the early years may be wondering if we should jump on board the Bitcoin bandwagon or risk seeing the next big thing pass us by yet again. We’ve got an answer for you, but first, let’s go over some Bitcoin background for the uninitiated. The mysterious Mr. Satoshi Nakamoto The origins of Bitcoin sound a little like a movie script, but I couldn’t make this up if I tried. Back in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released a paper outlining the basics of Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. It would be a system relying on digital signatures, network timestamps and trusted third parties rather than a centralized bank or government. There is one small side note to the paper: Satoshi Nakamoto doesn’t exist. Despite some widespread speculation on the Internet, no one knows exactly who created Bitcoin. He, she or they launched the open source software program and then seemed to have quietly disappeared, although not before mining enough bitcoins to become a billionaire. Mining for money Yes, I did say Nakamoto went mining for bitcoins. In fact, with the right equipment and a lot of time, you can still go out and find your own bitcoins on the Web. You see, the software that runs the system is set up to spit out a bitcoin to those who successfully complete algorithms to create new data blocks. In the early days, anyone with a laptop could run a program that would let them create blocks and mine several bitcoins each day. However, as the system has matured, the process of creating blocks has progressively gotten more difficult, to the point where people now need specialized machines and several days before they get a bitcoin. Story continues While it takes longer, it’s also more rewarding. A year ago, a bitcoin may have been worth only $20. Today, a single bitcoin could fetch as much as $500 or $600, according to recent trading trends. But is it actually currency? Although the number of merchants accepting bitcoins has increased, some finance experts say the system works more like an investment than a currency. While currencies may be subject to inflation and deflation, bitcoins have experienced wild swings in value that are more in line with what you would expect from a speculative investment. Just last week, the value of a bitcoin dropped about 30 percent when one of the major trading platforms halted withdrawals, citing a technical glitch in the system’s software. It’s just the latest in a series of ups and downs for the cryptocurrency. At the start of 2013, the value of a bitcoin jumped dramatically, from about $20 to more than $250 in a two-month period. Then it took only a few hours in April for them to lose half their value. Prices resumed their upward march but not without a few more hiccups. Bitcoins saw another nearly 30 percent drop in December when the Chinese government declared the digital currency has “no legal status or monetary equivalent.” “The radical swings bitcoin pricing is taking means by definition it’s a speculative investment rather than a currency,” says Money Talks News money expert Stacy Johnson . And it may not be a good investment, either. According to this handy comparison provided by Forbes, bitcoins may be following the classic bubble stages. That means we are currently in the mania phase, with investors being fearful and heading into despair. Who should buy some bitcoins Obviously, some people have made big bucks with bitcoins. The question is whether you should put some of your hard-earned cash in the currency as well. Let’s start by dismissing the idea of using a bitcoin as a real currency. At this point, so few businesses accept bitcoins, there is no compelling reason to transfer your dollars for the coins if your only purpose is to be able to spend them. That leaves us with buying bitcoins as an investment. For most of our readers, we say this is not a smart idea. “Putting money into anything that volatile is gambling, not investing,” Johnson explains. However, if you have plenty of money in the bank and don’t mind losing a little along the way, feel free to dabble in the bitcoin phenomenon. “Bottom line: Only those who understand they’re speculating and have money to lose should put anything in Bitcoin,” Johnson says. For everyone else, don’t be fooled by the hype. Keep your money safely in your bank account, 401(k) or IRA for now. Do you have any bitcoins? Do you like the idea of a virtual currency that isn’t controlled by a bank or government? Join the conversation with other Money Talks News readers in the comments below or on our Facebook page. This article was originally published on MoneyTalksNews.com as 'Should You Jump on the Bitcoin Bandwagon?' . More from Money Talks News Cash, Credit or Bitcoin? More Merchants Are Accepting Digital Currency Virtual Currency Bitcoin Takes Off on Mobile Apps What Are Bitcoins, And Why Are They Suddenly Losing Value?

2014-02-14 16:37:33+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [15857]}

{}

Inside the Love Story That Brought Down DOMA

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-love-story-brought-down-163733534.html

The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/

In 2007, New Yorkers Edie Windsor, 77, and Thea Spyer, 75, made plans to travel to Toronto, Canada, so they could be legally married after four decades together. When one of the wedding organizers introduced them to renowned documentarians and longtime partners Susan Muska and Gréta Ólafsdottir, the filmmaking duo quickly realized that they’d found their next project. Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement premiered in 2009 at San Francisco's Frameline Film Festival, four months after Spyer passed away. "It got a standing ovation," Ólafsdottir remembers, sitting in the Manhattan apartment she shares with Muska. "It was a beautiful gift to Edie." It soon became something even more. After Windsor was forced to pay $363,053 in estate taxes, she sued the federal government to recognize her exemption as Spyer’s surviving spouse. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in her favor—and struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in the process. The couple’s love story, captured so compellingly in Edie & Thea, played a huge role in the outcome. As Muska puts it, “Edie will say the film was the evidence for her case that she had a relationship that could be called a marriage.” The film documents Windsor and Spyer's remarkable romance and their struggle to thrive in a homophobic world. Despite their ever-present fear of being outed, the two women managed to hold onto their hard-won careers—Windsor was a computer consultant at I.B.M and Spyer a clinical psychologist. The cosmopolitan beauties lived large, drinking and dancing at the hottest underground queer clubs, sunning at the Hamptons in the summer, traveling from Suriname to Venice, and loving one another with passion and devotion. After Spyer, a sultry brunette, was struck with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis, Windsor remained by her side, caring for her and finding innovative ways to preserve their sex life. Gay rights aside, this may be the film's most groundbreaking achievement: It depicts two septuagenarians—one disabled—as vibrant partners full of fun and palpable sexuality. Story continues Muska and Ólafsdottir have been making socially conscious films for the past 20 years, beginning with their Emmy-nominated first effort, The Brandon Teena Story . The filmmakers spoke to me about the love lessons they learned from Windsor and Spyer and described some of the movie's revealing outtakes. Stephanie Fairyington: How did you two meet Edie and Thea? Susan Muska: Through one of our filmmaking friends, Brendan Fay, who was running this organization called The Civil Marriage Trails . It was like the Underground Railroad for gay and lesbian couples in New York to be legally married. In 2007, while you still couldn't get married in New York State, your marriage would be recognized if you were legally married elsewhere. So everyone was going up to Toronto, and Brendan was an intermediary with all the facts and logistics. On day he told us, "I met this great couple and I think you should meet them." Ólafsdottir and Muska (T. Charles Erickson) Gréta Ólafsdottir: I think we all kind of clicked. It was quite amazing. SM: Because we didn't start out wanting to make a film only featuring them. We interviewed lots of people. GO: We were in that period where you are forming your ideas and we saw the possibilities of telling a much bigger story through their love story. Because they were in their 70s, it gave us a chance to cover a big swath of LGBT history and civil rights. SF: Did you learn things about that history from them that you didn't already know? SM: I had already worked on a lot of LGBT stories for DykeTV in the 90s, so nothing was totally new. But it was very enlightening to spend a lot of time with people who had lived with the kind of oppression they'd lived with, the secret lives and underground social worlds. Edie and Thea really had to be careful because they were very academically and professionally successful people, and they were operating in a world that believed that homosexuals had a mental disorder. The reality of that was made very clear for us while we were making the film. Thea was kicked out of Sarah Lawrence College when they found out she was gay. When I told that to the PR person of the school, she said, "You've got to be kidding!" SF: Sarah Lawrence is the gayest school on earth. SM: I know! SF: It must be challenging being a couple and working together so closely. Do your visions ever clash? How do you negotiate your creative differences? SM: We beat each other up! I always want to include too much information. Greta is good about paring down. We have a lot of back and forth, until we get something we like. Or, we just wear each other out. GO: When you are making documentaries, if something doesn't fit in the story, no matter how much you love it, you have to cut it. SM: Because we get so close to the material, we can't simply rely on our own judgment. So we invite friends of ours who are editors and really good story tellers over for drinks and dinner to get their feedback. SF: Can you share some scenes you loved but had to cut from Edie & Thea? SM: There's a lot! We had some very fun stories about sex. SF: Like? SM: Just about how in the 60s and 70s there were sex toys you couldn't buy because they were illegal. GO: But, you could import them from other countries. And they did. SM: They had to learn the words for things they wanted to purchase from other countries. It's amazing that they actually lived through that time period. GO: Another bit that was cut, but was very telling: While we were filming a scene of them swimming together, Thea had hardly been in the pool for more than a minute when she had a seizure and had to be given her heart medication. She had to leave the pool. We were sitting around her, trying to make sure she was okay. SM: After a few minutes, Thea recovered and insisted on going back into the pool because she knew we had not gotten enough footage. We didn't want her to. It seemed too risky, but she kept saying "No, you didn't get what you needed!" Like Edie, Thea was an unstoppable force. SF: Were there other challenges to making this film due to Thea's health? GO: It took a long time for Thea to get ready for us to come over and film. Also, there was a limit to how long we could interview her. We always had to make sure we didn't go too long so it wouldn't be exhausting. SM: For someone who is quadriplegic and can only move her head and one finger, everything is dependent on health and assistance in getting ready. We weren't doing an exposé, so we could afford to work with them on their time, when they felt ready or when they took an initiative. We often forgot that Thea actually had limited time. When we met her, she had less than a year to live and that was the impetus for their marriage. But as we got to know them, we sort of were in denial about that—even though we were constantly reminded when she'd have heart seizures and have to take medication. GO: I can't tell you how many times we would forget her illness because of her energy and her humor. Her persona was grand. Each of them was a force. SF: Did your film help bring Windsor's case to the Supreme Court? GO: As far as we know, it was used as evidence. SM: Edie will say the film was the evidence for her case that she had a relationship that could be called a marriage. I can't speak for her legal team, but Edie said, "Without the film, you wouldn't have had that emotional connection." GO: Anyone who might have questioned the status of their relationship before the film didn't after watching it. Edith Windsor greets crowds of supporters outside the Supreme Court on March 27, 2013. (Reuters) SF: Did Edie or Thea ask you to take anything out of the finished film that they didn't like? GO: Well, Thea passed away before we finished the film. SM: But when we did the interview that covered Thea's background—her family were Jewish refugees from Holland—she called up and said, "You know, I really didn't like that interview. There are things that I reflected on more that I would like to add." And we honored that. SF: How did Edie react to the film? GO: We showed her the film before we premiered it at Frameline, a queer film festival in San Francisco, when Proposition 8 was in full swing. We thought that was a very important place to show it. We wanted Edie to see the film beforehand because we didn't want to surprise her in a Castro theater full of people. SM: But she had also seen parts of it throughout the process. She really liked it. GO: None of us knew what to expect when we showed it, but we had a standing ovation. SM: It was four months after Thea died. GO: So it felt like a beautiful gift to her. SF: You make films to affect social change. Does that influence how you craft your films? For example, were there scenes that you cut because they might have made Edie or Thea less likable? SM: No—well, yeah, we did partly. We thought, How can the film be a tool? How can it be used? So we included Edie's activism, her struggle to get married, and the people who participated in that marriage happening. When the film was done, we knew it could be used by different organizations as a way to put a face on the marriage issue. We think, What organizations will want to show the film? What libraries? What departments at what universities? Edie & Thea has been shown in all sorts of law schools and nursing programs. Through the film, we'd gotten involved with organizations like Freedom to Marry, Marriage Equality, and the ACLU. But the point is that all documentary filmmakers make films because they have an agenda. You make a film because you feel strongly about it. Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing it because you're not going to make money! SF: Do you know of any instances where the film changed someone's anti-gay marriage stance? SM: Predominantly, we hear from adult children of older gay parents who had a secret love life—either one they knew about, or one they discovered after the parent passed away or went to a nursing home. The film helps them finally put the pieces together, like, "This is what my parent has gone through." But many younger gay people also show it to their parents to let them see someone of their own generation speaking about a gay relationship. One of our many requests was from a Romanian woman who was getting married to an Italian woman in Italy. She said, "Can you please get a copy of your film with Italian subtitles made? I want to give it to my Italian Catholic mother-in-law and my father-in-law because they are very, very angry and upset about our pending nuptials." So, we were actually able to get the Italian subtitles from the organization that had shown it in Italy. We cut them into the film ourselves. Then, we sent it to them. After they saw it, the woman translated a letter from her mother-in-law for us that was very moving. It thanked us for the film and said it really helped her understand what her daughter and her daughter's wife were going through. GO: The film is a love story. And all of us, no matter where you come from or who you are, fall in love. Everyone understands a love story. SF: The international edition of the DVD comes out this spring. GO: Yes, it will have different language subtitles, and it will include an update on Edie's life, including her case against the U.S. government and the historic victory over the Defense of Marriage Act. SF: What did you two learn from Edie and Thea about keeping the flame alive in a long-term relationship? GO: One thing we learned is to take more pictures of ourselves, which is kind of interesting because we are documentary filmmakers! Thea was an addict. She took photos all the time. The beautiful photos in the film are just a small percentage of her collection. It made me really aware of how important it is to document your own life. Usually, when we're traveling, we're shooting something besides us. The other thing we learned from them was to just bloody live. Embrace every day. Like Edie says, "Don't postpone joy." That's really important. SM: Their level of conscious commitment to each other is something that is very easy to forget when you're in a long-term relationship. All of a sudden, years can go by and you're like, "Man, I need to pay attention to my spouse." It makes a big difference when you have that awareness. Their example reinforced that for us. SF: Staying monogamous over four decades is a tall order for many people. Did they talk frankly about desires outside of marriage, and did either of them ever step out of their relationship? SM: No. Keep in mind that they got together later in life and by then, both were ready to settle down. They were extremely possessive of each other. Thea, for example, didn't even want to see photos of anyone who might have been of interest to or interested in Edie before they got together. They realized how important keeping their relationship alive sexually was. As Thea's physical condition deteriorated, they actively pursued making things work. Pretty early on in their relationship—about the time many relationships stagnate and fall apart—Thea was diagnosed with MS. It seems that the commitment to stay together through that disease also gave them extra impetus to be creative sexually within the relationship. GO: It was never, "We can't do it." It was always, "How do we approach it? How do we make this better?" I can imagine a lot of people would walk away. But that was never an option for them. They always sought to solve the problem. They were almost always ahead of the game. It's unbelievable. SF: Did you two have any ambivalence about marriage at any point? SM: We're not married! SF: There's a queer camp that opposes same-sex marriage because it stigmatizes single people and sort of coerces people into coupledom by rewarding them with special social status and government benefits. Do you understand that point of view? SM: Oh, yeah. It's also a feminist point of view. Marriage is a heterosexist institution. On the other hand, I can totally understand wanting to get married because of the rights and the social respect it gives you. We understand both sides of that coin. GO: Absolutely. SM: I never even wanted to get married, although we do see the rights and advantages that we'd have. We don't have any kids, either. But even if I had children, I don't think I'd want to get married. GO: We come from that feminist mindset. Historically marriage was the only way for heterosexual women to have rights. And marriage is still the only institution where a relationship is actually protected under the law. There are more than 1,100 benefits that come with marriage. Think about it: We have been together for 20 years and our relationship is not respected in the same way. SM: Although I wouldn't say that we have ruled out marriage. After making this film and meeting so many couples, I do see that it's really important. I see that not being allowed to marry in a heterosexist society is denigrating to many LGBT people. So I'm not against gay marriage. I am for it. SF: Is there any risk that mainstream acceptance will cause queer culture to lose some of its unique sensibilities? SM: Who wants to go backward? I don't think anyone would say, "I'll trade having to live in fear in a world of rampant homophobia and be thrown in jail if I go to a gay bar or lose my job for queer culture." A lot of minority culture comes from this need for revolution. But then what happens once you start gaining rights and winning your revolt? Things change. You can't perpetually be in conflict. SF: It's been almost five years since Thea passed away. Do you think Edie is open to finding new love? GO: Absolutely! SM: She has a social life. She's a very vibrant person. In fact, she's on a lesbian cruise right now! More From The Atlantic Bitcoin and the Myth of Tech Utopia 'Good for One Screw': A History of Brothel Tokens How the Fed Let the World Blow Up in 2008

2014-02-14 19:15:00+00:00

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Bitcoin’s Road to Mainstream Acceptance Just Got Rockier

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoins-road-mainstream-acceptance-just-191700447.html

The Fiscal Times

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/

For a virtual currency, Bitcoin is under very real siege. Two of Bitcoin's biggest exchanges — Slovenia's Bitstamp and Bulgaria's BTC-e — have halted withdrawals. Both have experienced "denial of service attacks," whereby hackers shut down a website by burying it under a landslide of bogus requests for information. The attacks came only a day after Japan's Mt. Gox exchange halted withdrawals due to a similar attack. Hackers also stole $2.7 million worth of Bitcoin from customers of the Silk Road black market website. Bitcoin is what's called a "cryptocurrency," and is "mined" on a worldwide network of personal computers using a highly sophisticated algorithm. The flaw in the code linked to these recent attacks is called "transaction malleability." Users can exploit the flaw to make it appear that a Bitcoin transaction never took place. Hackers reportedly took advantage of this vulnerability to empty the recently revived Silk Road site’s escrow account. Alternatively, transaction malleability can be exploited by hackers to launch denial of service attacks of the kind that prompted the freeze on withdrawals from the three Bitcoin exchanges. According to Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist and lead developer Gavin Andresen, the current situation is well in hand. "You can be rest assured [sic] that we have identified the issue and are collectively and collaboratively working on a solution," Andresen said in a blog post on the Bitcoin Foundation's website. "We (core development team, developers at the exchanges, and even big mining pools) are creating workarounds and fixes right now." Andresen is adamant that no one's Bitcoin accounts are at risk, and that the withdrawal freezes are a temporary precaution. There's a New Sheriff in Town Transaction malleability was a known issue with the Bitcoin software, one that was identified several years ago. When the Mt. Gox story broke, Andresen claimed in another blog post that, while transaction malleability was involved, "The issues that Mt. Gox has been experiencing are due to an unfortunate interaction between Mt. Gox’s implementation of their highly customized wallet software ... and their unpreparedness for transaction malleability." In other words, it was Mt. Gox's fault, not Bitcoin's. But when the Bitstamp and BTC-e story broke the next day, Andresen quickly backtracked. Story continues We already live in a world of electronic money. Digital transactions of all sorts are now commonplace. Cash, for many, is the exception and not the rule. And the banks and related companies that manage this world of electronic transactions are all vulnerable to cyber assault, as evidenced most recently by the Target credit-card hack . Of course, even hard currency is vulnerable to fraud. But the fact that Bitcoin is a private currency — with no government or central bank to step in if things go awry — and is built around a software program so complex that even the designers of its top exchange couldn't foresee all the potential ramifications of a known bug, makes people nervous. The Silk Road hack — and the fact that the Bitcoins stolen can’t be recovered — only adds to the nervousness. "No one would deny [Bitcoin] was the wild, wild west," Bitcoin backer Cameron Winkelvoss recently told a New York state financial services committee. "The wild west attracts cowboys, and I don't think anybody here would deny a sheriff would be a good thing." "Was" the wild, wild west? More like "still is," as the recent hacks demonstrate. Wyatt Earp is on the way, though, or is at the very least saddling up. Regulators from New York State, and from countries around the world, are looking to tame the wild west of Bitcoin. How they aim to do that — and whether they can succeed without crushing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies — remains unclear. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: How Online Dating Became a $2 Billion Industry ‘Young Money’: How Wall Street Turns its Pups into Wolves 4 Key Unanswered Questions About Obamacare

2014-02-14 22:19:08+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3503]}

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Marijuana industry relieved as feds allow banking

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/marijuana-industry-relieved-feds-allow-221908303.html

Associated Press

https://apnews.com/

DENVER (AP) -- The marijuana industry breathed a sigh of relief Friday after federal banking regulators issued long-awaited permission for them to access basic banking services. But Colorado's pot pioneers said more needs to be done to bring the industry full legitimacy. The U.S. Justice and Treasury departments issued guidance Friday intended to increase the availability of financial services for legal marijuana businesses that are licensed and regulated, while preserving the government's enforcement power. It was welcome news for marijuana businesses that have lost bank accounts and struggled to pay employees and taxes in cash. "It's made it very difficult to pay our bills, to pay our employees, to pay our taxes, to do anything," said Caitlin McGuire, owner of Breckenridge Cannabis Club, a recreational marijuana shop. At Seattle's Conscious Care Cooperative, a medical marijuana dispensary with three branches and 11,000 members, business consultant Trek Hollnagel said the guidance "definitely looks exciting." He said the dispensary was always up front with banks about its line of business, and some, including Bank of America Corp., would let it open accounts — only to freeze or close them later on. "From one day to the next, they changed their policies," Hollnagel said. "If all your funds are frozen for two weeks, it makes it difficult to run a business. You write a rent check on a Monday, get a call from the bank Tuesday saying the account's frozen, then a call from your landlord on Wednesday saying the check bounced." Still, business owners and industry advocates say the memo is just a beginning. They are hoping Congress will act to give them more certainty and expand access to things like insurance, loans and the federal courts. "Banking is the first step. It's a big first step. But it's a first step," said Dan Anglin, a lobbyist for EdiPure Brands, a Denver-based maker of edible marijuana with licensing agreements in four states. Story continues "If we enter in an agreement with another entity and they violate that agreement, what is our recourse? A federal court isn't going to recognize any breach of contract," Anglin said. "Congress needs to act before our legitimate business concerns are addressed." Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who has sponsored a long-stalled pot-banking bill, said he's optimistic Congress will act on banking, but it may be a couple years off. "We gotta keep at this thing," said Perlmutter, D-Colo. He argued, however, that the banking guidance is an important development for federal authorities who see the problems of a cash-only business but still consider the business itself illegal. "They're trying to thread the hole in a tiny needle," Perlmutter said. The banking guidance could also help make pot shops safer, industry groups say. Though Colorado data on crimes at marijuana businesses don't indicate that they attract robberies at rates different from other shops, dispensaries are sometimes compared to jewelry stores that can't insure their diamonds. Some dispensary owners hire extra security to escort employees leaving the business. Others hire armored cars to transport cash. "It is imperative that Congress not view today's guidance as the ultimate solution to this public safety crisis. Congress must act quickly to solve the problem before we witness a tragedy," said Michael Elliott, head of Colorado's Medical Marijuana Industry Group. Colorado regulators in recent years considered trying to regulate the industry using Bitcoin or state-chartered banks but ultimately could not arrive at a solution to the banking problems. "There was no way to get around the federal part of this," said Jack Finlaw, lawyer to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, speaking at a forum earlier this week. ___ Associated Press writer Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.

2014-02-14 22:24:26+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [787, 1467]}

{}

Bitstamp to resume withdrawals, steadying nervous bitcoin market

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitstamp-resume-withdrawals-steadying-nervous-222426219.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of the bitcoin exchanges that recently suspended withdrawals of the digital currency on Friday said it planned to allow redemptions to resume later in the day, restoring some confidence to the shaken market. Slovenia-based Bitstamp, among the largest bitcoin exchanges, said on its website that developers had come up with a solution to thwart the cyber attacks against its platform that had forced the hiatus. It suspended withdrawals on Tuesday, days after one of the best known exchanges, Mt. Gox, suspended withdrawals indefinitely. "After additional testing, we plan to enable bitcoin withdrawals later today," Bitstamp's statement said. Mt. Gox has not yet resumed withdrawals and has not issued a public update on the matter since Monday. Bitcoin prices continued their pattern of volatile trading on Friday, and prices varied widely by exchange. On Mt. Gox, where trading has continued despite the withdrawal suspension, the price plunged to as low as $302 early on Friday, but recovered later in the day following the Bitstamp announcement, last trading at $443, down about 7.5 percent from Thursday. "The news that Bitstamp is resuming withdrawals restored some confidence and prompted people to buy back bitcoin," said Joseph Trevisani, chief market strategist at WorldWideMarkets in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. "The fear trade seems to have dissipated." At CoinDesk, which this week excluded Mt. Gox data from its Bitcoin Price Index, the currency's price was substantially higher. There, bitcoin was quoted at $647.12, up more than 8 percent on the day. Adding to the choppiness were reports that the online drugs marketplace Silk Road 2 had been hacked and drained of about $2.7 million worth of the digital currency. CNN said the site's administrator posted the news late on Thursday. The first Silk Road site, which like its successor was accessible only using a special program that hides users' physical locations, was shut down last year by U.S. law enforcement authorities, and the man authorities say was behind its operations was arrested and charged with narcotics trafficking and money laundering. Story continues "There should be no impact on bitcoin prices based on the reduction of illegal activity," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "It really indicates that there's nervousness in the market." Galy said seasoned traders likely bought bitcoin after its price dropped. "Professional traders would recognize that there is overselling based on irrational fears," he said. (Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

2014-02-16 05:00:00+00:00

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Bitcoin Exchange ‘Hitbtc’ Launches February 14th after $3M Investment

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-exchange-hitbtc-launches-february-050000107.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

New Bitcoin exchange Hitbtc features state of the art cryptography, FIPS validation, two-factor authentication, 24/7 customer service and BTC/USD, BTC/EUR, LTC/USD and LTC/EUR currency pairs. February 16th, 2014 / ACCESSWIRE / With a $3M investment from a group of Israeli investors, the Hitbtc Exchange launches Friday, Feb. 14. The platform replicates the features of world-renowned exchanges, such as NYSE, NASDAQ and LSE. The platform’s easy registration and clutter-less user interface will satisfy the needs of novice and professional traders alike. It offers effortless trading of the BTC/USD, BTC/EUR, LTC/USD and LTC/EUR currency pairs. Business accounts and market makers will be offered various incentives and premium market data services. A free tool offered to all users is the unique newsfeed ticker, which is constantly updated from various sources. The platform’s responsiveness and high-availability has already picked-up among several brokerage firms who have expressed an interest in developing desktop and mobile trading applications. In view of recent security breaches in the Bitcoin world, the platform’s developers spared no expense or effort to offer the best protection to customers. The website is protected by state of the art cryptography, passes FIPS validation and offers two-factor authentication. Customers can rest assured that the exchange is vigilant about suspicious user behavior and fully compliant with AML guidelines. 24/7 customer service is available and ready to solve all issues related to the functioning of the exchange. Presently, the exchange is only available in English but will soon be translated to French, German, Spanish and Chinese, to support its growing user base. The developers have announced other goodies such as the BTCX and VIX indices to help users develop trading strategies. The Hitbtc team has also agreed to introduce any features requested by a fair number of users. Visit https://hitbtc.com for more information. Story continues Contact Info Name: Hitbtc Organization: Hitbtc Email: info@hitbtc.com

2014-02-16 17:28:02+00:00

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NY officials: Virtual currency invites real crime

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ny-officials-virtual-currency-invites-real-crime-171057914.html

Associated Press

https://apnews.com/

NEW YORK (AP) — The account information given by a new customer at Liberty Reserve read like a not-so-clever prank: Joe Bogus, 123 Fake Main Street, Completely Made Up City, New York. But at the multibillion-dollar virtual banking operation, it didn't matter. Mr. Bogus — in reality, an undercover federal agent — was free to begin transferring funds, no questions asked. Authorities say the recent investigations of Liberty Reserve and the hidden website Silk Road, a vast black-market bazaar for narcotics and other contraband, demonstrate how the anonymity inherent in the use of virtual currency is attracting a legion of flesh-and-blood criminals. "The perpetrators feel they can more easily conceal their activity, their identities and their proceeds," Deputy U.S. Attorney Richard Zabel said at a hearing last month held by the New York State Department for Financial Services. Hard cash carries the burden of needing to be physically smuggled and hand-delivered, Zabel said. By contrast, in the Silk Road case, "users were able to purchase drugs from drug dealers located anywhere in the world, essentially with a push of a button," he said. At the same hearing, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. urged state regulators to put tighter controls on digital currency exchanges to tame "a digital Wild West." New York's chief financial regulator, Benjamin Lawsky, said in a speech last week that he's considering new rules requiring businesses to obtain a Bitlicense if they use the new currencies and comply with know-your-customer guidelines to prevent money laundering activities. The dialogue comes at a time when Bitcoins and other virtual currencies have been gaining the backing of legitimate investors and mainstream businesses. Last month, Overstock.com became the first major retailer to accept digital money. An online florist, Bloomnation, also began accepting Bitcoins in time for Valentine's Day. Story continues Users exchange cash for digital money using online exchanges, then store it in a wallet program in their computer. The program can transfer payments directly to a merchant who accepts the currency or to private parties anywhere in the world, eliminating transaction fees and the need to provide bank or credit card information. Some Bitcoin advocates say they welcome limited regulation but claim the negative publicity brought by criminal prosecutions is misleading. In the past year, there are signs that the virtual currency phenomenon has moved beyond the early days when it was an oddity embraced by a small cadre of libertarians and computer geeks and later by criminals during its "vice phase," said Fred Wilson, a partner in a Manhattan venture capital firm. "The vice phase is in the rearview mirror," Wilson said. "Are people still doing bad things with Bitcoin? Sure. Is the majority of the Bitcoin activity vice? Not a chance." The Liberty Reserve case had no shortage of vice. Prosecutors estimated that over roughly seven years, the Costa Rica-based operation processed 55 million illicit transactions worldwide for 1 million users and laundered $6 billion in proceeds for credit card thieves, child pornographers, drug traffickers and other criminals. People banking with Liberty Reserve couldn't transfer money into their accounts or withdraw it directly — a system that would normally leave a paper trail. Instead, to add another layer of anonymity, it required customers to wire money to and from third-party money exchangers in locations in Malaysia, Russia and Vietnam with little or no money-laundering oversight. Once an account was funded, a customer could make deals — for stolen credit card numbers, drugs and other illicit services — with other Liberty Reserve account holders using a virtual currency called LR. Liberty Reserve would charge a 1 percent transaction fee, plus an optional privacy fee that allowed users to hide their account number. Liberty Reserve "provided its users with nearly impenetrable anonymity and enabled them to conduct untraceable financial transactions," Zabel said. In the Silk Road case, investigators found that the website protected users with an encryption technique called onion routing, designed to make it "practically impossible to physically locate the computers hosting or accessing websites on the network," court papers said. Among those arrested in the case was a defendant using the name BTCKing, who operated a service that allowed customers to obtain Bitcoins by depositing cash into a bank account controlled by a third party. The only identifying information provided was an email address. The Silk Road case has turned the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan into a large holder of Bitcoins — 29,655 found on a server. The government also is seeking forfeiture on an additional 144,336 seized from computer hardware belonging to the alleged mastermind, Ross William Ulbricht. Prosecutors haven't revealed what they plan to do with their Bitcoin haul, possibly because they face a volatile market for the decentralized currency. The exchange rate for Bitcoins, which has peaked at around $1,000, plunged recently on reports that a major Japanese exchange had halted trading to deal with transaction glitches. Ulbricht, 29, has pleaded not guilty and is contesting the forfeiture. A website established to help fund his defense accepts donations in Bitcoins. ___ Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.

2014-02-17 02:23:00+00:00

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The SHA-256 Interest Bearing Bitcoin Alternative Battlecoin (BCX) – Now Trading on Cryptsy

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sha-256-interest-bearing-bitcoin-022300053.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

New cryptocurrency Battelcoin offers 1% interest every 10 day period for BCX holders, and the team has many innovative services planned for Battlecoin's future. February 16th, 2014 / New fantasy digital currency Battlecoin is a SHA-256 hybrid Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake coin – with generous 1% interest staking every 10 day period for BCX holders. Battlecoin is a playful coin with serious potential. The currency recently began trading for Bitcoin on Cryptsy, where open bids went for over $3 to start and ended up at a 2000 satoshi bottom. The coin has a growing ecosystem and the dev team is working hard on a number of innovative projects to ensure Battlecoin has a bright future. The Battlecoin dev team has big plans for the future, and is currently working with game developers to have games developed that will take Battlecoin as a payment method. Battlecoin is also currently accepted as a payment method at online precious metals outlet www.mintagemastermind.com. The Battlecoin team’s main project is an innovative multipool where BCX miners will be paid in Battlecoin to aggressively mine other alt coins – the service is envisioned to serve coin developers and other alt coin fans who need hash power redirected to their coins. The service will also have a VIP room where BCX miners can interact and discuss profitable mining strategies. This innovative hash power for hire service will be the first of its kind in the alt coin world. Battlecoin (BCX) utilizes the SHA-256 cryptographic PoW algorithm – the same as Bitcoin – basing Battlecoin’s network security on the proven technology underlying Bitcoin. The SHA-256 algorithm also ensures established Bitcoin miners can easily mine BCX with their current mining rigs. Battlecoin is not only a new currency, but is also dedicated to the theme as the founder himself explained: “We are not just a coin we are a whole concept”. The ever enthusiastic Battlecoin development team leads you straight out on the battlefield – rewarding their humble soldiers every 10 days with their 1% stake. Story continues “BCX is a warrior from a land far away sent to slay these dragons and restore order to the land. The battlefield lay littered with dead and dying dragons. He postures up on his faithful steed, raises his sword to take another slice at one more dragon. Our warrior is outnumbered. The dragons keep coming he needs YOUR HELP… It is now your turn. Pick up your sword, put on your armour, march into battle and help us save the land from total destruction. The Time has come – Battlecoin” The increasingly popular coin was released with an elevated difficulty to prevent ASIC insta-mine and there will be 100 Million BCX minted in total – making it an interesting prospect in the expanding world of alternative crypto currencies. With BCX already trading on Cryptsy, its use of the SHA-256 algorithm to secure the network, its growing ecosystem, its innovative multipool and its generous 1% staking every 10 days, this currency may very well win many battles in 2014 for miners, speculators and holders. To trade Battlecoin for Bitcoin please go to: https://www.cryptsy.com This press release is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Please consult with the financial advisor before investing in Battlecoin or any other digital currency. Visit http://battlecoinxchange.com/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Battlecoin Organization: Battlecoin Email: jackofall@battlecoinxchange.com

2014-02-17 13:45:01+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2904]}

{}

Gold Bugs Chart Dilemma: Breakout or Fake Out?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-bugs-chart-dilemma-breakout-134501809.html

24/7 Wall St.

http://247wallst.com

Gold is back. After challenging $1,200 per ounce in December, gold bugs have become bullish again and the shiny yellow metal is back above $1,300 per ounce. Now a key technical milestone has been hit that chart watchers are sure to be following closely. The question is whether this will mark a new bull market or just another chance to sell. Gold is back above its key 200-day moving average. This is a chart development that just came to fruition on Thursday and Friday. So, is this a breakout, or is it a fake out? The gold miners had been trading in 2013 as though gold was not just going toward $1,200 per ounce. In many cases, you would have assumed that the miserable gold performance was taking gold down to less than $1,000. Gold miners and producers cut their dividends and had to take unilateral accounting charges against the book value of all those gold reserves. Falling from close to $1,900 to $1,200 will just cause that. ALSO READ: Hecla Can Double in Gold Miner Breakout A review from Friday and from the weekend showed that the gold miner exchange traded fund called the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF ( GDX ) was breaking out above the 200-day moving average. This was actually before the "real gold" broke above its 200-day moving average. We checked this on multiple systems and have shown the charts, but we are keeping this one simple. The GDX gold chart on Yahoo! Finance shows that the mining ETF started making its chart break earlier last week. The big gold ETF, the SPDR Gold Shares Trust ( GLD ), just made its first breakout above its 200-day moving average on Friday. What makes these chart breakouts different than the last time we saw a breakout attempt on the 200-day moving averages is that the price levels are vastly different. Gold was closer to $1,600, versus about $1,325 today. The GDX ETF was at almost $50 and ran to $55, but the ETF is closer to $26 this time around. Even in the key gold trust, the SPDR Gold Shares ( GLD ) was trading above $160 the last time it challenged the 200-day moving average. It is taking place around $127 this time around. Story continues We have always said this: Chart readers are an interesting lot. Pure technicians claim not to never really care about the news. The charts tell them whether they should buy or sell, supposedly factoring in all known market information at any given time. Our warning is that charts, just like fundamentals, come with no guarantees. When they do not work out, there are many excuses as to why it was the wrong read. The fundamentals may be coinciding with the chart this time. First off, it looks like the strong base is around $1,200 in gold. Gold may be back as a risk-on trade. Then it could be a hedge as well -- is there too much emerging market currency risk out there? Is India really going to be back as a gold buyer with lower purchasing and taxing restrictions? Is the unfolding of Bitcoin proving that gold is a better hedge than a fake (virtual) currency? The answer to any of the points above is likely yes, at least in part, on all of these. Still, pure technicians do not care. They just read charts. The markets will know very soon whether this is the start of the first gold chart breakout or just another fake out. ALSO READ: Meet the 2014 Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Stocks Related Articles The Gold Bug First Breakout Look Five Unusual Alternatives to Buying Gold Nine Stocks That Could Double in 2014

2014-02-17 15:23:05+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1643]}

{}

Google Acquires Security Startup to Let Users Log In With 'Ultrasonic Sound'

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-acquires-security-startup-let-152305075.html

Entrepreneur

http://www.entrepreneur.com/

When it comes to security , Google is trying something a little different. The search giant has acquired SlickLogin , a young security startup that authenticates user identities using -- get this -- high frequency sounds. The technology could serve as a replacement to traditional passwords or function as the second step in a two-factor authentication process. The exact terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed but reports say the acquisition cost Google several million dollars. SlickLogin's three-member Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup was founded less than a year ago and officially launched its technology in September. Websites that support SlickLogin’s technology will play a unique, almost silent tone that can be read by an app on the user’s smartphone. To confirm your identity, the app analyzes the signal and then confirms your authenticity to the server the site is hosted on. Related: Why You Should Skip the Password and Try These Things Instead The ultrasonic tone is different each time a user logs in, eliminating the ability to “steal” someone else’s auditory signature. The idea is to improve the login experience. This new technology could eliminate the hassles of remembering multiple passwords and waiting for text messages with single-use PINs. Simply type in your password and your speakers and phone do the rest. This is Google’s fifth Israeli acquisition. The company established a development center there in 2006 with offices in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Other acquisitions in Israel include iRow, Waze, LabPixies and Quicksee. Related: Swallow This 'Password' Pill to Unlock Your Digital Devices More From Entrepreneur Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Apologizes About Crippling Hack, Says Withdrawals to Resume Soon Under the Radar: 10 Startups to Watch in 2014 Popular Crowdfunding Site Kickstarter Says It Was Hacked, Urges Users to Change Passwords

2014-02-17 16:59:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3920]}

{}

How To Stop Paying For Cable Television

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/stop-paying-cable-television-165943458.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

If you have an Internet connection, you can probably ditch your pricey cable television subscription without noticing even a hiccup in your viewing habits. You'll still be able to watch all the shows you love, and will even find some new favorites. By combining a number of streaming services, you can enjoy almost all the same programming you get out of a cable subscription while saving money in the process. Netflix — $7.99 per month netflix reed hastings Getty Images Latam Netflix is a gilded repository of filmed entertainment. It's probably the most ubiquitous streaming service out there, best known as a source for movies while also offering full seasons of television and its own original content (" House of Cards ," anyone?). We love Netflix for its two distinct type of "new releases" — the stuff that's fresh from the movie theaters, and the older-but-still-great stuff that Netflix acquires the rights to and makes available to its customers. Hulu+ — $7.99 per month Screen Shot 2014 02 17 at 11.52.14 AM Screenshot Use Hulu+ for watching your TV shows a day or two after they've aired. It covers plenty of cable and broadcast channels' content, from "The Good Wife" to "The Daily Show" to "Saturday Night Live" (all the way back to season one!). There are minimal ads, but we consider that a reasonable trade for such quick turnaround time in streaming new shows. Aereo — $8 per month aereo on ipad with gossip girl playing Aereo Use Aereo to keep up with live sporting events or other special television happenings. Aereo takes your area's over-the-air television signals and puts it online. Your monthly fee pays to rent a physical antenna in a data center, where it picks up signals and sends them straight to your computer or device. Because it's online, Aereo has some handy DVR-like features built into its service, letting you pause live TV and record shows for later. Aereo is the only streaming service able to effectively offer live sporting events since it's capturing a signal that's already going out over the airwaves in realtime. The downside here is geographic — Aereo is limited to some major cities. Check out the company's site to make sure you're included. Story continues Amazon Instant Video — free with Amazon Prime membership Screen Shot 2014 02 17 at 11.55.06 AM Screenshot You might consider this Amazon's response to Netflix. I've always thought of Amazon's Instant Video streaming service something of a nice-to-have, rather than an essential, outlet for streaming media junkies. You can generally find its offerings elsewhere, but don't be fooled — there are still some great gems tucked away. If you're an Amazon Prime member, the best part is that you already pay for the service, so start taking advantage of it. Download the free iOS app here . HBO GO — must be an HBO subscriber Screen Shot 2014 02 17 at 11.56.19 AM Screenshot This one's straightforward — if you should happen to subscribe to HBO, you can take advantage of HBO GO, the streaming service that makes all HBO content available on-demand. This includes its original series, documentaries, as well as whatever movies it's playing at that time. Apple TV — $99 Screen Shot 2014 02 17 at 11.50.18 AM Screenshot Want to take advantage of streaming media, but want it on your TV? The Apple TV pulls together Netflix, Hulu+, HBO GO, and more to turn your television into a proper media center. If you have an Apple computer at home, that only makes it more capable. You can stream your music and movies to the TV, or even mirror the desktop over Wi-Fi. Roku 3 — $99 Screen Shot 2014 02 17 at 11.47.48 AM Screenshot If you want Apple TV-like functionality without the Apple brand name attached, Roku is your best bet . Stream TV, watch movies, and even play games. We love the fact that t he remote control even has a headphone jack so you can listen to shows without disturbing anyone. More From Business Insider Bitcoin Touches $220 On Formerly Dominant Exchange MtGox — After 60% Plunge Here's A Full List Of Medal Winners At The Sochi Olympics Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Debated A GOP Congresswoman On Climate Change, And It Was Surreal

2014-02-17 23:54:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [58, 139, 241, 365, 562, 654, 1472, 1500, 1533, 1839, 1882]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Now Has Its Own 'Cyprus' Problem

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cyprus-bitcoin-235404011.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Cyprus Map Google Map Maker One of the big stories in the Bitcoin world these days is the crisis at Mt. Gox, the former undisputed king of Bitcoin trading. In recent weeks, the site has been having trouble with withdrawals, and actually all Bitcoin withdrawals have been halted. Users of Mt. Gox can withdraw real currency, but to do that they'd have to sell their Bitcoins on Mt. Gox to someone willing to have theirs frozen on the site until the technical issues are fixed. This has caused a huge plunge in price on the exchange , to the mid $200s. Meanwhile, Bitcoins that are traded elsewhere remain in the mid-$600s. If you are brave, you can buy a Bitcoin on Mt. Gox on the hope that things become unfrozen and make a huge profit. The massive gap obviously reflects a panic and a lack of faith in the site's ability to reconnect with the broader market. Essentially, Mt. Gox has become Cyprus. Remember, in early 2013, when the Cypriot financial system collapsed, the Eurozone imposed massive haircuts on Cypriot bank accounts (confiscating cash) and instituted capital controls, preventing people from withdrawing their cash and moving it to non-Cypriot banks. For awhile, there was talk about a normal Euro and a Cypriot Euro. And a Cypriot Euro was worth less, because you couldn't move it out of Cyprus easily, or if you did want to move money out, you probably had to pay huge fees to do so through illicit mean. So that's the deal today with the two prices of Bitcoin. There's the normal Bitcoin price and the price of a Bitcoin that's frozen on a site with severe technical problems. If Mt. Gox gets everything fixed, prices should find parity. But the large gap in price reflects a lack of confidence that things will be sorted out soon. More From Business Insider A Guy Flew 12 Hours Around The World To MtGox To Demand His Bitcoin Back Dogecoin Is On A Massive Tear Bitcoin Has Almost Totally Erased Yesterday's Big Crash

2014-02-17 23:54:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [58, 139, 241, 365, 562, 654, 1472, 1500, 1533, 1839, 1882]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Now Has Its Own 'Cyprus' Problem

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/cyprus-bitcoin-235404011.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Cyprus Map Google Map Maker One of the big stories in the Bitcoin world these days is the crisis at Mt. Gox, the former undisputed king of Bitcoin trading. In recent weeks, the site has been having trouble with withdrawals, and actually all Bitcoin withdrawals have been halted. Users of Mt. Gox can withdraw real currency, but to do that they'd have to sell their Bitcoins on Mt. Gox to someone willing to have theirs frozen on the site until the technical issues are fixed. This has caused a huge plunge in price on the exchange , to the mid $200s. Meanwhile, Bitcoins that are traded elsewhere remain in the mid-$600s. If you are brave, you can buy a Bitcoin on Mt. Gox on the hope that things become unfrozen and make a huge profit. The massive gap obviously reflects a panic and a lack of faith in the site's ability to reconnect with the broader market. Essentially, Mt. Gox has become Cyprus. Remember, in early 2013, when the Cypriot financial system collapsed, the Eurozone imposed massive haircuts on Cypriot bank accounts (confiscating cash) and instituted capital controls, preventing people from withdrawing their cash and moving it to non-Cypriot banks. For awhile, there was talk about a normal Euro and a Cypriot Euro. And a Cypriot Euro was worth less, because you couldn't move it out of Cyprus easily, or if you did want to move money out, you probably had to pay huge fees to do so through illicit mean. So that's the deal today with the two prices of Bitcoin. There's the normal Bitcoin price and the price of a Bitcoin that's frozen on a site with severe technical problems. If Mt. Gox gets everything fixed, prices should find parity. But the large gap in price reflects a lack of confidence that things will be sorted out soon. More From Business Insider A Guy Flew 12 Hours Around The World To MtGox To Demand His Bitcoin Back Dogecoin Is On A Massive Tear Bitcoin Has Almost Totally Erased Yesterday's Big Crash

2014-02-18 05:01:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [1985]}

{}

For many, credit card debt outweighs savings

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/many-credit-card-debt-outweighs-050100647.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Fuse | Getty Images More than 1 in 4 Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings, a sign that many are still struggling to find firm financial footing despite the improving economy. A new survey from Bankrate.com finds that 28 percent of Americans say they owe more in credit card debt than they have in their emergency funds or savings accounts. That's up from 24 percent last year , although the survey has a 3.5 percent margin of error. About 51 percent said they have more in their emergency savings funds than they owe in credit card debt, the lowest percentage since Bankrate.com started tracking this data in 2011. ( Read more : Seesaw economy: Nearly 1 in 3 dipped into poverty ) Seventeen percent said have neither credit card debt nor savings for a rainy day, according to the representative survey of about 1,000 Americans conducted in early February. Bankrate.com found that Americans in their prime earning years-ages 30 to 64-were most likely to have more credit card debt than emergency savings. Greg McBride, Bankrate.com's chief financial analyst, said that's a reflection of the fact many Americans are still hampered by issues such as stagnant incomes and long-term unemployment. ( Read more : Money moves you need to make now ) Although the jobs picture has been improving recently, more than 10 million Americans remain out of work-and more than a third of them have been out of work for 27 weeks or more and are considered long-term unemployed. The total amount of credit card debt fell after the Great Recession as banks tightened lending standards and Americans tightened their belts. But revolving debt, which is mostly made up of credit card debt, has recently started creeping up again. The total hit $861.9 billion in December, according to the Federal Reserve. Allison Linn is a reporter at CNBC. Follow her on Twitter @allisondlinn or send her an e-mail . More From CNBC Why taxpayers will bail out rich after next storm Chart of the Day: Bitcoin's rapid plunge Reading gold - double bottom or support rebound?

2014-02-18 05:34:05+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [613]}

{}

First U.S. bitcoin ATMs to open soon in Seattle, Austin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-u-bitcoin-atms-open-050600777.html

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/

By Phil Wahba REUTERS - Robocoin said on Tuesday that later this month it will install the first automated teller machines in the United States that let users buy and sell bitcoin, the latest step into the mainstream for the digital currency. The kiosks, to be installed in Seattle, and Austin, Texas, are similar to ATMs but have scanners to read government-issued identification such as a driver's license or a passport to confirm users' identities. The ATMs will allow people to swap bitcoin for cash, or deposit cash to buy more bitcoin by transferring funds to or from a virtual wallet on their smartphones. Bitcoin was launched in 2008 and is traded within a global network of computers. It is not backed by a single company or government and has no assets behind it, but its release is tightly controlled, mimicking a central banking system's control over the minting of money. Robocoin, based in Las Vegas, installed its first bitcoin ATM in Vancouver last fall and will also start operating one in Calgary, Alberta, later this month. Robocoin also is planning to install ATMs in Asia and Europe. A bitcoin is currently worth about $636, but its value has fluctuated widely as the currency's visibility has increased. Last September, a bitcoin was worth around $150. By late December the value was near the $1,000 mark. Users can buy products and services online on sites including Overstock.com (NMQ:OSTK) or in a handful of stores. The currency's reputation took a hit last week when two of its best known exchanges suspended withdrawals. One of them, Slovenia-based Bitstamp, said Friday it planned to allow redemptions to resume. (Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Eric Walsh)

2014-02-18 12:02:21+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2881]}

{}

Q&A: Should I pay off the mortgage with my 401(k)?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/q-pay-off-mortgage-401-120221391.html

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/

Comstock Images | Getty Images The quest to become debt-free can sometimes result in making decisions that may impede future financial growth. I've been thinking about this a lot after getting this question on Facebook: Myra Davis asks: "My husband and I are 60. He plans to retire at 65. We owe $200,000 on our home. Does it make sense to withdraw from our 401(k) to purchase a smaller cheaper home and have no mortgage? My first reaction is "No way!" I do not like the idea of tapping into a retirement account and raiding your financial future. ( Read more : Love & money: Should you merge your assets? ) Most financial advisers usually warn against 401(k) loans or withdrawals. But you and your husband can take withdrawals from a 401(k) without an early withdrawal penalty since you're over 59½-years-old. Still, even if your husband retires at 65-his 401(k) money may have to last two decades or longer in retirement. It may make more sense to keep aggressively putting away money into his 401(k) over the next five years. ( Read more : We're in our 30s. How much should we be saving? ) To make a reasonable assessment of whether it makes sense to use money from his 401(k) to pay off your mortgage, you really need to work with a financial advisor who can do a thorough analysis. You can find one in your area through the financial planning association at www.fpanet.org or the national association of personal financial advisors at www.napfa.org . The analysis into consideration: The projected rate of return on your 401(k) investments vs. the interest rate you would pay on a mortgage-to figure out which option will result in more money in your pockets. I would also look at the loss of tax deferrals and loss of the benefit of compound growth on the amount in your 401(k) account. The compound growth effect is one of the best reasons for keeping money in your 401(k). And if any of that money is in a Roth 401(k), the contributions and earnings could be taken out tax-free. Taxes are an important factor. You need to figure out the amount of income tax you would owe on the withdrawal. Also look at the current market value of your home and whether it makes sense to wait until the market value increases. Story continues The right answer for you will depend on your specific financial, tax and retirement profile. But generally speaking, I'd focus on accumulating a sufficient nest egg to support yourselves in retirement and then consider downsizing if you have enough cash on hand from the transaction costs and it cuts down your monthly budget. -By CNBC's Sharon Epperson. If you have a question for me, follow me on Twitter @sharon_epperson . Just tweet your questions about how to better manage, grow or protect your money at #GetAPlan. Or send an email to yourmoney@cnbc.com . More From CNBC Why taxpayers will bail out rich after next storm Chart of the Day: Bitcoin's rapid plunge Reading gold - double bottom or support rebound?

2014-02-18 15:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2411, 3086]}

{}

Ripple Labs Named to MIT Technology Review's 2014 50 Smartest Companies List Recognizing World's Most Innovative Companies

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ripple-labs-named-mit-technology-150000823.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 18, 2014) - Ripple Labs has been named one of 2014's 50 Smartest Companies in MIT Technology Review 's annual list of the world's most innovative technology companies for its work in creating Ripple, an open-source, distributed payment protocol powering a new global value web. The honorees are nominated by MIT Technology Review's editors , who look for companies that have demonstrated original and valuable technology over the last year, are bringing that technology to market at significant scale, and are clearly influencing their competitors. The companies on the list represent the disruptive innovations most likely to change our lives. "Ripple Labs is showing why purely digital currencies can do novel things," said Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief and Publisher of MIT Technology Review. "Its technology makes it easier to exchange money across borders. That could stimulate international commerce and make it less expensive for overseas workers to send remittances back home to their families." The Ripple payment protocol and math-based currency enables free and virtually instant payments with no chargebacks in any currency or unit of value -- including fiat or math-based currencies, mobile phone minutes, or even loyalty reward points. Ripple can be used for a wide range of applications, including merchant payments, money transfers, or remittances. Ripple has the potential to transform payments to work like communications -- global, instant and nearly free. "We are proud to be recognized by MIT Technology Review for our work in building a new value web to complement today's information web," said Ripple Labs co-founder and CEO Chris Larsen. "Ripple connects today's disparate payment systems to create a truly global payment web for anything of value, unlocking new opportunities for developers and financial institutions." Ripple Labs and the other honorees will be featured in the March/April edition of MIT Technology Review , published online today and available on newsstands worldwide starting March 4. Story continues For more information about Ripple, please visit http://www.ripple.com . About Ripple Labs Ripple Labs developed the Ripple protocol, which makes transacting as easy as emailing. The San Francisco-based startup is funded by Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Capital Partners, FF Angel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund and Vast Ventures. The software company's team of 40 is comprised of world-famous cryptographers, security experts, distributed network developers, Silicon Valley and Wall Street veterans. They contribute code to and promote the Ripple protocol, create SDKs and build free consumer apps. The team shepherds a movement to evolve finance so that payment systems are open, secure, constructive and globally inclusive. About Ripple Ripple is an open-source, distributed payment protocol. It enables nearly free and instant payments to merchants, consumers and developers with no chargebacks and in any currency -- including dollars, yen, euros, and even Bitcoin. Ripple has the potential to transform payments to work like communications -- global, distributed, instant and free. Ripple is currently in beta. For more information about Ripple, please visit http://www.ripple.com . About MIT Technology Review MIT Technology Review leads the global conversation about technologies that matter. An independent media company owned by MIT, it produces publications read by millions of business leaders, innovators, and thought leaders around the globe, in six languages and on a variety of platforms. The company publishes MIT Technology Review , the world′s most respected technology magazine; daily news features, analysis, and opinion; and Business Reports , which explain how technologies are transforming industries. It produces live events such as the annual EmTech MIT , international EmTech conferences and Summits. The company's entrepreneurial community organization, MIT Enterprise Forum , hosts 400+ events a year around the world.

2014-02-18 20:34:38+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [389, 2141]}

{}

SmartMetric - "The Blockchain Code" Can Be Used Inside the Banking Industry to Facilitate a Lower Cost Payment Infrastructure for Financial Institutions and Merchants

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/smartmetric-blockchain-code-used-inside-203438525.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Feb 18, 2014) - SmartMetric, Inc. ( OTCQB : SMME ), announced that it is continuing to focus its technology development on its biometric fingerprint cards for payments, security and identification and will not be pursuing the adoption of cryptocurrencies within its technology until the legal and regulatory framework within the United States is established. "Bitcoin and the growing number of cryptocurrencies that have more recently been introduced to the market are very compelling technologies that can potentially significantly reduce banking costs but have an inherent detrimental social issue when they are used for anonymous payments. SmartMetric believes that the core code "the blockchain" at the heart of these new cryptocurrencies is the real genius of the technology that allows for efficient, traceable and confirmed transfers. The company is looking at ways the blockchain code can be used inside of the Banking industry to facilitate a lower cost paymet infrastructure for financial institutions and merchants alike," stated SmartMetric CEO Chaya Hendrick. The Company intends to continue to concentrate its efforts on bringing to market its fingerprint activated biometric EMV payments cards while at the same time working on using the blockchain protocol to bring about efficiencies in the payments sector and will continue with seeing the adoption of its biometric EMV payments card technology within the Banking industry. About SmartMetric SmartMetric, Inc. ( OTCQB : SMME ) develops patented biometric technologies used for security and identification, including the world's smallest fingerprint reader. The Company's proprietary advanced miniature electronics technology uses sub-micro computers to create fingerprint and security applications that were not previously possible. The world's smallest fingerprint reader is designed to fit inside standard payments cards as well as ID cards. Because of the miniature size of the electronics it is ideal for use in a broad array of products requiring an enhanced identification system. SmartMetric's products include the SmartMetric Biometric Bitcoin Card™, the SmartMetric Intelligent Card OS™, and MedicalKeyring™ a medical emergency biometric card. For information on SmartMetric and its technology please go to www.smartmetric.com . Safe Harbor Statement Certain of the above statements contained in this press release are forward looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward looking statements are within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Readers are cautioned that any such forward looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.

2014-02-19 02:37:00+00:00

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{"Bitcoin": [19, 76]}

Philippine Company Bitcoin Pinoy – The Place to Acquire, Sell, or Shop With Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/philippine-company-bitcoin-pinoy-place-023700476.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

Bitcoin Pinoy is the premier Filipino service for businesses and consumers to join the Bitcoin ecosystem. The company has recently secured angel investment from American investors. Philippines / February 18th, 2014 / Filipino citizens now have a way to transact with Bitcoin within their own country thanks to registered company Bitcoin Pinoy. Bitcoin Pinoy is owned and operated by Filipinos who have secured American based Angel funding. Bitcoin Pinoy currently supports buying and selling Bitcoins with instant or next day deposits to sellers’ bank accounts and will be rolling out additional capabilities to make transacting in Bitcoin easier, safer and more cost effective. As founder Faith Tondares explains, Bitcoin Pinoy is committed to serving both the Bitcoin ecosystem and the Filipino economy : “We are honored to help Filipinos join the Bitcoin economy. We offer a secure and reliable method of securing Bitcoin and already have many satisfied customers. Over the next 12 months you will see more services being rolled out and Bitcoin Pinoy continuing to hire.” The company has already served customers in Manila and across the Visayas. People living in the Philippines can easily buy and sell Bitcoins by completing the simple forms provided on the Bitcoin Pinoy website, then following the payment instructions. The user sends Bitcoins he wishes to sell to a designated address and he will receive a deposit to his bank account the same day or the next business day. To buy Bitcoins, customers would make a cash deposit to the bank account indicated in the instructions and will receive Bitcoins shortly thereafter. Bitcoin Pinoy is especially helpful to people who need to buy or sell Bitcoins, but do not need to go through a full blown trading platform. Similar to USA-based Coin RNR, Bitcoin Pinoy has a set buy or sell price which fluctuates with the market but which the customer can either take or leave. Bitcoins can be bought or sold with Filipino Pesos (PhP). Bitcoin Pinoy can support customers with a MetroBank, BPI, UCPB or BDO bank account. Story continues Bitcoin Pinoy maintains a blog designed to educate Filipinos on the basics of what Bitcoin is and how it works. Posts include videos on how to get a wallet, how to use a mobile wallet app and how to send and receive Bitcoin. Bitcoin Pinoy will soon expand to provide support for online merchants who want to accept Bitcoin in payment and other capabilities all designed to make transacting in Bitcoin easier, safer, and more cost effective. With its easy to use interface for buying and selling Bitcoins with PhP, Bitcoin Pinoy is fulfilling its mission to be the premier platform for Filipinos to buy, sell or transact in Bitcoin . Visit http://www.bitcoinpinoy.net/ for more information. Contact Info Name: Faith Tondares Organization: Bitcoin Pinoy Email: contact@bitcoinpinoy.net

2014-02-19 17:58:53+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [98, 632, 678]}

{"Bitcoin": [19]}

Entrepreneur gifts Bitcoins to Washington college

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/entrepreneur-gifts-bitcoins-washington-college-175853006.html

Associated Press

https://apnews.com/

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- In what may be the first college donation of the new electronic currency, a Bitcoin entrepreneur has donated $10,000 worth of the digital money to a Washington state liberal arts college. The University of Puget Sound said on Wednesday it had received a donation of 14.5 coins of the currency, which it has converted into more traditional dollars. Nicolas Cary graduated from the university in 2007 and now runs Blockchain, which supports the online currency market. The 27-year-old CEO said he wanted to make the gift in the money that is central to his life and career. He believes the donation is the first Bitcoin gift to a U.S. college or university. Bitcoin is an open-source currency affiliated with no country or bank. Peer-to-peer trading began in 2009. Sherry Mondou, vice president for finance and administration at the University of Puget Sound, said administrators were a little uncertain how to handle the gift, as they had no policies on digital currency. "But we greatly welcomed Nic's thoughtful initiative and felt it would serve us well to learn to engage with the e-commerce world," Mondou said. The donation was made in support of a $125 million alumni fundraising campaign, money meant for scholarships, academic programs, buildings and other projects.

2014-02-19 19:03:04+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [64, 433, 591, 683, 754, 850, 1043, 1104, 1947, 2053, 2222, 3220, 3356, 3430, 3501, 3583, 3637, 3756, 3841, 3981, 4086, 5494]}

{"Bitcoin": [62]}

Shocking Prediction: This Company Could Be The 'Amazon.com Of Bitcoin'

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shocking-prediction-company-could-amazon-120406703.html

StreetAuthority Network

http://www.streetauthority.com

Ten years ago I don't know how seriously I would have taken the Bitcoin phenomenon. Today though, I'm taking it very seriously. I've learned my lesson the hard way. I used to regularly miss the boat on stocks, while other early adopters got ahead of the curve. In the mid-nineties, I paid very little attention to the developments surrounding the internet. My parents did the same thing with personal computers in the 1970s. So with Bitcoin I've been paying attention. And what I've learned is that there is real merit to this digital currency. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but I do think Bitcoin has a fighting chance. And there's one virtually unknown company that could soar if Bitcoin gains acceptance. It could even be known as the "Amazon.com of Bitcoin" in the near future. There are some strong economic forces supporting the acceptance of Bitcoin. These are the primary reasons why I predict some of the world's most successful businesses are going to be very motivated to embrace the digital currency. The first big advantage that Bitcoin provides over other electronic transactions is cost. Bitcoin transactions involve no fees. When I first read that, I didn't think it was a big deal. Transaction fees are annoying, but they don't amount to much. But I wasn't thinking about transaction fees from the proper perspective. You see, in the retail business profit margins are pretty thin. Even for an online retailer, price competition keeps margins tight. In short, transaction fees do huge damage to the retailer's bottom line. [More from StreetAuthority.com: Get A Best-In-Class Dividend And 30% Upside From This Pharma Stock ] For example, a typical retailer might have a pre-tax profit margin of 5%. If a credit card company takes 2% to 3% of that in transaction fees, the retailer immediately loses half of its profits. That's a shockingly big impact, and it's not hard to see why a merchant would be eager to adopt a system like Bitcoin that eliminates transaction fees. Story continues The second advantage involves fraud. In theory, Bitcoin eliminates the possibility of fraud altogether. While I'm not entirely convinced of that (it sounds a little too much like an "unsinkable ship" claim to me), if Bitcoin is able to ensure a greater level of security than traditional currencies, it could be game-changing. Here's why... According to a 2009 study by Lexis Nexis, merchants in the United States lose $190 billion per year to credit card fraud. The perfect example of how big a problem this is was recently illustrated when Target ( TGT ) suffered a massive data breach over the holidays. It involved credit card information being stolen and up to 15% of the cards being subjected to fraudulent activity. Estimates are that this one incident will cost Target $1 billion. Do you think Target might be interested in a currency system that would greatly reduce such risks? [More from StreetAuthority.com: This 'Shale Boom' Stock Is Sitting On Several Catalysts -- And 40% Upside ] And Merchants don't just suffer from the cost of fraud itself. There is also the cost and massive headaches involved in trying to prevent fraud from happening in the first place. For merchants, widespread acceptance of Bitcoin could be a tremendous financial blessing. It could literally save companies hundreds of billions of dollars. The "Amazon.com Of Bitcoin" I was blown away by the magnitude of the financial benefits that Bitcoin could provide to merchants. If merchants are willing to accept Bitcoin, then consumers are going to be far more likely to use it as well. And if Bitcoin acceptance grows, I think over time shares of BitcoinShop, Inc. ( TUCND ) could end up being a big winner. (By the way, its ticker symbol will soon change to BTCS.) BitcoinShop, Inc. already offers 100,000 different items that can be purchased using Bitcoins on its website. From books to movies to toys and hardware, this site seems to have it all. That's why I call it the "Amazon.com of Bitcoin." [More from StreetAuthority.com: Get A Market-Crushing Dividend From This Best-In-Class Stock ] BitcoinShop is a very young company. It was founded in 2013 by two men named Michal Handerhan and Tim Sidie -- two NASA employees -- and it only started publicly trading at the beginning of February 2014. The company has yet to file its first set of financial statements, which means this isn't a low risk investing opportunity. That said, the company is seeing some positive early results. Because it is young and is just being discovered, it is experiencing very rapid rates of growth. Products sold have increased more than ten times in the company's first two quarters and the number of registered users has gone up sevenfold. We are talking about an unproven company in an unproven industry, but this could be an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something that has the possibility of becoming very big. Think of this as venture capital investing. You make a small investment and realize that you are taking on a lot of risk in exchange for a chance at being part of a potentially huge winner. Risks to Consider: I would advise investors to wait a couple of months before buying shares in this company. I believe there is some confusion in the market about the number of shares this company has outstanding. This is likely going to create some serious volatility in its stock price until the first set of quarterly financial statements are filed. Action to Take --> Consider buying shares of BitcoinShop. If the currency takes off, this stock could be a real game-changer. Related Articles Related Articles Related Articles Shocking Prediction: The 'Second Phase' Of The Oil Boom Could Eclipse The First

2014-02-19 20:43:55+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2537]}

{}

Jefferies: 3D Printers Are About To Burst Across Many Fields

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jefferies-3d-printers-burst-across-204355238.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

3D printing companies have dominated the news headlines in 2013. As the technology continues to improve, investors can expect the relatively new technology to dominate the headlines even more in 2014 and beyond. Peter Misek, analyst at Jefferies, attended a recent 3D Printshow in New York and published a report to clients. Consumer market: Little differentiation Misek visited over 15 3D printer exhibitors and noted that many of the exhibitors had a difficult time describing why their product is different or superior to their competitors. As a result, the 3D printer market, according to Misek, has become a “word-of-mouth/branding game.” Chinese brands, despite a lower price tag, were poorly received by the 3D hobbyist community. Metals opportunity: Companies taking notice Misek wrote that at least six and as many as a dozen major industrial groups are in discussions with metal 3D printing companies. Several of the names mentioned by Misek include Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) and Stryker (NYSE: SYK ) Misek said: “We expect 3D printers based on technologies that can process metal-like powder bed binding and powder bed fusion (SLS, EBM) to grow faster than the broader 3D printing over the next few years. Related: 3D Printers Capable of Printing Living Tissue and Organs: Are We Ready? Aerospace: Technology already exists According to Misek, aerospace parts already include at least one 3D printed part, which could lead to further regulatory approval. The largest potential purchaser in the aerospace field is General Electric (NYSE: GE ), who plans to invest in 3D printing capabilities for its new LEAP engines. The company could chose a 3D printing supplier sometime in 2014 with initial production to begin in 2015 and a ramp in late 2015 or early 2016. General Electric is currently testing printers from 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD ) and other private companies such as Concept Laser. The company has orders for $68 billion worth of LEAP engines and the company is expected to spend $3.5 billion on carbon fiber and 3D printing equipment over the next five years. Story continues Medical applications: More education needed Misek wrote that based on his conversations with medical panelists, “the field needs advances in education, training, and standardization of file types but feel that all the tools are there in the market to do everything.” 3D printing could save 60 percent of time for facial plastic surgery and 3D printing orthopedic sockets are stronger than traditional parts. Related Links Robocoin Brings Bitcoin ATMs To The United States JMP Securities: Survey With Surgeons Highlight Challenges For Intuitive Surgical Citi Picks Macy's, Hudson's Bay as Leaders in Department Store Group (c) 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

2014-02-19 22:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [659, 1240, 1773]}

{}

WPCS Appoints Alliance Advisors as Its Investor Relations Firm

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wpcs-appoints-alliance-advisors-investor-220000582.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

EXTON, PA--(Marketwired - Feb 19, 2014) - WPCS International Incorporated ( NASDAQ : WPCS ) today announced that it has appointed Alliance Advisors, LLC ("Alliance Advisors") as its investor relations firm. Located in New York City, Alliance Advisors is a comprehensive investor relations, market intelligence, corporate communications and strategic consulting services firm that has represented well over 300 United States publicly listed companies located in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. According to Interim CEO Sebastian Giordano, "WPCS has the potential to be a great turnaround story, with a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of the emerging Bitcoin industry. These are exciting times at WPCS and partnering with Alliance Advisors, which represents other companies in the digital currency industry, will help us to more effectively communicate our evolving message to all WPCS stakeholders." Thomas Walsh, Managing Partner of Alliance Advisors, commented, "We are a strong believer in digital currency and the impact that it will have on the future of financial transactions. WPCS has developed one of the first trading platforms to meet the natural progression of the industry by offering users an orderly market to trade Bitcoin. While the industry is in its infancy, we believe that by becoming an early adopter the Company will enjoy the benefit of achieving market leadership. We look forward to developing a pro-active communications program and sharing it with the investment community." About WPCS International Incorporated WPCS operates in two business segments including: (1) providing communications infrastructure contracting services to the public services, healthcare, energy and corporate enterprise markets worldwide; and (2) developing a Bitcoin trading platform. For more information, please visit www.wpcs.com and www.btxtrader.com . Statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenue and earnings and all other statements in this press release, other than historical facts, are "forward looking" statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. The company's actual results could differ materially from expected results. In reflecting subsequent events or circumstances, the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. View comments

2014-02-20 03:16:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [0, 204, 307, 652, 777, 928, 1083, 1241, 1287, 1361, 1654, 2030, 2686, 2734, 2792, 2931]}

{"Bitcoin": [41]}

Online Electronics Store BitRoad Accepts Bitcoin and Litecoin As Payment Methods

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/online-electronics-store-bitroad-accepts-031600603.html

ACCESSWIRE

https://www.accesswire.com/

Bitcoin and Litecoin is accepted at new online electronics store BitRoad - shipping high quality consumer electronics worldwide. London UK / February 19th, 2014 / Online electronics store BitRoad accepts Bitcoin and Litecoin as payment methods in their checkout, utilizing the merchant friendly features of Bitcoin and Litecoin. BitRoad carries a wide selection of high quality electronics shipped worldwide directly from the manufacturer; including Tablet PCs, smart phones, baby monitors and even muscle massagers. Products come with a one year warranty and all orders are processed within 24 hours – shipping worldwide within three to five days. As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continue to explode in popularity worldwide, BitRoad is leading the way in supporting the Bitcoin ecosystem – providing a professional outlet where people can spend their coins on popular items such as electronics. BitRoad currently accepts Bitcoin and Litecoin, but plans to expand into accepting even more emerging digital currencies in the future. The forward thinking company firmly believes Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are the future. Not only does BitRoad accept them as payment, the company is also active in promoting the adoption of Bitcoin in real world stores through BitPay’s Bitcoin payment gateway solution . To this end BitRoad had a booth at the Bitcoin Expo in London last November. BitRoad retails only high quality electronics. All products are tested, screening out fakes and defective items. The company is so confident in the quality of its product line that every product comes with a one year warranty. Stores such as BitRoad give Bitcoin, Litecoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole added credibility because consumers know their coins can be traded for high quality merchandise. BitRoad processes all orders within 24 hours and ships them worldwide directly from the factory within three to five days. Economy shipping is also available and BitRoad also provides discounts for wholesale orders. By accepting Bitcoin as payment through BitPay’s payment gateway, BitRoad is on the cutting edge of the economy of the future. However, the company is no newbie to ecommerce or customer service. With years of experience in traditional ecommerce, BitRoad has seen it all when it comes to customer service. They are constantly working to improve customers experience on their website based on user feedback. Should anything go wrong with a customer’s order, friendly support staff will resolve the issue in a quick and professional manner. By providing high quality electronics with one year warranties and quickly shipping them worldwide, BitRoad is adding value to the Bitcoin ecosystem . Enabling consumers to spend Bitcoin on real tangible products goes a long way towards Bitcoin’s acceptance as an actual spendable currency, rather than a speculative investment. Through being among the first stores to accept Bitcoin and Litecoin as payment, as well as their unwavering belief in the the future of crypto, BitRoad is well positioned to take full advantage of the worldwide digital currency gold rush currently underway. Story continues Visit http://www.bitroad.co.uk for more information. Contact Info Name: BitRoad Organization: BitRoad Email: info@bitroad.co.uk View comments

2014-02-20 13:00:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [752, 1102, 3576, 3694, 3913, 3923, 5384, 5590, 5649]}

{"Bitcoin": [33]}

Is This Stock The 'Amazon.com of Bitcoin'?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-amazon-com-bitcoin-130000123.html

StreetAuthority Network

http://www.streetauthority.com

Ten years ago, I don't know how seriously I would have taken the bitcoin phenomenon. Today, though, I'm taking it very seriously. I've learned my lesson the hard way. I used to regularly miss the boat on stocks, while other early adopters got ahead of the curve. In the mid-'90s, I paid very little attention to the developments surrounding the Internet. My parents did the same thing with personal computers in the 1970s. So with bitcoin I've been paying attention. And what I've learned is that there is real merit to this digital currency. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but I do think bitcoin has a fighting chance. And there's one virtually unknown company that could soar if bitcoin gains acceptance. It could even be known as the "Amazon.com of Bitcoin" in the near future. There are some strong economic forces supporting the acceptance of bitcoin. These are the primary reasons why I predict some of the world's most successful businesses are going to be very motivated to embrace the digital currency. The first big advantage that bitcoin provides over other electronic transactions is cost. Bitcoin transactions involve no fees. When I first read that, I didn't think it was a big deal. Transaction fees are annoying, but they don't amount to much. But I wasn't thinking about transaction fees from the proper perspective. [More from StreetAuthority.com: Collect A 7% Yield While You Wait For This Beaten-Down Stock To Triple ] You see, in the retail business, profit margins are pretty thin. Even for an online retailer, price competition keeps margins tight. In short, transaction fees do huge damage to the retailer's bottom line. For example, a typical retailer might have a pre-tax profit margin of 5%. If a credit card company takes 2% to 3% of that in transaction fees, the retailer immediately loses half of its profits. That's a shockingly big impact, and it's not hard to see why a merchant would be eager to adopt a system like bitcoin that eliminates transaction fees. Story continues The second advantage involves fraud. In theory, bitcoin eliminates the possibility of fraud altogether. While I'm not entirely convinced of that (it sounds a little too much like an "unsinkable ship" claim to me), if bitcoin is able to ensure a greater level of security than traditional currencies, it could be game-changing. Here's why... According to a 2009 study by LexisNexis, merchants in the United States lose $190 billion a year to credit card fraud. The perfect example of how big a problem this is was recently illustrated when Target (NYSE: TGT ) had a massive data breach over the holidays. It involved credit card information being stolen and up to 15% of the cards being subjected to fraudulent activity. Estimates are that this single incident will cost Target $1 billion. [More from StreetAuthority.com: Buy Gold For 60 Cents On The Dollar? Here's How ] Do you think Target might be interested in a currency system that would greatly reduce such risks? And merchants don't just suffer from the cost of fraud itself. There is also the cost and massive headaches involved in trying to prevent fraud from happening in the first place. For merchants, widespread acceptance of bitcoin could be a tremendous financial blessing. It could save companies hundreds of billions of dollars. I was blown away by the magnitude of the financial benefits that bitcoin could provide to merchants. If merchants are willing to accept bitcoin, then consumers are going to be far more likely to use it as well. And if bitcoin acceptance grows, I think over time shares of BitcoinShop Inc. ( TUCND ) could end up being a big winner. (By the way, its ticker symbol will soon change to BTCS.) BitcoinShop already offers 100,000 different items that can be purchased using bitcoins on its website. From books to movies to toys and hardware, this site seems to have it all. That's why I call it the "Amazon.com of Bitcoin." BitcoinShop is a very young company. It was founded just last year by two NASA employees, and it only started publicly trading at the beginning of this month. The company has yet to file its first set of financial statements, which means this isn't a low risk investing opportunity. [More from StreetAuthority.com: This Beaten-Down Company Is Sitting On A Fortune In Real Estate ] That said, the company is seeing some positive early results. Because it is young and only now being discovered, it is experiencing very rapid rates of growth. Products sold have increased more than 10 times in the company's first two quarters, and the number of registered users has gone up sevenfold. We are talking about an unproven company in an unproven industry, but this could be an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something that has the possibility of becoming very big. Think of this as venture capital investing. You make a small investment and realize that you are taking on a lot of risk in exchange for a chance at being part of a potentially huge winner. Risks to Consider: I would advise investors to wait a couple of months before buying shares in this company. I believe there is some confusion in the market about the number of shares this company has outstanding. This is likely going to create some serious volatility in its stock price until the first set of quarterly financial statements are filed. Action to Take --> Consider buying shares of BitcoinShop. If the currency takes off, this stock could be a real game-changer. This article was originally published at InvestingAnswers.com: Shocking Prediction: This Company Could Be The 'Amazon.com Of Bitcoin' Related Articles Is This Stock The 'Amazon.com of Bitcoin'? A Value Guru Is Going Against The Short Sellers On This Stock -- Should You? A Modern-Day Buffett Is Jumping On This 'Hated' Company

2014-02-20 15:59:30+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [126, 213, 580, 767, 1199, 1312]}

{"Bitcoin": [72]}

Even If Your Transaction Is Totally Legal, The Feds Can Still Take Your Bitcoins Away From You

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/finance.yahoo.com/news/even-transaction-totally-legal-feds-155930135.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

FBI undercover sting AP With very few exceptions, cash is cash and it's yours to keep if you choose. This is not the case for Bitcoin, the anonymous digital currency. Because it's possible to trace how individual Bitcoins move around the network, federal agencies may be able to link them to an illegal source, such as a Silk Road transaction . If tainted coins should travel around the network and ultimately end up in your hands (even legitimately), this means the Feds can swoop in to grab your digital money. Over at BusinessWeek , Peter Coy describes how that works: This is Bitcoin’s nemo dat quod non habet problem, that being Latin for an old principle of English common law: “No one gives what he does not have.” If the drug lord didn’t legitimately own the Bitcoins in question because he got them via crime, then he can’t legitimately give them to you. You must give them up even if you’re not at fault. The same principle is at play when certain unwitting art buyers are forced to surrender works that were seized by the Nazis in World War II. Alex Daley, chief technology strategist of Casey Research, a financial research firm, says that the FBI already owns between 5% and 10% of all Bitcoins. More From Business Insider Facebook Is Buying Huge Messaging App WhatsApp For $19 Billion! Israel Says Bitcoin Is Risky And Announces That It May Regulate It What King's IPO Says About The Future Of Payments For Digital Goods The Telecom That Developed M-Pesa Is Boxing Competitors Out Of The Mobile Money Market China Is Developing A Nationwide Mobile Payments Infrastructure

2014-02-20 19:09:26+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [0, 1020, 2796, 3325]}

{"Bitcoin": [0]}

Bitcoin Short-Term Price Tied To One Lackluster Company

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-short-term-price-tied-190926835.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

Bitcoin's price took another plunge Thursday morning because of one company: Mt. Gox. There's currently two competing theories on Mt. Gox – either they are insolvent or they are manipulating their market for profit. Whatever the reason, Mt. Gox disappointed the market again and pushed the price of bitcoin lower. Those who follow bitcoin are used to Mt. Gox's blunders pushing bitcoin temporarily lower. Each time the price of bitcoin has dipped temporarily and come roaring back. I expect the same result this time. Insolvent company? One theory is Mt. Gox has run out of funds and is trying to buy time to get more customer deposits and dig themselves out of the hole they are in. This is the predominant theory with the current price of bitcoin on Mt. Gox trading at $150.00 and heading lower, while the rest of the markets are trading around $600.00. It is also a pattern Coindesk reported having recognized from gambling websites, such as Full Tilt Poker, which eventually went bankrupt. See also: Robocoin Brings Bitcoin ATMs To The United States Mt. Gox has had liquidity issues since last May, when the US Department of Homeland Security seized $5 million USD from Gox and stopped their ability to accept or receive funds through their partner, Dwolla, for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. This caused huge withdrawal backlogs from Mt. Gox to the US and caused the price of bitcoin to be higher on Mt. Gox than anywhere else. This was a result of frustrated customers converting their US Dollars into bitcoin to quickly withdraw them. Earlier this month, Mt. Gox suspended bitcoin withdrawals as well, claiming a security flaw. The flaw allowed customers to steal from them, instead of admitting they had not properly accounted for a well-documented quirk of the bitcoin protocol. It was at this point that people on the fence about Mt. Gox's solvency lost all faith in the company. Criminal company? When asked about Gox's solvency, CEO Mark Karpeles stated their status is confidential. One would expect a “yes” from all operating companies. A Gox press release earlier this week stated they were testing withdrawals and would have an update on Thursday. Thursday morning's press release stated the company is moving offices for security reasons and will provide an update soon. Thursday's announcement was supposed to resume withdrawals. No one can put together a reasonable explanation for Gox being solvent and not doing a better job of reassuring customers. That is making some speculate Mt. Gox is intentionally mismanaging their company in order to profit from the low price, 25 percent of the going market rate, of bitcoins on their exchange. There is no direct evidence for this theory, but the circumstantial evidence causes one to wonder. Story continues Bitcoin will be fine Mt. Gox has been a stain on the bitcoin community that will not go away. The undisputed king of exchanges and the definitive price a year ago, their incompetence opened the door for other exchanges to rapidly take market share and dethrone the king. While no longer reigning over the bitcoin exchange systems, the uncertainty of the Gox situation is depressing other exchange prices. This stresses and distracts bitcoin users, while potentially damaging bitcoin's reputation. See also: What Companies Accept Bitcoin? Instead of stories about new financial technology being built on top of bitcoin or the implications of the Sacramento Kings accepting bitcoin, news outlets are reporting on bitcoin price crashes. In the long run Mt. Gox will, at best, be an interesting story in bitcoin's history. Let's hoping they go away sooner rather than later, so everyone can again focus on changing the world through bitcoin -- instead of being distracted by temporary price dips. Related Links Crocs Swings to Q4 Loss But Beats Analyst Estimates, Shares Move Higher BIOLASE to Become Distributor for Stratasys' 3-D Printers, Shares Up 12+% Pershing Square Issues Profile on Top Herbalife Distributor, Member of Board, John Tartol (c) 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments

2014-02-20 19:25:18+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3818]}

{}

Priceline Earnings Preview: Will The Company Live Up To Expectations?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/priceline-earnings-preview-company-live-192518817.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN ) is scheduled to report its fourth quarter results on Thursday after the closing bell. The company is expected to earn $8.27 per share and revenue of $1.52 billion. Credit Suisse: Open-ended growth story Dean Prissman, VP of Internet Equity Research at Credit Suisse believes that Priceline remains a growth story until at least 2019. “Our proprietary work suggests significant runway remains, with share of fillable rooms from the 407k properties on the platform a modest ~seven percent, up from ~ five percent three years ago,” Prissman wrote in a note to clients on February 13. “Our tracking further suggests a rapid emergence of alternative lodging inventory, which now comprises ~25 percent of Priceline's properties. Priceline appears to be filling in gaps within its EU geographical footprint where hotel supply is limited, a tactic we believe further differentiates the platform.” As an example, Prissman noted of the 24,000 European Union cities/locations served by Priceline, 3,400 appear incremental due to the alternative lodging category. “With Priceline's huge volume of traffic there are likely to be consumers that have sought hotel accommodation in destinations that have structurally limited supply,” Prissman argued. “In the absence of the consumer finding a different destination or suitable alternative lodging, an inherent opportunity cost has existed.” Prissman is expecting Priceline's fourth quarter revenue to be $1.5257 billion and its EPS to be $8.62. Shares are Outperform rated with a price target of $1,450. Related: Groupon Earnings Preview: What The Analysts Are Saying Bank of America: Solid quarter to be expected Justin Post, analyst at Bank of America believes that Priceline is set to report a sold quarter, but expectations are high following Expedia's positive earnings report on February 6. “We expect a strong 4Q given strong property additions on Booking.com, positive Accor commentary (see Europe may be getting a bit better), positive read-across from Expedia 4Q results (although EXPE may have closed the room night gap) and accelerating 4Q STR RevPAR data,” Post wrote in a note to clients on February 13. Story continues Post argued that the travel industry is strong based on recent results from Expedia and Tripadvisor , but warned that Expedia may have gained a little ground against Priceline in the quarter. Long term, Post believes that the company can continue to grow. “With mid-30s room night growth and an undemanding relative forward P/E vs. the Internet group, we continue to like the stock and expect strong execution in an evolving travel market to drive share gains, plus a European hotel recovery could add 300-500bps of growth in 2014.” Post is expecting Priceline's fourth quarter revenue to be $1.5 billion and its EPS to be $8.35. Shares are Buy rated with a $1,300 price target. Deustche Bank: Business as usual Ross Sandler, analyst at Deutsche Bank believes that Priceline has the best execution history of any company in almost any sector, so the company's fourth quarter results should be “business as usual.” “We think 2014 could be somewhat bumpy, as TripAdvisor and Google both implement mobile transaction “booking paths,” which could create inflationary pressure in those customer acquisition channels,” Sander wrote in a note to clients on February 3. “However, Priceline has proven its ability to manage through transitions and is well-positioned in mobile and across most global geographies. The size of the opportunity is large, albeit not quite as big as for less penetrated online names like Amazon , but should provide plenty of growth.” Sandler is expecting Priceline's fourth quarter revenue to be $1.492 billion and its EPS to be $8.42. Shares are Buy rated with a $1,240 price target. Related Links Bitcoin Short-Term Price Tied To One Lackluster Company Crocs Swings to Q4 Loss But Beats Analyst Estimates, Shares Move Higher BIOLASE to Become Distributor for Stratasys' 3-D Printers, Shares Up 12+% (c) 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

2014-02-21 19:43:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2690]}

{}

Apple Just Bought An App Testing Platform

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-just-bought-app-testing-194340175.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

tim cook apple china mobile REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon It sounds like Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions, has been having a busy couple of weeks. This weekend, it got out that he's been having meetings with electric automaker Tesla. Today, TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has acquired Burstly , the developers behind a popular ad management platform and owner of app testing platform TestFlight. While non-techies likely haven't heard much about TestFlight, the platform is a huge tool for app developers. App development platforms are a newly hot area: One of Facebook's most important but little-noticed recent acquisitions was Parse , an app development platform that some say gives CEO Mark Zuckerberg a sneak preview of which apps are hot and which are not. Even more than Facebook, Apple and its iPhones and iPads are dependent on having a rich environment of cool new apps for their customers to use. Burstly thus helps the company guarantee a supply of properly tested apps. On the flip side of that coin, this move also hurts both Android developers and users: TestFlight's support page notes that support for Android will end on March 21, 2014. That must come as a shock to any developers testing Android apps for release in the next few months. In early 2012, Google Ventures partner and tech blogger MG Siegler wrote that TestFlight was used by nearly 70,000 developers to help test 130,000 apps when it was bought by Burstly in late 2011. Since then, it's usage numbers have likely moved significantly higher. Properly testing apps for bugs and interface feedback is more important than ever in the current app market — and thus far, Apple has been slacking on making that process easy for developers. While its Developer Enterprise program gives app developers a number of tools that make it easy to distribute "in-house" apps to employees of the same company, developers under the traditional $99/year program are limited to registering 100 devices for testing at a time and handling distribution of test versions themselves. For years, that discrepancy in testing tools created a huge market for services like TestFlight, which c laims on its site that "m ost of the world's developers rely on the TestFlight platform for beta testing." We don't have the numbers to back that statement up, but now that Apple owns it (and can bake the technology into the development software every iOS developer is using), it's almost guaranteed to be true. We've reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post if we hear back. More From Business Insider PAYMENTS INSIDER: What King's IPO Means For Payments — China's Mobile Commerce Explosion — More On The Bitcoin Crash What King's IPO Says About The Future Of Payments For Digital Goods Apple Gains A Measly 1% Of Market Share In China Last Quarter View comments

2014-02-24 06:33:38+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [156, 265, 884, 1407, 1591, 1742, 1878]}

{"Bitcoin": [27]}

Mt. Gox's CEO resigns from Bitcoin Foundation

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mt-gox-resigns-bitcoin-foundation-042450648.html

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

By Chris Peters (Reuters) - Mark Karpeles, chief executive of Mt. Gox, the embattled Toyko-based bitcoin exchange, resigned on Sunday from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, in the latest blow to the digital currency. Jinyoung Lee Englund, a spokesperson for the Bitcoin Foundation - a trade group promoting the adoption of the digital currency, confirmed the news and said the resignation was effective immediately. The resignation follows a number of technical issues, including a massive cyber attack from unknown sources that has been spamming bitcoin exchanges. Earlier in February, Mt. Gox, the best-known digital marketplace operator, said it is halting withdrawals indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity. Following the halting, the foundation's chief scientist Gavin Andresen defended the currency and criticized Mt. Gox, saying the problem was with exchange, not Bitcoin. "The issues that Mt. Gox has been experiencing are due to an unfortunate interaction between Mt. Gox's implementation of their highly customized wallet software, their customer support procedures, and their unpreparedness for transaction malleability, a technical detail that allows changes to the way transactions are identified," Andresen said in a statement on the Foundation's blog on February 10. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox was a founding member and one of three elected industry representatives on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation. Mt. Gox was not immediately available to comment on the news, which was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal. Charles Shrem, another prominent member of the Bitcoin Foundation, resigned earlier this year after being arrested in connection with an alleged drug scheme involving his bitcoin currency exchange. Bitcoin prices have been falling fast after Mt. Gox said a "bug in the bitcoin software" could allow transaction details to be altered. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital system of value transfers that is not governed by any central bank, company or government. No assets back the bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated widely as its visibility has increased. Last September, a bitcoin was worth around $150. By late December the value was near the $1,000 mark. Mt. Gox bitcoins traded at about $232 in Monday trading in Tokyo, while the Bitstamp index bitcoin traded at around $568. (Reporting by Chris Peters in Bangalore and Sophie Knight in Tokyo; Editing by Supriya Kurane) View comments

2014-02-24 12:19:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [3534, 3706, 3859]}

{}

10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-things-know-opening-bell-121936926.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

soccer player celebration carlos tevez REUTERS/ Giorgio Perottino Juventus player Carlos Tevez counts out today's 10 Things You Need To Know. Good morning! Here's what you need to know. — Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych — who fled Kiev late Friday — is now wanted for mass murder of protesters. "As of this morning a mass murder of peaceful citizens case has been initiated," NBC's James Novograd translated from a statement on the interior minister's Facebook page. " Yanukovich and a number of other officials were put on a wanted list." Violence between riot police and protesters killed 82 people last week. — Ukraine says it needs $35 billion in foreign aid over the next two years to keep the country afloat, Reuters reports. "Over the past two days, we have had consultations and meetings with the EU and U.S. ambassadors and other countries and financial institutions on the urgent delivery of macro-financial assistance for Ukraine," said acting Finance Minister Yuri Kolobov. British finance minister George Osborne said that the EU was ready to provide assistance . Meanwhile, Ukranian stocks have staged a 9% rally in the wake of Yanukovych's fall from power. — Egyptian interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi announced on Monday the resignation of his cabinet , Reuters reports. "Today the cabinet took a decision to offer its resignation to the president of the republic," he said in a televised statement. "El-Beblawi has often been derided in the media for his perceived indecisiveness and inability to introduce effective remedies to the country's economic woes," the AP reports . "A presidential bid by the popular el-Sissi [the defense minister] has been widely anticipated and leaving him out of the next Cabinet will most likely be accompanied by an announcement by the 59-year-old soldier that he is running." — Asian markets were pretty quiet, with Japan's Nikkei closing down 0.19%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 0.80%, and Korea's KOSPI down 0.45%. Shanghai was ugliest, finishing 1.75% lower. European markets were mixed, and U.S. futures were pointing slightly higher. Story continues — This morning at 10:30 a.m. ET, the Dallas Fed will release its manufacturing index. Economist estimate the regional activity index dropped to 3.0 from 3.8 a month ago. The big story lately is whether this winter's particularly harsh weather is to blame for tepid economic data. "We see much of the recent weakness as payback for unsustainably strong growth in the second half of last year," wrote JPMorgan economists Michael Feroli and Robert Mellman. — Chinese home prices rose 9.6% year-over-year in January , down from 9.9% in December. Home prices climbed in 69 of the 70 cities surveyed. As banks curtail lending to developers and hard commodity industries, prices in top tier cities have started to cool off. — Matteo Renzi was sworn in Saturday , becoming Italy's youngest Prime Minister at the age of 39. Renzi, the former mayor of Florence and leader of the Democratic Party, took over for Enrico Letta in a party vote last week. Renzi has tried to project a younger image than Letta (who hung on to power for less than a year), wearing shirt sleeves to meetings and riding around on a bicycle. — HSBC, Europe's largest bank, missed earnings expectations . The bank said 2013 profits rose 9% to $22.6 billion from $20.7 billion, but that was lower than the $24.6 billion expected by Wall Street analysts, according to Bloomberg. The stock fell as a result. — MtGox is resigning from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation . The exchange remains unable to restart operations after it claimed to have been hit by a bug, and the MtGox Twitter account deleted all of its tweets. Bitcoin prices on the exchange rallied over the weekend on reports that it would reinstate withdrawals, but have since come down to $170. The price of a Bitcoin is $58o on Coindesk. — Jason Collins became the first active openly-gay NBA athlete Sunday when he signed a 10-day contract with the Brooklyn Nets. Then he helped them beat the Lakers 108-102. More From Business Insider Here's A Full List Of Medal Winners At The Sochi Olympics 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

2014-02-24 12:45:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [194, 1713], "BTC": [415]}

{"Bitcoin": [48]}

Bayside Corp. Provides Developmental Update for Bitcoinz USA.com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bayside-corp-provides-developmental-bitcoinz-124500510.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

DALLAS, TX--(Marketwired - Feb 24, 2014) - Bayside Corp. (OTC Pink: BYSD) today announced that the company is currently in the developmental phase of creating its own bitcoin pricing index. The Bitcoinz USA.com ( http://www.bitcoinzusa.com ) pricing index (BUPI) will represent the simple moving average of bitcoin prices across several international exchanges including Bitstamp ( https://www.bitstamp.net/ ), and BTC-e ( https://btc-e.com/ ). The index will be featured on the home page company's website www.bitcoinzusa.com and will be used to determine the buy and sell prices that the company will use on its automated bitcoin machines placed within the company's intended proprietary locations. The BUPI is expected to launch on www.bitcoinzusa.com within the next few weeks. Additionally, Bayside has also been in the developmental process of providing level 2 quotes to the general public on its website: http://baysidecorp.com/quotes/ for the purposes of providing greater pricing transparency in its security. The quotes will be limited to the company's security. To continue, this page of the company's website is still in development but the company expects to launch this service within the next few days. Currently http://baysidecorp.com has been averaging about 3,500 page views on the company's website. Each unique viewer currently spends on average 2:56 browsing through the company's website. Level 2 access is expected to significantly increase the amount of time each visitor spends on the website. About Bayside Bayside Corp. is an American multinational corporation that manages multiple subsidiary companies engaged in a variety of business industries and sectors. These companies include Bitcoinz USA.com, Inc.( http://www.bitcoinzusa.com/ ) and Bayside Petroleum Company, Inc.( http://baysidepetroleum.com/ ) At Bayside Corp. we believe that the future is now and that our efforts today will have a long lasting impact for generations to come. For additional information on the Company visit our website at: http://www.baysidecorp.com Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and "forward-looking information" All forward-looking statements are based on Bayside's current expectations, estimates, projections, beliefs and assumptions based on information available at the time the statement was made and in light of Bayside's experience and its perception of historical trends. The forward-looking statement in this news release includes reference to: Bayside's ability to execute on its strategy and deliver strong results on behalf of its shareholders. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties; some that are similar to other related companies and some that are unique to our company. Bayside's actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on them.

2014-02-24 13:28:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [308, 708, 867, 911, 1179, 1253, 2016, 2067, 2352, 2406], "BTC": [1058, 1404, 2313]}

{"Bitcoin": [58]}

Myriad Interactive Announces Completion of CryptoCafe.com Bitcoin Project and More to Come

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/myriad-interactive-announces-completion-cryptocafe-132800583.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

TORONTO, ON and LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Feb 24, 2014) - Myriad Interactive Media Inc. ( OTCQB : MYRY ) ( BERLIN : XNG ), a global interactive media and development company, is pleased to announce the company has successfully completed its first version of www.CryptoCafe.com , and we are now live with Bitcoin functionality. "We are pleased to announce that we have once again completed another successful development project under the Myriad banner. CryptoCafe.com version 1 has now launched in Canada, USA, Denmark and Germany," said Myriad CEO Derek Ivany. He added, "We continue to move forward in our efforts to launch exciting new projects, and this is really just the beginning of our plans for Bitcoin-related platforms, we're really just warming up." About CryptoCafe.com CryptoCafe.com offers an opportunity for just about anyone to get involved with Bitcoin without the need to get set up on a Bitcoin exchange and having to learn trading. Our system allows users to post items for sale, free of charge or featured items for a small fee, in BTC. We plan to add additional crypto currencies to the website in the near future. Myriad developed its own proprietary Bitcoin escrow system, in-house, which allows users the comfort of having Bitcoin funds secured before a transaction is complete. When a user makes an offer for an item for sale on CryptoCafe.com the user must have available BTC in their CryptoCafe.com wallet in order to make the offer. Users can top-up wallets by completing third-party transfers from Exchanges or other wallets, as well as generate unique wallet ID's with the system. In addition, CryptoCafe users can login via mobile and track notifications and message dialogue to complete transactions in person to prevent the risk of fraud. After transactions are complete, there is a feedback rating system in place in order to build profile credibility within the community. The CryptoCafe.com platform is built with two-tier authentication as well as cold-storage for offline Bitcoin storage. The platform also has a real-time Bitcoin price correlation to popular currencies like EURO, GBP, USD and CAD where users can simply select the currency value they wish to receive for an item being sold and the CryptoCafe.com system will automatically convert the item price into BTC and auto-adjust the price based on Bitcoin price fluctuation. Story continues Additional Bitcoin Technologies "I am equally as pleased to announce that we have also developed our own merchant system by building many unique features into CryptoCafe, and we plan to explore other options with our newly developed system by identifying additional ways to leverage this new innovation," said Myriad CEO Derek Ivany. Corporate Update We would like to thank our investors for exhibiting great patience and for their support with our projects and their continuous engagement with our company. We appreciate your feedback and support, and our team here at Myriad takes great pleasure in knowing that we have a strong retail audience who cares about the company and its endeavors. Myriad continues to move forward in our efforts to eliminate additional debt, and we're diligently working to further clean up our balance sheet. As mentioned in a previous corporate communications update, we visited Europe and were successful in arranging key meetings with what we believe to be strategic partners regarding several upcoming announcements. We are currently in the final negotiation phases of a couple of ventures that will add another very exciting component to Myriad. About Myriad Interactive Media, Inc.: Myriad Interactive Media is an interactive marketing and development firm based in Toronto, Canada. Myriad designs and develops customized marketing plans, social media marketing campaigns, pay per click, and search engine marketing. Our company also develops in house web & mobile applications. Myriad Interactive Media Inc. is a public company quoted on the OTCQB under the symbol MYRY. For more information, please visit us in the USA at www.myriadim.com Forward-Looking Statements In addition to historical information, this press release may contain forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectations and projections about future results, performance, prospects and opportunities. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to be materially different from those expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, the Company assumes no obligation to update publicly or to revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available, new events occur or circumstances change in the future.

2014-02-24 13:53:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [6769]}

{}

Carl Icahn Shreds The Ebay Board, And Demands That Ebay And PayPal Split

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/carl-icahn-announces-stake-ebay-135353928.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

carl icahn (Hedge fund titan Carl IcahnREUTERS/ Chip East) Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn just released a new open shareholder letter regarding eBay. Icahn, a major shareholder in eBay, slams the company for its corporate governance. " We have found ourselves in many troubling situations over the years, but the complete disregard for accountability at eBay is the most blatant we have ever seen," Icahn writes. He writes that the CEO John Donahoe "seems to be completely asleep or, even worse, either naive or willfully blind." He also calls out board members Marc Andreeseen and Scott Cook. Icahn took a stake in eBay back in January. The company said in its fourth quarter earnings announcement that he held a 0.82% stake . He's been demanding that eBay spinoff PayPal into a separate company. Here's the proposal: We believe creating two dedicated and highly focused independent businesses would provide employees and stockholders the best opportunity to remain competitive over the long term. We believe that the separation of the traditional eBay and PayPal businesses will: (1) highlight the significant value of the disparate businesses currently shrouded by a conglomerate discount the market has afforded eBay; (2) focus and empower independent management teams to most effectively build two very different business platforms, make economic decisions independent of each other and, most importantly, foster innovation; and (3) provide an even more valuable currency for future bolt-on acquisition opportunities and for recruiting the top talent necessary for PayPal to remain the market leader in payment technology . Here's the full open shareholder letter: --------------------------------- Dear Fellow eBay Stockholders, We have recently accumulated a significant position in eBay’s common stock because we believe there is great long-term value in the business. However, after diligently researching this company we have discovered multiple lapses in corporate governance. These include certain material conflicts of interest, which we believe could put the future of our company in peril. We have found ourselves in many troubling situations over the years, but the complete disregard for accountability at eBay is the most blatant we have ever seen . Indeed, for the first time in our long history, we have encountered a situation where we believe we should not even have to run a proxy fight to change the board composition . Rather, we believe that in any sane business environment these directors would simply resign immediately from the eBay Board, either out of pure decency or sheer embarrassment at the public exposure of the extent of their self-serving activities. Story continues How is it possible for the current board to engage in any meaningful discussions about long-term stockholder value while: (1) at least two board members are directly competing with eBay, (2) one board member is demanding eBay cease hiring the most talented employees, (3) another board member is routinely funding competitors while buying companies from eBay and reaping significant personal riches, (4) at least two board members appear to have put their own financial gain in ongoing conflict with their fiduciary responsibilities to stockholders and (5) the CEO seems to be completely asleep or, even worse, either naive or willfully blind to these grave lapses of accountability and stockholder value destruction? The Board’s Transgressions and CEO Mr. John Donahoe’s Ineptitude in Addressing Them Mr. Marc Andreessen – Independent Director Since Mr. Andreessen has been an eBay insider, he has engaged in several transactions that lead us to question his loyalty to eBay. During Mr. Andreessen’s time on the eBay Board he has purchased large stakes in two former eBay subsidiaries, reaping significant personal riches. In September 2009, an investor group that included Mr. Andreessen, preempted a planned Skype IPO (in which stockholders would have ended up making multiple billions of dollars) and bought 70% of Skype for less than what eBay had paid to acquire it(1) . Mr. Andreessen basked in the purchase, saying that “Skype is the archetypal phenomenon: a breakthrough technology” (2). His partner was even more excited, stating that “Skype is on its way to becoming one of the most important companies in the world ”(2). One cannot help but wonder what happened to Mr. Andreessen’s fiduciary responsibility to share his feelings with Mr. Donahoe and the board rather than preempt the planned IPO to further his own interests. A mere 18 months later, Mr. Andreessen’s investor group flipped Skype to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, a value three times what they paid for it(3), netting approximately $4 billion(3) at the expense of eBay stockholders. After the sale to Microsoft, Mr. Andreessen, a sitting eBay Board member and fiduciary to stockholders, stated: “one reason we were enthusiastic about buying Skype was that even though we thought it would be a tremendous standalone business, we also knew that for Microsoft and a number of other companies Skype would be an obvious thing to buy. We knew we’d always have the fall-back of selling to strategic buyers ”(4). Did Mr. Andreessen share this strong view with Mr. Donahoe? Was Mr. Donahoe completely asleep, or even worse, so naive and deferential to his “world-class board” (5) that he allowed a sitting board member and several private equity firms to walk away with over $4 billion in what was essentially stockholder’s money after a sale to a strategic that he obviously should have orchestrated himself? Many others have been vocally critical of the Skype transaction(2,6), but, until now, none have taken on the task of standing up to Mr. Donahoe and this board. Mr. Andreessen’s next eBay sourced grand slam was his investment in Kynetic. In March 2011, as part of eBay’s $2.4 billion acquisition of GSI Commerce, the eBay Board decided they no longer wanted the Kynetic portion of GSI Commerce and sold it back to the company’s founder for just $31 million in cash and a $467 million sellers note at below market interest.(7,8) In June 2012, Mr. Andreessen pounced, making a $150 million investment in Kynetic at a $1.5 billion valuation, leveraging the low sale price and below market financing which the eBay Board had recently approved.(9) Just a year later, Kynetic was valued at $3.1 billion, giving Mr. Andreessen a paper gain of more than 100%.(10) Additionally, during Mr. Andreessen’s time on the eBay Board – a time when he has been privy to nonpublic eBay Board information – he has made investments in and actively advised, no less than five direct competitors of eBay (four of which are competitors of PayPal), including Boku (mobile payments platform), Coinbase (Bitcoin wallet), Dwolla (secure online money management), Jumio (online and mobile credit card payments) and Fab (design e-commerce)(11). How can Mr. Donahoe and the eBay Board allow Mr. Andreessen to advise these competitors while he simultaneously possesses not only nonpublic eBay Board information but also intimate proprietary information about PayPal’s operations? But perhaps more importantly, how can Mr. Andreessen be trusted to objectively advise Mr. Donahoe and the eBay Board about the strategic direction of PayPal when he has vested interest in so many of its competitors? Regarding Square, another powerful PayPal competitor, Mr. Andreessen publicly lamented his regret in passing on the opportunity to invest in that company as well.(12) Mr. Scott Cook – Independent Director and Member of the Corporate Governance & Nominating Committee Mr. Cook is the founder, former CEO and a current board member of Intuit Inc. Mr. Cook has retained almost $1 billion of Intuit stock (~100x the $9 million of eBay stock he owns). Intuit and PayPal are direct competitors in payment processing as Intuit Go-Payment provides virtually the same capabilities to merchants as PayPal Here(13,14,15,16,17). How can the board have a conversation about the strategy or performance of PayPal when a representative of a direct competitor who has so much at stake is in the room? Even worse, Mr. Cook also apparently believes he can tell eBay whom the company cannot hire. Unbelievably, according to a pending DOJ complaint, “eBay ultimately agreed to an expansive no-solicitation and no-hire agreement in large part to placate Intuit’s Mr. Cook, who was serving as a member of eBay’s Board of Directors and who, at the same time, was making several complaints on behalf of Intuit about eBay’s hiring practices” (18,19,20). Furthermore, according to the complaint, in an effort to placate Mr. Cook, eBay instructed its employees not to pursue potential hires from Intuit and to discard their resumes.(18,19,20) Is Mr. Cook wary of how a standalone PayPal could impact the company he founded? Is he worried that it would diminish the value of his $1 billion in Intuit stock? The best question, however, is where has Mr. Donahoe been when all of this has been going on? Mr. John Donahoe – Chief Executive Officer, President and Director While Mr. Donahoe is feeding information to competitors on the eBay Board and selling the company’s assets to board members, notable PayPal architects including Elon Musk and David Yammer are publicly questioning his strategy. David Yammer recently stated that “if you allowed PayPal to pursue its destiny there are moves it could make to become the largest financial company in the world ”(21,22). Elon Musk has said “it doesn’t make sense that a global payment system is a subsidiary of an auction website…it’s as if Target owned Visa or something” (22,23) and that “(PayPal) will either wither or be spun out” (22,23). Mr. Donahoe has resoundingly highlighted the strength of his “world-class board of directors” (5), including Mr. Andreessen and Mr. Cook. In our opinion, world-class directors focus on creating long-term stockholder value, not furthering their own financial and professional interests at the expense of stockholders. Amazingly, Mr. Donahoe has also publicly boasted about eBay’s sale of Skype, claiming that it was an opportunity for eBay to “have its cake and eat it, too”(24). The facts, however, show that the transaction was disastrous for stockholders to the tune of more than $4 billion. Additionally, Mr. Donahoe has touted his record of creating stockholder value over handpicked time periods. The more applicable facts show that not only from the time Mr. Donahoe took over as CEO, but also since the beginning of 2013, the stock has dramatically underperformed its applicable peers. From March 31, 2008 through our initial involvement on January 10, 2014, eBay stock returned 75%(25) while Amazon, Visa and MasterCard returned 462%, 271% and 285%(25), respectively. For all of 2013 through our initial involvement on January 10, 2014, Amazon, Visa and MasterCard returned 60%, 48%, and 73%(26), respectively, while eBay stock returned only 2%(26). It is very sad to us that Mr. Donahoe appears to lack awareness about what is going on around him on his board and in the marketplace. It makes us seriously question his judgment and ability to make the crucial decisions that must be made concerning the future of PayPal. How can Mr. Donahoe be the right person to make the strategic decisions necessary to achieve long-term value creation when he relies on his “world-class board of directors” (5) with competing interests that challenge their fiduciary responsibility to eBay stockholders? We are convinced that not only has Mr. Donahoe failed to address eBay’s corporate governance crisis but also that his general stewardship of the company has been myopic. Elon Musk, one of the most preeminent technological visionaries of our generation, predicts that “(PayPal) will get cut to pieces by Amazon Payments, or by others such as Apple and by startups if it continues to be part of eBay” (22,23). It is time for us to address this critical problem that now faces the company. Our Proposal We believe creating two dedicated and highly focused independent businesses would provide employees and stockholders the best opportunity to remain competitive over the long term. We believe that the separation of the traditional eBay and PayPal businesses will: (1) highlight the significant value of the disparate businesses currently shrouded by a conglomerate discount the market has afforded eBay; (2) focus and empower independent management teams to most effectively build two very different business platforms, make economic decisions independent of each other and, most importantly, foster innovation; and (3) provide an even more valuable currency for future bolt-on acquisition opportunities and for recruiting the top talent necessary for PayPal to remain the market leader in payment technology . In an environment where an accomplished leader such as Scott Thompson, the former CEO of Yahoo, is dismissed for adding two words, Computer Science , to a degree from Stonehill College(27), it is incredible that so many blatant indiscretions at eBay have been tolerated by Mr. Donahoe and the other board members. We believe eBay needs fresh stockholder representation on the board to steer it towards long-term success and away from becoming yet another example of a technology company with a management team and board that refused to adapt (such as Nokia, Blackberry, Dell, Eastman Kodak, Polaroid, Nintendo, Xerox, Sony, Palm, and AOL, among many others). Our experience creating long-term stockholder value at companies such as Chesapeake Energy, Forest Labs, Motorola and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, among many others, has showcased our ability to influence boards to meaningfully enhance long-term stockholder value by, among other things, holding management, and in certain cases other directors, accountable. We hope you will VOTE FOR OUR SLATE OF DIRECTORS and afford us the opportunity to represent and serve all eBay stockholders as members of the eBay Board, just as we have successfully done at many other companies in the past. Even more importantly, however, we urge you to vote in favor of our precatory proposal in order to send a clear message to the eBay Board that eBay and PayPal must be separated – NOW . We hope that all eBay stockholders recognize that PayPal is at a critical point in its development and that the payments market is rapidly evolving around it. Particularly with respect to technology, business opportunities are either seized by those who truly appreciate their potential, or they vanish and are relegated to the dustbin of history. Do not allow PayPal to be, in the words of Elon Musk, “cut to pieces” because it remains part of eBay. VOTE FOR OUR PRECATORY TO SEPARATE PAYPAL FROM EBAY NOW. Sincerely, Carl C. Icahn More From Business Insider Chase Pay has officially launched Security issues are a barrier to e-commerce adoption One of Goldman Sachs' most senior executives is leaving

2014-02-24 14:02:00+00:00

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Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs Reports 96.5% of All Mobile Malware Tracked Is Android Based, Symbian Is Distant Second at 3.45%; iOS, BlackBerry, PalmOS, and Windows Together Represent Less Than 1%

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fortinets-fortiguard-labs-reports-96-140200484.html

Marketwired

http://www.marketwired.com/

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 24, 2014) - Fortinet® ( NASDAQ : FTNT ) -- a world leader in high-performance network security -- today announced the findings of its FortiGuard threat landscape research for the period of January 1, 2013 - December 31, 2013. The complete report can be downloaded here : http://www.fortinet.com/resource_center/whitepapers/threat-landscape-report-2014.html Android OS Dominates Mobile Malware Landscape 2013 was a bumper crop for malware targeting mobile devices. Looking back at the entire year FortiGuard® Labs observed Android was the dominant platform of choice for malware developers, representing 96.5% of all mobile malware infections detected by FortiGuard Labs. Symbian was a distant second at 3.45% and iOS, BlackBerry, PalmOS and Windows together don't even warrant 1%. "The rapid growth of malware targeting Android continues to be of concern to system administrators who have implemented a mobile device strategy on their networks," said Axelle Apvrille, senior mobile antivirus researcher with Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs. "FortiGuard Labs detected over 1,800 new distinct families of viruses in the past year, and the majority of those are targeting Google's Android platform. Looking at the growth of Android malware, we can see that there is much to be concerned about in 2014. The growth shows no signs of slowing; in fact, the growth seems to be accelerating. As more Android-based devices are purchased and taken online, the opportunities for attackers to infect increases as well." While attacks on platforms such as Symbian wane, attackers have made Android the number one mobile target. The NewyearL.B Android malware, which was bundled inside seemingly harmless downloads like a flashlight application, continued to target millions of devices and was the number one mobile malware family seen all year. Unwitting or unaware users looking to try out the latest games or apps find themselves unknowingly sharing a wealth of personal information with an attacker, leading to obtrusive advertisements and other negative effects, such as allowing NewyearL.B permission to add and remove system icons and modify and delete the contents of any external storage. And the distribution of Android malware continues to accelerate. Story continues "Clearly cybercriminals are putting a substantial amount of effort into churning out hundreds of thousands of new variants daily in the hopes that some of them will be successfully implanted on a target device," Apvrille concluded. Top 10 Mobile Malware Families based on Reported Incidents 1. Android/NewyearL.B 2. Android/DrdLight.D 3. Android/DrdDream 4. Android/SMSSend Family 5. Android/OpFake Family 6. Android/Basebridge.A 7. Android/Agent Family 8. Android/AndCom.A 9. Android/Lotoor Family 10. Android/Qdplugin.A ZeroAccess: The Most Prolific Botnet of the Year Earlier in 2013, FortiGuard Labs reported on the ZeroAccess botnet and how its controllers were systematically adding about 100,000 new infections weekly, leading researchers to believe that the person or persons behind it were not only paying a substantial amount of money weekly to generate new affiliate infections, but that they were able to make a significant amount of money doing so. "Like other cybercriminals, ZeroAccess's owners have taken pages from the playbooks of legitimate businesses and made successful attempts to diversify their income generation," said Richard Henderson, security strategist with Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs. "We saw 32- and 64-bit versions of ZeroAccess being used to commit click fraud, search engine poisoning and to mine Bitcoin. With the dramatic rise in Bitcoin value over 2013, it's likely that the owners of ZeroAccess have profited substantially on the backs of their victims." Top 10 Botnets Based on Reported Incidents with Percentage of Overall Dominance 1. ZeroAccess (88.65%) 2. Andromeda (3.76%) 3. Jeefo (3.58%) 4. Smoke (2.03%) 5. Morto (0.91%) 6. Mariposa (0.43%) 7. Waledac (0.18%) 8. IMDDOS (0.18%) 9. Mazben (0.15%) 10. Torpig (0.10%) India Leads the World in Spam Delivery Fortinet antispam appliances around the world last year blocked billions of spam emails. "Spammers will try multiple methods to foil scanners and to entice users to click on the links inside their messages including fake fax messages, pharmaceutical ads, e-cards and malicious attachments or links designed to deliver malware," Henderson continued. "Perhaps what is most interesting is how diversified spammers are globally when it comes to sending their messages: our statistics shows that while about half of all total messages we saw in 2013 came from Eastern Europe and Russia, the remaining countries in our top 10 are located all over the globe." Top 10 Country IPs Sending Spam on a Monthly Basis Based on Number of Reported Incidents with Percentage of Overall Dominance 1. India (22.66%) 2. China (18.39%) 3. Belarus (12.40%) 4. Russia (10.27%) 5. USA (10.06%) 6. Kazakhstan (6.14%) 7. Spain (5.37%) 8. Argentina (5.00%) 9. Ukraine (4.93%) 10. Taiwan (4.78%) ZeuS is Still the King of the Malware Hill In terms of general PC malware, the ZeuS trojan took the top spot in 2013, with over 20 million attempts to infect FortiGate-protected networks. ZeuS first showed up on computers in 2007 and has been a thorn in the side of Internet users ever since. The 2011 leak of ZeuS' source code led to an explosion of copy cat variants by aspiring cybercriminals looking to make their fortunes on the backs of innocent victims. "An interesting and nefarious development late in 2013 saw ZeuS infections being used in a new way," Henderson continued. "While ZeuS was often used as a financial trojan, a significant number of ZeuS infections were used to deliver and execute the Cryptolocker ransomware. Cryptolocker put a new spin on ransomware in that it used uniquely generated cryptographic key pairs to fully encrypt the contents of a victim's computer, and any mapped drive the victim had the ability to write to. Cryptolocker would then inform the victim they had a short period of time to pay a significant ransom -- sometimes as much as a few hundred dollars, and typically only paid using the Bitcoin cryptocurrency -- before the encryption key used to encrypt the victim's computer was deleted, making the victim's files completely unrecoverable." Victims ranged from home users losing thousands of personally significant files such as photographs and home movies, to businesses of all sizes and public agencies. Cryptolocker was also seen to infect users via other methods, including infected flash drives, often in combination with fake program activation tools commonly spread through file sharing sites and through infected email attachments. Top 10 Malware Families Basis Based on Number of Reported Incidents 1. W32/ZeuS(Zbot) Family 2. W32/Tepfer Family 3. JS/FBJack.A 4. PDF/Script.JS 5. W32/ZeroAccess Family 6. W32/Kryptik Family 7. JS/IFrame Family 8. W32/Yakes.B 9. X97M/Agent.F 10. W32/Blocker Family Zero Day Vulnerabilities FortiGuard Labs actively research and discover zero-day vulnerabilities in products that are likely candidates that a hacker would also uncover. Once the flaw is discovered, it is confidentially disclosed to the affected vendor under the Labs' Responsible Disclosure protocols. Since research began in 2006, FortiGuard Labs has discovered 142 zero-day vulnerabilities. To date, 14 remain unpatched. In 2013, the Labs discovered and responsibly disclosed 18 new zero-days, 12 of which remain unpatched . The majority of these vulnerabilities were classified as Important or Critical. About FortiGuard Labs FortiGuard Labs compiled threat statistics and trends for this threat period based on data collected from FortiGate® network security appliances and intelligence systems in production worldwide. Customers who use Fortinet's FortiGuard Services should be protected against the vulnerabilities outlined in this report as long as the appropriate configuration parameters are in place. FortiGuard Services offer broad security solutions including antivirus, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering and anti-spam capabilities. These services help protect against threats on both application and network layers. FortiGuard Services are updated by FortiGuard Labs, which enables Fortinet to deliver a combination of multi-layered security intelligence and zero-day protection from new and emerging threats. For customers with a subscription to FortiGuard, these updates are delivered to all FortiGate, FortiMail ™ and FortiClient ™ products. Ongoing research can be found in the FortiGuard Center or via FortiGuard Labs ' RSS feed . Additional discussion on security technologies and threat analysis can be found at the FortiGuard Blog . About Fortinet Fortinet ( NASDAQ : FTNT ) helps protect networks, users and data from continually evolving threats. As a global leader in high-performance network security, we enable businesses and governments to consolidate and integrate stand-alone technologies without suffering performance penalties. Unlike costly, inflexible and low-performance alternatives, Fortinet solutions empower customers to embrace new technologies and business opportunities while protecting essential systems and content. Learn more at www.fortinet.com . Copyright © 2013 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols ® and ™ denote respectively federally registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet's trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard, FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP, FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiCarrier, FortiScan, FortiAP, FortiDB, FortiVoice and FortiWeb. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements or certifications herein attributed to third parties, and Fortinet does not independently endorse such statements. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, nothing herein constitutes a warranty, guarantee, binding specification or other binding commitment by Fortinet, and performance and other specification information herein may be unique to certain environments. This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve uncertainties and assumptions. Changes of circumstances, product release delays, or other risks as stated in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, located at www.sec.gov , may cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this press release. If the uncertainties materialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Fortinet assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, and expressly disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. FTNT-O

2014-02-24 14:44:00+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [104, 125, 185, 214, 522, 579, 647, 713, 791], "BTC": [419]}

{"Bitcoin": [30]}

How Much Wealth The Top 1% Of Bitcoin Owners Have

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/minimum-amount-top-1-bitcoin-144418527.html

Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/

This chart (below, by Dennis A. Porto, MD) is rising on Reddit right now . It shows the distribution of Bitcoin wealth among Bitcoin holders, put together based on survey data from the Bitcoin community. The gist: Bitcoin has a 1% minority that owns a massively disproportionate amount of wealth just like in real life. This is a logarithmic chart, so it's a little harder to read. But the blue line meets 1% at the 50 BTC mark. With one unit of the famous digital currency currently worth ~$570, it would take $28,490 of Bitcoin wealth to become a one-percenter in the world of Bitcoin. bitcoin Imgur To give you a further idea of how imbalanced Bitcoin ownership is, consider that just 46 people own 30% of all Bitcoins, according to this analysis . More From Business Insider Israel Says Bitcoin Is Risky And Announces That It May Regulate It What King's IPO Says About The Future Of Payments For Digital Goods The Telecom That Developed M-Pesa Is Boxing Competitors Out Of The Mobile Money Market

2014-02-24 18:43:52+00:00

{"Bitcoin": [2905]}

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Apple Rumors Explained

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-rumors-explained-184352349.html

Benzinga

http://www.benzinga.com/

Most rumors about Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) products come from the supply chain. That makes sense. Prior to announcement, products have to be developed and then manufactured. Not all of this happens in Cupertino. Much of it happens overseas. Timing is a big part of how and when rumors develop, according to Digitimes Research, a branch of media outlet Digitimes , which explained the process in an article on February 21. Digitimes Research director, Joanne Chien, described what she called the “Chaiwan Model” for the mobile supply chain. That term combines manufacturing resources in both China and Taiwan – resulting in “Chaiwan.” According to Chien, "We may provide shipment data for Apple 1-2 months before [the product] even begins selling in the market, because that is when the supply chain delivers it to Apple.” Related: Hold Off On Buying That Apple TV! Rumors based on that information have been fairly reliable, according to CNET . Prior to that 1-2 month window information, when reported, has often been much less reliable. Chien said, "When Apple is getting a product ready for the market, the product is in the supply chain pipeline 6-9 months before Apple even announces its launch." The problem is that at this stage of development, many products undergo changes. Changes can result in misleading or even false rumors. In addition, Chien said, there has been a “seismic shift" in the design and manufacturing of products. This has affected the supply chain in a big way resulting in even less reliability when it comes to rumors. As Chien explained it, companies like MediaTek, which is a processor provider, no longer follow a strict product development roadmap. Instead, they react to market demand. In 2013, this resulted in MediaTek going a period of time – up to two months – without releasing a new product. Then, almost without warning, the company released two products in the same month. The so-called seismic shift in the way the supply chain works – even for companies like Apple that like to control as much of the process as possible – makes rumor reliability considerably less certain. Story continues Sometimes the rumor mill is spot on, as was the case with the Apple 5S and 5C smartphones. In other cases, reality and rumor simply do not match up. TUAW said that in all of 2013, for example, 9T05Mac reported on 164 Apple-based rumors. Of those, 73 turned out to be true and 91 were either partially or very inaccurate. None of this information will stop rumors and speculation about upcoming Apple products. It’s too fascinating for far too many people. However, it’s wise for investors to keep in mind that if 9TO5Mac’s 45 percent accuracy rate is typical, one could also get decent results just by flipping a coin. At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco had no position in any mentioned securities. Related Links Mt. Gox Scandal Widens As Hong Kong And Cypress Open Bitcoin Shops UPDATE: Goldman Sachs Downgrades Youku Tudou to Sell UPDATE: Goldman Sachs Downgrades Sohu.com to Neutral (c) 2014 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.