FOLLOW THE COIN AT CES 2015: Interview with Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken – Video


FOLLOW THE COIN AT CES 2015: Interview with Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken
Follow The Coin at CES 2015: Interview with Jesse Powell, CEO Co-Founder of Kraken LEARN: - What a bitcoin exchange is - The most exciting things about 2014 according to Jesse Powell - The...

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FOLLOW THE COIN AT CES 2015: Interview with Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken - Video

#7 Thinking of Crowd Funding your bitcoin/crypto project? Think Again. – Video


#7 Thinking of Crowd Funding your bitcoin/crypto project? Think Again.
http://www.bitshares.TV Thinking of Crowd funding your bitcoin/crypto project? Think Again. Learn from someone who has raised several million dollars in several crowd funding projects before...

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#7 Thinking of Crowd Funding your bitcoin/crypto project? Think Again. - Video

Bitcoin, the Blockchain, and Their Potential to Change Our World – Introduction – Video


Bitcoin, the Blockchain, and Their Potential to Change Our World - Introduction
For more information, visit: http://oreil.ly/1Ey8Zvl Bitcoin is more than just a volatile currency. It also has the potential to replace credit cards, lower remittance rates, and empower the...

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Bitcoin, the Blockchain, and Their Potential to Change Our World - Introduction - Video

Google hacks OS X, Gemini Bitcoin Exchange, FAA fines drone pilot – Video


Google hacks OS X, Gemini Bitcoin Exchange, FAA fines drone pilot
Google #39;s Project Zero has now publicly disclosed bugs in Apple #39;s OS X; The Winklevoss twins are starting the first regulated Bitcoin exchange in the US; the FAA gives its first fine to a drone...

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Google hacks OS X, Gemini Bitcoin Exchange, FAA fines drone pilot - Video

Review: Age of Cryptocurrency, bitcoin and economy, by Paul Vigna and Michael Casey

By Daniel Gross January 23 at 4:06 PM

Daniel Gross is executive editor at Strategy+Business. His most recent book is Better, Stronger, Faster: The Myth of American Decline and the Rise of a New Economy.

The Age of Cryptocurrency

How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order

By Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey

St. Martins. 357 pp. $27.99

Bitcoin is remarkably polarizing. Technology evangelists and central-bank critics ardently believe no, they know that the digital currency can liberate mankind from the tyranny of banks and government-backed paper money. Skeptics note that, like other new technological disruptions, bitcoin attracts innovators and hucksters in equal measure. How can a currency created by an anonymous coder and backed by no state, and whose value flaps around like a flag in a swirling wind, hope to challenge the global economic order and replace the dollar?

To their ample credit, Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey, veteran Wall Street Journal reporters, resist the common temptation to hype their trendy subject. Theyve written a reported explainer that patiently documents bitcoins rise, acknowledges its flaws and highlights its promise. Smart and conscientious, The Age of Cryptocurrency is the most thorough and readable account of the short life of this controversial currency.

Bitcoin isnt actually money. Rather, its a highly disruptive technology a software and transaction verification system that lets people communicate with others that has the modest goal of freeing people from the tyranny of centralized trust. It came on the scene in 2008, when Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym) introduced a peer-to-peer system that instructs computers how to keep track of transactions, using encryption and digital signatures, in a highly transparent way. The blockchain a universal ledger that grows with each completed transaction allows people to exchange all sorts of digitized items of value and any manner of useful data with confidence that the information is accurate. And it ingeniously provides financial incentives for people (or their computers) to keep the ledger up to date. How?

Transactions in bitcoin arent completed with a handshake or the issuance of a receipt. And unlike PayPal or electronic banking, they dont involve the documented transfer of funds in specific currencies between large, licensed institutions. Rather, computers connected to the network must reach a consensus on the validity of each transaction. Transactions between two individuals are validated only when a third party a miner equipped with a powerful computer performs a complicated mathematical puzzle. The first to solve the puzzle receives a bitcoin as a sort of commission and officially updates the universal ledger.

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Review: Age of Cryptocurrency, bitcoin and economy, by Paul Vigna and Michael Casey

Is Wall Street Finally Taking An Interest In Bitcoin? .::. Flipside Bits 16 – Video


Is Wall Street Finally Taking An Interest In Bitcoin? .::. Flipside Bits 16
Tips: 1LQydEw7ZQbVNmrvTL9gQrQFgTTG4MoA7o -= DJ BOOTH =- Twitter: https://twitter.com/djbooth007/ Web: http://www.flipsidebits.com/ -= EPISODE 16 =- Coinbase have fat pockets this week after ...

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Is Wall Street Finally Taking An Interest In Bitcoin? .::. Flipside Bits 16 - Video

Bitcoin Exchange Operator Tied to Silk Road Gets 4 Years

The operator of a Bitcoin exchange tied to the illicit online drug bazaar Silk Road was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to running an illegal money business.

Robert Faiella, a former plumber living in Florida, told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff today that he exchanged the digital currency under the name BTCKing for use in online drug deals to support his family after he became disabled by back troubles. He faced a maximum of five years.

At the time of the event, I saw no other way, Faiella said in his sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court. It still doesnt mitigate that I broke the law.

Faiella was charged in April with Charlie Shrem, the ex-Bitcoin Foundation vice chairman. The case grew out of an investigation into the Silk Road site, where customers used bitcoins to buy drugs and other illegal items anonymously. Ross William Ulbricht, who says he was the founder of the site, is being tried on conspiracy and Internet drug trafficking charges.

Ulbrichts trial is in its fourth day in the same courthouse where Faiella was sentenced. Ulbricht, who denies the charges, claimed he started Silk Road as an economic experiment, then left the site a few months later when it became too stressful for him.

Ulbricht claims he was set up as a fall guy by Mark Karpeles, the former head of the bankrupt Mt. Gox Co. bitcoin exchange. Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a Department of Homeland Security special agent, testified in Ulbrichts trial that he believed in mid-2013 that Karpeles ran Silk Road. Investigators later determined Karpeles wasnt involved, he told jurors. Karpeles denied having anything to do with Silk Road.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, whos overseeing Ulbrichts trial, today limited the questions his lawyer can ask about the governments investigation of others they suspected of being the Silk Road operator who went by the name of Dread Pirate Roberts.

Ulbricht, who was arrested in a San Francisco library in October 2013, faces as long as life in prison if convicted.

The Faiella case is U.S. v. Faiella, 14-cr-00243, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). The Ulbricht case is U.S. v. Ulbricht, 14-cr-00068, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net

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Bitcoin Exchange Operator Tied to Silk Road Gets 4 Years

The ‘internet weirdos’ of bitcoin are changing the way …

A general view of the bitcoin booth at the 2015 International CES at the Las Vegas Convention Center in January. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Theres no reason to mourn the fall of bitcoin prices. Anyone who is crying over bitcoins recent face-plant losing one-third of its value in two days must be a speculator. Gambling is gambling sorry, pal. If youre celebrating the price drop because of schadenfreude, or just straight-up skepticism about the cryptocurrency itself, youre missing the point, too.

The nosediving price of bitcoin matters in the short term because rattled confidence hurts any currency, especially a relative newborn that is only used to grease a tiny sliver of global commerce.

In the long run, however, the price swings wont matter. The currency called bitcoin itself may not even matter.

But cryptocurrency will, and likewise the technology underlying it. In a way, bitcoins wild fluctuations in price and coming through them onto calmer waters could ultimately illuminate the staying power and significance of cryptocurrency.

First, though, the near-term doubt and skittishness catalyzed by the price drop: bitcoin has a reputation problem not only because its so young, but also because it lacks institutional credibility.

The bitcoin faithful have argued that price oscillations are to be expected during these early years.

As more investors get involved, and as bitcoins utility as a medium of exchange increases, it will theoretically become less attractive to speculators, thereby stabilizing in price.

Yet it isnt clear exactly how bitcoin will grow if everyday people are spooked. The ongoing price volatility is a real barrier to wider adoption, at least on the consumer side, says Marc Hochstein, editor-in-chief of American Banker. That was true at $10 and it was true at $1,000.

So yes, rattled confidence in the value of bitcoin matters, some, but this is not some do-or-die moment or comeuppance for the currency. On the contrary, its a blip, and a distraction from the meatier discussions about what decentralized currency is, and how the technology that powers it might influence our lives in the future.

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The 'internet weirdos' of bitcoin are changing the way ...

Bitcoin finds a place among the world's elite

The price of bitcoin has suffered recently, with a dip to $200 from $300 since the turn of the year. It was also given the rather dubious title of the "worst investment of 2014" by some news organizations with prices starting 2014 at over $800.

Wences Casares, the founder and CEO of California-based bitcoin services firm Xapo, believes that like the rise of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before the cryptocurrency got it's foot in the door at Davos.

"It's gold 2.0...it's substantially better than gold," He told CNBC on the outskirts of this year's event. His company is banked in Switzerland and provides storage services for bitcoin users. It's not the first time he's been to the event, but the first as a representative of a bitcoin-related company.

Rather than trying to gain more investment, Casares is in Davos to spread the word of bitcoin or "evangelize," as he put it. Casares believes that in 10 years' time, traditional banks will look more like multi-function telecoms firms and believes that bitcoin will form part of that transformation.

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Bitcoin finds a place among the world's elite

Bitcoin among the world's elite

The price of bitcoin has suffered recently, with a dip to $200 from $300 since the turn of the year. It was also given the rather dubious title of the "worst investment of 2014" by some news organizations with prices starting 2014 at over $800.

Wences Casares, the founder and CEO of California-based bitcoin services firm Xapo, believes that like the rise of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before the cryptocurrency got it's foot in the door at Davos.

"It's gold 2.0...it's substantially better than gold," He told CNBC on the outskirts of this year's event. His company is banked in Switzerland and provides storage services for bitcoin users. It's not the first time he's been to the event, but the first as a representative of a bitcoin-related company.

Rather than trying to gain more investment, Casares is in Davos to spread the word of bitcoin or "evangelize," as he put it. Casares believes that in 10 years' time, traditional banks will look more like multi-function telecoms firms and believes that bitcoin will form part of that transformation.

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Bitcoin among the world's elite