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Category Archives: Bitcoin

Bitcoin Zebra – Faucet

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2014-12-20 Weekly payment run completed - over 276 million satoshi (2.76 BTC) paid out! Full details here

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You have a chance of winning each of the following amounts (average is currently 346 satoshi)...

100 200 300 400 1000

Bitcoin Zebra is a completely FREE bitcoin faucet paying out up to 1000 satoshi every hour. Each time you visit this page and feed the zebra you will receive a faucet payout amount randomly selected from the available amounts shown in green above.

As well as the faucet we also have some information about other ways you can earn bitcoins. Head on over to the earn more page for details of other free bitcoin faucets, bitcoin gambling and casino sites and bitcoin mining opportunities. And we also run a very generous referral program which pays commission of at least 50% on EVERY faucet payout made to new accounts that you send over to us!

If you need any more information then please scroll down to see a list of Frequently Asked Questions.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment system introduced as open source software in 2009. The digital currency created and used in the system is alternatively referred to as a virtual currency, electronic money, or a cryptocurrency because cryptography is used to control its creation and transfer. Conventionally, the capitalized word "Bitcoin" refers to the technology and network, whereas lowercase "bitcoin" refers to the digital currency. Read more about Bitcoin on Wikipedia

Bitcoin Zebra is a bitcoin faucet. A bitcoin faucet is a web site that dispenses small amounts of bitcoins (or satoshi) for simply entering your bitcoin wallet address and solving a captcha (to prove that you are human). This faucet like most others is funded by donations and advertisements (so please turn off your ad-blocking software!). Donations: 1DXhNVViVYu4xPGUu4pYH2cTr72UPMqKAt

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Bitcoin Zebra - Faucet

Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Liquidation Process Still Underway

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Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Liquidation Process Still Underway

December 21, 2014

Amanda Marie

The once largest Bitcoin exchange, responsible for approximately 80% of all of the global transactions, will never be revived despite hopes by many that it might have been. A meeting of creditors was held at the end of November, during which trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi announced that Bitcoin exchange Kraken will be assisting in the ongoing investigation of the missing bitcoins. San Francisco based Payward, which operates Kraken, will also be assisting in the investigation and the claims by Mt. Gox customers who ended up losing bitcoins in the collapse of the exchange back in February of 2014.

In the announcement, Kobayashi stated, "The bankruptcy trustee believes that it is very helpful for conducting the bankruptcy proceedings smoothly and for protecting the interests of the bankruptcy creditors to obtain support from a company with expertise in operating a bitcoin exchange business and managing bitcoin transactions."

Kraken, which had recently opened its own exchange for bitcoin in Japan a few weeks prior, had been a hopeful candidate to take over Mt. Gox but the trustee made it clear that Kraken is not going to revive Mt. Gox.

In a blog post, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell stated that, "The outcome of the Mt. Gox bankruptcy proceedings will deeply affect the Bitcoin community as a whole," and he added, "We've decided to volunteer our resources and expertise in an attempt to minimize damage to creditors, restore faith in the Bitcoin community and demonstrate trusted leadership in the industry."

Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, is still cooperating with the trustee and Kraken during the bankruptcy process of Mt. Gox. Karpeles still remains as CEO of Mt. Gox's parent company Tibanne.

Kobayashi said that the bankruptcy estate so far has secured about 202,149 bitcoins, worth approximately $74 million at the current bitcoin value tracked by Coindesk.

Kobayashi also said he may consider taking legal action to force Karpeles to repay 136 million ($1.1 million) he had in loans from Mt. Gox as of April 24th. The trustee also said Tibanne and two of its subsidiaries owe Mt. Gox about 1.1 billion ($10 million).

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Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Liquidation Process Still Underway

Bitcoin ends year in the dumps

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If you think oil had a rough 2014, consider bitcoin.

The digital currency has plunged 54 percent since the beginning of the year.

By contrast, Brent crude has fallen 44 percent; the ruble is off some 46 percent against the dollar.

The dramatic reversal bitcoin reached more than $1,100 in 2013 and is now trading at about $350 is prompting skeptics, who long said the currencys promise was overhyped, to say told you so.

I dont know that its on its last legs, but its not looking good, said Nathalie Reinelt, an analyst at the financial-consulting firm Aite Group in Boston.

Reinelt has written reports expressing doubts that bitcoin will become a mainstream currency.

Its not in a healthy state, Reinelt said.

There are still plenty of bitcoin die-hards out there. Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper remains a booster.

Conferences devoted to the so-called cryptocurrency are attracting droves of adherents.

Venture-capital firms are funding bitcoin-related startups.

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Bitcoin ends year in the dumps

Bitcoin bigwig goes to prison in Silk Road case

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BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem is sentenced to two years prison time, despite asking to be let off free to "change the world."

BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem has been sentenced to two years in prison in a case involving money laundering. Bitcoin

Bitcoin evangelist Charlie Shrem was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday after being charged with laundering money through the notorious online drug bazaar Silk Road.

Shrem pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting an unlicensed money transmission in September. After striking this plea deal with the government, Shrem faced up to six years in prison. However, US District Judge Jed Rakoff decided two years would be sufficient. The judge denied Shrem's request to be let off without any prison time so he could "change the world" by showing he had learned from his mistakes, according to Bloomberg.

"I screwed up," Shrem told the judge in court on Friday, according to Bloomberg. "The bitcoin community, they're scared and there is no money laundering going on anymore. They're terrified. Bitcoin is my baby, it's my whole world and my whole life, it's what I was put on this earth to do. I need to be out there. If your honor grants me that, I can be out there in the world, making sure that people don't do the same stupid things that I did."

Prosecuting attorney Preet Bharara submitted a filing to Judge Rakoff on Wednesday urging the judge to sentence Shrem to prison time.

"The story of this case is not one of tragedy, but farce," Bharara wrote. "Throughout the year 2012, Charlie Shrem made a mockery of the anti-money laundering laws."

Shrem, who was the CEO of bitcoin exchange company BitInstant, was arrested in New York in January in a multi-agency crackdown led by the US Attorney's office, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. Another prominent bitcoin figure, Robert Faiella, was also arrested in the sting.

According to the agencies, the men engaged in a scheme to sell over $1 million in bitcoins for use on the now shuttered underground drug marketplace Silk Road. From December 2011 to October 2013, the agencies say, Faiella was in charge of a bitcoin exchange on Silk Road called BTCKing, in which he took users cash, funneled it through Shrem's company and gave the users bitcoins in return.

Both men were initially charged with "conspiring to commit money laundering, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business." Shrem was also charged with failing to report suspicious activity in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act.

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Bitcoin bigwig goes to prison in Silk Road case

Why Bitcoin's Volatile Price Doesn't Matter

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By Dow Jones Business News, December 21, 2014, 11:47:00 PM EDT

By Michael J. Casey

Bitcoin prices have dropped almost 60% since January, outpacing the Russian ruble. Critics say that's proof digital currency has failed.

Ignore them. Bitcoin's price is irrelevant to the key question of whether the underlying technology will disrupt finance. There are many signs it will.

Bitcoin is much more than just a currency. Investors from Silicon Valley to Wall Street are now pouring money and expertise into what they view as an adaptable technology platform. Software developers anywhere can use bitcoin's open- source code to create specialized applications that let businesses undertake commercial exchanges without using middlemen. These applications threaten to make redundant many services provided by banks, foreign-exchange houses, escrow agents, clearing houses, notaries public and even lawyers.

Of course, none of that guarantees that bitcoin will succeed. Detractors will rightly argue that householders won't save or transact in a unit of exchange whose value fluctuates wildly. Indeed, while bitcoin transactions continue to rise, and even though a growing list of merchants accepting bitcoin now includes Microsoft, Expedia and Dish Network, digital currency's portion of global commerce remains minuscule.

But it doesn't matter that mom and pop aren't comfortable with bitcoin. What matters is whether the exploding software innovation around cryptocurrency leads to solutions that allow corporations and governments to derive benefits while protecting themselves from risks, including the volatility. The vision that many in Silicon Valley have is that bitcoin, or perhaps some clone of it, will work in the background of the global economy. Mom and pop won't even know it's there.

Balaji Srinivasan, a partner at venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in Menlo Park, Calif., likens bitcoin's current status to the early days of Linux, whose open-source operating system initially sought to compete with Microsoft's Windows on personal computers but eventually became the leading operating system for enterprise servers. Much like some bitcoin evangelists' views of fiat currencies, early Linux supporters "were overconfidently saying, 'We are going to kill Microsoft,' and yet while it never got a much of a presence on desktops, it did gain a presence on the server side," Mr. Srinivasan said. "Now, 15 years later, the Internet as we know it wouldn't exist without Linux."

Mr. Srinivasan talks of how a "dual boot" of Linux and Windows became popular as techies simultaneously tapped the best functions of both. It's analogous, he says, to how cryptocurrency developers are making their applications " interoperable" with traditional monetary systems. Bitcoin, with its more efficient, direct and cheaper system of exchange, would support payments and transfers over the Internet and then connect seamlessly with the offline economy, where the dollar and other traditional currencies continued to reign.

Mr. Srinivasan's firm, which was co-founded by Netscape pioneer Marc Andreessen, is one of dozens that have invested a total $311 million in bitcoin startups this year, according to a tally by news site Coindesk. That's up from $93 million in 2013. The names behind these deals read like a who's who of Internet history: Tim Draper of the Valley's legendary Draper family, Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn fame, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and many others.

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Why Bitcoin's Volatile Price Doesn't Matter

Estate agent accepting bitcoin

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Sydney real estate agency Forsyth Real Estate has begun accepting virtual cryptocurrency bitcoin for house deposits and property advertising, through a partnership with Australian bitcoin payments provider CoinJar.

The 115-year-old real estate agency on Sydney's north shore said that it took on bitcoin to offer another avenue for online payment to the influx of international investors and expats entering the prominent Sydney market.

Forsyth managing director James Snodgrass said the agency had become a strong supporter of the bitcoin economy recently, as it allowed overseas transactions with less fees and exchange rate fluctuations.

"Prior to launching, we had discussions with our financial division who outlined the risks and opportunities of bitcoin and we were happy with our findings," he said.

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But the director of Max Walls International Real Estate in Manly, Anthony Walls, said he was not convinced.

"I must tell you I'm very concerned about the bitcoin situation," Mr Walls said.

"I just don't need to deal with those [virtual currencies] and I don't need the grief."

Mr Walls was referring to the hacking of 850,000 bitcoins from the high-profile Mt Gox currency exchange worth about $US500 million ($548 million) earlier this month. The attack ruined Mt Gox, which was reportedly handling up to 70 per cent of the world's bitcoin transactions.

"I would need to be convinced and I'd want a whole team of lawyers sitting at the table signing off on it," Mr Walls said in response to whether he would ever accept bitcoin.

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Estate agent accepting bitcoin

New York To Ease Bitcoin Regs

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Benjamin Lawsky announced yesterday that his office would ease some of the requirements for holding a BitLicense, a proposed license designed specifically for businesses working with Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Those changes, Lawsky declared in a speech in Washington, D.C., are primarily focused on providing additional flexibility for virtual currency startups to innovate while at the same time maintaining our commitment to protecting consumers and rooting out illicit activity.

The move is the latest adjustment made by the Superintendent of New Yorks Department of Financial Services to a technology that has befuddled both state and federal regulators.

Back in January, Lawsky set himself apart from his peers by disclosing plans to forge rules addressing Bitcoins unique characteristics. Coming from one of Bitcoins loudest critics, Lawskys announcement energized the currencys backers. Finally, a regulator was willing to embrace a technology that was both threatening to the financial industry and law enforcement yet often summarily dismissed as an esoteric fad.

Lawskys initial proposal in July disappointed many in the Bitcoin community. Instead of the hands-off approach they were calling for, the proposed rules included many of the consumer protection and compliance requirements considered outdated and suffocating by the technologys proponents. Erik Voorhees, a major voice in the Bitcoin world, was one of Lawskys loudest critics. This is not consumer protection, he wrote at the time. This is explicit surveillance of private citizens who are not accused nor even under suspicion of committing a crime.

The state money transmitter laws Voorhees and others found so cumbersome were designed to protect consumers from fraud, prevent money laundering, and offer other oversight. Yet, they were also outdated a concern Lawsky recognized. As you may imagine, he said, our statutory and regulatory schemes for money transmitters were written long before there was an Internet let alone virtual currencies and were in need of updating.

Plus, each state had its own licensing process, costing start-ups more than a year in time and a million dollars in legal costs just to obtain the licenses to operate. For start-ups low on manpower and financing, these regulatory measures were too burdensome.

These hurdles also undermined the nations competitiveness according to critics. Foreign companies who dont have to abide to these rules, explained Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken, a leading Bitcoin trading platform based in the U.S., are at a competitive advantage over their American counterparts.

Lawsky has been cognizant of these complaints for months now and, unlike other state regulators, has at least given lip service to responding to these concerns. His primary mission to shield consumers and prevent fraud has made it difficult to meet these demands, however. We have to determine the appropriate licensing, examination, and collateral requirements for the virtual currency industry, he said back in February. In doing so, our objective is to provide appropriate guardrails to protect consumers and root out money laundering without stifling beneficial innovation.

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New York To Ease Bitcoin Regs

Time Magazine Bitcoin — Worst Investment of 2014 — Gavin Andresen in SF Tonight! – Video

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Time Magazine Bitcoin -- Worst Investment of 2014 -- Gavin Andresen in SF Tonight!
sponsored by http://www.Kinetics.cc Donate: https://blockchain.info/address/1LAYuQq6f11HccBgbe6bx8DiwKwzuYkPR3 Subscribe: http://patreon.com/madbitcoins Sponsor: http://MadBitcoins.com ...

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Time Magazine Bitcoin -- Worst Investment of 2014 -- Gavin Andresen in SF Tonight! - Video

Bitcoin Talk Show #37 (Live) – Call 1-708-23-COINS (26467) or Skype BitcoinTalkShow – Video

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Bitcoin Talk Show #37 (Live) - Call 1-708-23-COINS (26467) or Skype BitcoinTalkShow
Some stories discussed on this show: Change Tip Must Die http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/12/17/changetip-must-die/ Pirate Bay Shut Down, Has No Effect on Piracy https://www.yahoo.com/m...

By: MadBitcoins

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Bitcoin Talk Show #37 (Live) - Call 1-708-23-COINS (26467) or Skype BitcoinTalkShow - Video


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