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Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin Prices Rocket

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Bitcoin and other altcoins see remarkable upturn in fortunes, climbing 15% to 20% in 24 hours(IBTimes UK)

The price of bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have seen significant gains over the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin's market cap topped $6bn (3.8bn) at one stage, as a market-wide surge saw the price of one bitcoin rise by more than $90 since yesterday.

Litecoin, often referred to as silver to bitcoin's gold, has risen by 20% since Tuesday, while meme-inspired cryptocurrency dogecoin rose in value by around 15%.

Bitcoin's remarkable recovery follows several weeks of steadily declining prices that saw its value fall to as low as $305 in October.

The price of bitcoin has reached its highest levels since September(CoinMarketCap)

It is difficult to pin the upturn on one single factor, though analysts have suggested it could be as a result of recent positive media coverage combined with bitcoin being oversold.

"It's increasingly clear in this current run-up that bitcoin is oversold, with a great many more investors bullish long term and seeking the right entry point than short-term traders running out of coins to sell,"Michael Terpin, co-founder of BitAngelsand creator of the CoinAgenda conference, told IBTimes UK.

"I predicted during Money 20/20 that we could go as high as $600 by year's end and I'm sticking to that prediction."

A new way to encourage mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and dogecoin has been devised by a London startup.

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin Prices Rocket

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Satoshi Unmasked, Russia Softens Bitcoin Stance and 'Bitcoin Worth $1m'

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The price of bitcoin has continued its remarkable recovery.(IBTimes UK)

Bitcoin has continued its remarkable price recovery that began at the start of November with a further gain of 7% over the last 24 hours.

Most other major cryptocurrencies have seen similar improvements in price, including dogecoin and darkcoin and namecoin, while litecoin and peercoin have seen more modest gains of around 1% to 2%.

One of the biggest movers across all markets is pesetacoin. One of two unofficial cryptocurrencies of Spain, pesetacoin rose in price by 37% since yesterday to take its market cap above $100,000.

Previous bills had set fines for creating, issuing or promoting digital currencies like bitcoin at $1,314. This will now be reduced to $1,050 in a revision that head of Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service Evgeny Volovik said reflects the underlying potential of bitcoin technology.

"I consider the bitcoin ecosystem as a prototype of a system that is undergoing rigorous testing from all sides," Volovik told CoinTelegraph.

"With experience and further innovation, I think it is very possible that the blockchain will have a very bright and promising future."

The search for Satoshi Nakamoto, the illusive creator of bitcoin, may well be over(Adrian Chen)

Research that involved deep analysis of the 80,000 words posted online by Nakamoto has been detailed by financial writer and investigative journalist Dominic Frisby in his book 'Bitcoin- The Future of Money?'

"There is no proof, just a great deal of circumstantial evidence," Frisby told IBTimes UK.

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Satoshi Unmasked, Russia Softens Bitcoin Stance and 'Bitcoin Worth $1m'

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin Exhibition and Dogecoin/Litecoin Christmas Charity

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The price of bitcoin has continued to see signs of improvements over the weekend(IBTimes UK)

Bitcoin has seen a significant surge in price over the weekend, rising a further $20 to take its value above $360 for the first time since October.

Other major cryptocurrencies have followed bitcoin's lead, with litecoin, dogecoin, peercoin, darkcoin and namecoin all rising since Friday.

One of the biggest movers across all markets was checkcoin, which saw a 25% price increase over the last 24 hours. The "first digital currency that focusses on real world experiences" now has a market cap of around $80,000.

Litecoin and dogecoin communities have joined forces to create a campaign to raise money for impoverished children in the Philippines to receive gifts this Christmas.

The LiteShibes 4 Christmasfundraising effort follows previous charitable endeavours from the world of cryptocurrency, including Doge4Waterand a campaign to send Jamaican and Indian athletes to the Sochi Winter Olympics.

"I am happy to announce that for the first time ever, Litecoin and Dogecoin will be partnering up for our next charitable event, Liteshibes4Christmas,"a poster by the name of TheLobstrosity announced on Reddit.

"This is a milestone in crypto history, to show that we can bridge the gap between communities to really make a difference and help those less fortunate."

A bitcoin exhibition has opened at the Money Museum in Zurich, Switzerland, aiming to educate people on crypotcurrency and provide information about the history of bitcoin.

The exhibit comprises three main sections: The Birth of Bitcoin; Mining Equipment and Storage; and Where Can I Spend Bitcoins?

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin Exhibition and Dogecoin/Litecoin Christmas Charity

Swarm crypto-crowdfunding platform incubates its first five startups

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SwarmCorp, the worlds first distributed incubator that uses an innovative funding-by-cryptocurrency design, just finished its first-ever Decentralized Demo Day and has announced Techstars as yet another first-ever institutional investor using the native Swarm Coin.

Swarm represents an innovative way for projects and startups to gather funding with a democratized, decentralized crowdfunding platform. New ventures produce their own cryptocurrency on the Swarm platform and then use that to provide equity to backers.

The investment by Techstars will likely give SwarmCorp a boost towards getting the ball rolling to kickstart more startups.

We believe that Swarms innovative fundraising model has the possibility to completely transform the venture capital industry, said David Cohen, CEO of Techstars, and we want to help make this happen. Thats why we are making the worlds first fund investment via cryptoequity.

SiliconANGLE first reported on Swarm during the platforms launch in June 2014 and today represents the first five companies to emerge from the incubator.

The five companies launching from Swarm

The first, Manna, seeks to provide the public with personal-level drones that can be controlled via smartphone.

Next is Swarmops, a project that hopes to become a decentralized platform for swarm activism, providing difficult-to-stop communications, marshalling, and organization for civil liberties resistance to oppressive regimes. The Swarmops system provides a decentralized, democratized bureaucracy platform by driving decentralized authority via management of volunteers, activists, budgets, mass communication, expenses, payroll, invoices, and bookkeeping.

Judobaby has a decentralized gaming platform. Currently, the prominent game released by Judobaby involves dog footballavailable for the Nintendo Wii and PC platforms.

Coinspace seeks to build a co-working space for cryptocurrency developers, inventors, and business interests in New York City. Interested parties can use Swarm, through Space Coins, to back the space and receive membership and thus access. The planned launch of the workspace is in about six months. View this interview with Sol Lederer of Coinspace [YouTube] for more details.

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Swarm crypto-crowdfunding platform incubates its first five startups

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: BitPay's NFC Payment App and '1% of Consumers' Use Bitcoin

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Bitcoin sees its price rise for the first time in over a week amid a market-wide upturn(IBTimes UK)

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have seen some respite from the recently tumbling prices, as all 10 of the most valuable altcoins saw positive market movement.

Bitcoin, dogecoin, peercoin and namecoin all rose in value by around 3.5%, while the largest gains from any of the big players came from darkcoin.

The anonymity-focussed altcoin saw a 9% price rise to take its market capitalisation above $8 million once again.

The Bitcoin Checkout app was announced at Money2020 and is available immediately on Android and "soon" on iOS.

"For retailers, accepting mobile payments is a growing trend, but none of today's industry offerings can provide a lower risk or lower cost than swiping a credit card," said Tony Gallippi, co-founder and executive chairman of BitPay.

"Accepting bitcoin can offer tremendous savings to merchants, especially merchants with a large international customer base, and BitPay's service combined with the new mobile app is a fantastic value for merchants."

A new study has found that more than 1% of consumers use bitcoin as a payment method, half of which use it as their primary payment method.

The survey of 1,000 online consumers, commissioned by digital commerce solution provider Avangate, looked at the evolution of mobile technology and how it is spawning the next generation of software and online services.

The study did not take into account transactions through online black marketplaces like Silk Road 2.0, which generally see cryptocurrencies used as the main form of payment.

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: BitPay's NFC Payment App and '1% of Consumers' Use Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin Mining Supercomputers and Syscoin Push Forward Kennedy Case

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The price of bitcoin continues to languish around the $330 mark as cryptocurrency markets stabilise(IBTimes UK)

After a turbulent weekend that saw bitcoin's price fluctuate between $350 and $320, the world's most valuable cryptocurrency has settled back to its late-October levels.

All other major altcoins saw little market movement over the last 24 hours, with litecoin, dogecoin, peercoin, namecoin and darkcoin all shifting by less than 2%.

Cannacoin, the digital currency dedicated to developing and creating innovative new technology for the cannabis industry, saw the biggest movement of any cryptocurrency, surging by 46% since yesterday to take its market capitalisation above $50,000.

Bitcoin mining manufacturer Bitcoin Brothers is launching a cloud-based mining service that it claims uses supercomputers with processing capabilities of over 6 petahash.

It is hoped that the advanced processing power will help reduce mining costs and increase profit margins.

Recent bitcoin price falls have meant that mining the cryptocurrency has become an increasingly cost inefficient process for many mining firms.

"To put our machines in perspective, on the common LINPACK Rpeak and Rmax benchmarks each of our MSEMs outperform the world's fastest supercomputers," Thomas Ackermann, chief technology officer at Bitcoin Brothers, said in a statement.

"We basically have a business model in different stages. The first stage is selling people services for bitcoin mining. People can rent portions of the machines starting at gigahashes, terahashes up to petahashes."

Customers unfamiliar with cryptocurrencies who wish to frequent the caf will be shown how to operate a bitcoin ATM or paper wallet printer that have been installed in the space.

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin Mining Supercomputers and Syscoin Push Forward Kennedy Case

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Treasury Seeks Advice on Bitcoin and Circle Launches App

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UK government asks bitcoin community for cryptocurrency advice and Circle releases platform as app(IBTimes UK)

Bitcoin has continued its recent downward trend by falling in price by a further 1.5% over the last 24 hours.

All other major cryptocurrencies have also seen negative movement since yesterday, with litecoin, dogecoin, peercoin, namecoin and darkcoin all falling by between 1% and 5%.

The biggest mover across all markets was pesetacoin, the unofficial national cryptocurrency of Spain. A 40% rise in value pushed its market capitalisation back up towards $50,000 for the first time since September.

The Treasury is requesting information and advice from those within the bitcoin community in order to understand how best to regulate cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin advocates from fintech (financial technology) firms, together with law enforcement agencies and financial regulators, will be approached by the government in the hope that better regulation will improve the UK's fintech sector.

"Digital currencies and digital currency exchanges are currently unregulated in the UK," said a Treasury spokesman. "We're considering the potential benefits of digital currencies to customers and the technology that underpins them, and whether we should take action to support innovation in this area.

"We're also looking at the potential risks, and assessing whether action is required to address any concerns."

Bitcoin-to-fiat currency exchange Circle has launched its own mobile app for iOS and Android platforms.

The integration of credit card payments into the app will allow users to withdraw and deposit money into their bitcoin wallets, while Touch ID compatibility with iOS devices will add a level of biometric security.

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Treasury Seeks Advice on Bitcoin and Circle Launches App

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: MintPal CrowdFunds Legal Case Against Alex Green Over Missing Bitcoins

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The price of bitcoin continues to languish below $350 as cryptocurrency markets stagnate.(IBTimes UK)

The price of bitcoin has been relatively stable over the last 24 hours, but remains at its lowest level for three weeks.

There was little movement across other cryptocurrency markets, with the only significant movement coming from darkcoin. The privacy-centric altcoin saw a 6% rise in value to take its market capitalisation to $8.5m (5.32m).

One of the biggest movers across all markets was carboncoin, the "energy efficient cryptocurrency devoted to lowering the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere". It saw a 70% price rise since yesterday.

MintPal prepare legal action against Alex Green

The saga surrounding former Moolah chief executive Alex Green, who previously went by the name Ryan Kennedy, could soon be entering a court of law, as bitcoin exchange MintPal look to raise funds to mount a legal case against him.

In a statement released on Pastebin, MintPal detailed the criminal activity that it claims Green has carried out, including the theft of around 4,000 bitcoins in user funds.

"The law firm we have been working with is Selachii LLP, and I am looking into the possibility of raising $25K to cover the remaining costs in our legal battle against Ryan," the statement said.

"A bitcoin wallet has been set up for this and will remain in the custody of one of the most trusted members of crypto community, CryptoCobain (aka Jordan Fish), who has offered escrow and lent his support in our efforts of bringing Mintpal back.

"If we are successful, the legal fees will be awarded against Ryan Kennedy and the bitcoins donated to cover the legal fees will be returned to the donors."

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: MintPal CrowdFunds Legal Case Against Alex Green Over Missing Bitcoins

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin on Tor Puts Users at Risk of Attack, Kraken Launches

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Academics claim "bitcoin over Tor isn't a good idea", while bitcoin exchange Kraken launches.(IBTimes UK)

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have continued to see their prices slide, with nine out of the top ten most valuable mineable altcoins all falling over the last 24 hours.

The negative movement was felt most keenly by darkcoin, which saw its market capitalisation fall from around $9 million to $7.5 million in the space of just a few hours yesterday.

Bucking the trend was cannabisdarkcoin with a 65% rise in value. It is still early days for cannabisdarkcoin, having only launched on 24 October, however it is already among the top 100 most valuable cryptocurrencies.

'Bitcoin over TOR isn't a good idea'

Academics from the University of Luxembourg have claimed that using bitcoin over anonymous browsers like TOR could create an attack vector for 'man-in-the-middle' and double-spend attacks.

In a paper titled Bitcoin over TOR isn't a good idea, Alex Biryukov and Ivan Pustogarov reiterate previous criticisms about bitcoin relating to its lack of anonymity, but also highlight issues with using it over networks widely regarded to be private and secure.

"A low-resource attacker can gain full control of information flows between all users who chose to use bitcoin over Tor," the paper states."In particular the attacker can link together user's transactions regardless of pseudonyms used, control which bitcoin blocks and transactions are relayed to the user and can delay or discard user's transactions and blocks.

"In collusion with a powerful miner double-spending attacks become possible and a totally virtual bitcoin reality can be created for such set of users."

Kraken exchange launches in Japan

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Bitcoin on Tor Puts Users at Risk of Attack, Kraken Launches


  1. Cryptocurrency