Cryptocurrency News Round-Up: MtGox Hearing Begins as Bitcoin gets Bloomberg Endorsement

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On the first day of a preliminary hearing that will decide the future of the bitcoin exchange MtGox, markets continue to steadily improve.

Bitcoin has continued its steady recovery following a dip earlier this week that saw its value drop to as low as $425 (251).

All other major cryptocurrencies have followed in bitcoin's wake, with moderate gains of between 1% and 6% across the markets over the last 24 hours.

The biggest gain in value comes from flappycoin, the cryptocurrency named after the hit smartphone game FlappyBird. Its market capitalisation grew by almost 100%, taking it up to above $85,000.

Bloomberg gives bitcoin stamp of approval

Bloomberg has announced plans to list bitcoin prices on its financial data terminals, served to more than 320,000 subscribers.

The move by Bloomberg will be welcome news to the bitcoin community, giving the cryptocurrency a stamp of respectability following recent turmoil in China that drew into question bitcoin's future.

"While bitcoin and other virtual currency markets are still nascent, they represent an interesting intersection of finance and technology," said Tod Van Name, Bloomberg global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities, in a blogpost.

"Given that Bloomberg sits squarely at that intersection, providing pricing for this underdeveloped market is a natural fit for us."

Preliminary hearing for MtGox

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Cryptocurrency News Round-Up: MtGox Hearing Begins as Bitcoin gets Bloomberg Endorsement

Dark Wallet Is About to Make Bitcoin Money Laundering Easier Than Ever

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From left, Cody Wilson and Amir Taaki. Photo: Andy Greenberg

Government regulators around the world have spent the last year scrambling to prevent bitcoin from becoming the currency of choice for money launderers and black marketeers. Now their worst fears may be about to materialize in a single piece of software.

On Thursday, a collective of politically radical coders that calls itself unSystem plans to release the first version of Dark Wallet: a bitcoin application designed to protect its users identities far more strongly than the partial privacy protections bitcoin offers in its current form. If the program works as promised, it could neuter impending bitcoin regulations that seek to tie individuals identities to bitcoin ownership. By encrypting and mixing together its users payments, Dark Wallet seeks to enable practically untraceable flows of money online that add new fuel to the Webs burgeoning black markets.

This is a way of using bitcoin that mocks every attempt to sprinkle it with regulation, says Cody Wilson, one of Dark Wallets two 26-year-old organizers. Its a way to say to the government Youve set yourself up to regulate bitcoin. Regulate this.

Heres a teaser video the group posted earlier last week ahead of the softwares release:

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Dark Wallet Is About to Make Bitcoin Money Laundering Easier Than Ever

Bitcoin: what happens when the miners pack up their gear?

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Radar has a backchannel, and sometimes we have interesting conversations on it. Mike Loukides and I recently had a long chat about bitcoin. Both of us were thinking out loud and learning as we went along, and on re-reading the thread Im astonished by our advanced level of ignorance. I would like to publish it because it hints at just how hard it is to understand the bitcoin network. The founding papers that describe the system leave a lot of implementation to the imagination, and the level of mis(dis?)information around the web is staggering. Its no small thing to get the basics right. But beyond the basics, the bitcoin network has that property of an inside-out onion, where the harder you look, the more (and bigger slices of) complexity you find.

Anyway, were not going to publish it. I dont mind looking stupid, but I dont want to look that stupid also, the comments would be torture.

However, some of the things we were wondering about are worth wondering about publicly. Especially this: what happens when the mining subsidies end? Will transaction fees pick up the slack? I think ultimately the answer is yes, but maybe not in the way a lot of people expect.

If you read around the web, the typical answer to that question sounds something like, Yeah, of course they will. Costs will go down as some miners exit, but people will start voluntarily paying transaction fees. Also, unicorns. Of course, the transaction fee bit is striking because a lot of people think one of the key benefits of digital cash is that, compared to credit card processors, they dont charge fees.

Well, they dont now. Now they subsidize the operation of the network by printing new money, er, mining which I suppose is crypto libertarianisms answer to quantitive easing. With 25 new bitcoins being minted every 10 minutes or so (at a current value of $11,600), the dearth of transaction fees is just noise. But over time, the pace of mining will drop (halving after every 210,000 blocks).

Before I get to the question posed in the title of this piece, we probably need a brief explainer so the rest of what I say has a chance of making sense. If you already know how bitcoin works, you can skip this part. Or, better yet, read it anyway and tell me what I get wrong. Im well aware that Im treading into speculative territory and probably dont have this all sorted. In fact, thats true for this entire post.

Bitcoins central feature is a distributed ledger called the block chain that contains a record of every verified transaction ever, going back to the genesis block of the first 50 bitcoins. Its called a block chain because transactions are verified in blocks, and the blocks are chained together, each new one pointing to the one before it. Each block contains the worldwide transactions from approximately a 10-minute period.

Every bitcoin in existence can be traced back to one of these blocks. Either it originated in the genesis block, or it was issued as a reward to the miner who verified a more recent block.

One of the counterintuitive things about bitcoin is that there really arent bitcoins. Not in the sense that there is an indivisible coin with some unique identifier associated with it. Instead, users of the bitcoin network get value as an input (either from a transaction or from source coins issued in mining) and then they can either hold that value, or spend it as an output via a transaction. The transactions associate value with their key value, which substitutes for their identity.

Bitcoin is known as an anonymous or pseudo-anonymous system, but really it is completely transparent. Every transaction ever completed is available in the block chain for anyone to see. Smart users will take pains to change their encryption key with every transaction and be careful not to associate their public key with their real identity, but bitcoin probably has that common and awkward property of being less anonymous the more you use it. More data in the block chain means more opportunity to de-anonymize you.

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Bitcoin: what happens when the miners pack up their gear?

Comets use a pair of runs to top Sabers

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CLARKS SUMMIT In a match that didnt feature much separation throughout the first two and a half sets, Abington Heights ended the third on a 8-3 run to take a 2-1 set lead in their match against Susquehanna. Senior middle hitter Mike Fitzpatrick contributed a block and kill during the closing spurt of the set.

The Comets carried that momentum into the fourth set with a 14-1 run and won the set 25-10 to defeat the Sabers, 3-1, in a Lackawanna League boys volleyball match on Tuesday.

I think it took us about three sets to wake up, Abington Heights head coach Jamie Spangler said. We were sleepwalking in the first couple sets. When were able to serve aggressively and inbounds, were a much better team overall. That was the big difference.

The fourth set run was sparked by senior outside hitter Kevin Schumacher, who scored the Comets first point of the set and then controlled the serve for 13 consecutive points to take control of the match. Junior middle hitter Shreyas Chandragiri and senior outside hitter Joe Dietzer each contributed two points during the rally.

Susquehanna closed to within 12 points at 20-8, but the Comets rattled off five of the next seven points, including two from junior middle hitter Griffin Joyce to close out the win. Joyce led the Comets with eight kills and four blocks. Sean Salmon, who led Abington Heights with 17 assists, also picked up an ace.

We started passing and picking up the ball a lot better, Schumacher said. It was really a team effort. We just got in a zone and everybody was playing the game well.

Abington Heights took a 7-3 lead in the first set on a kill from Dietzer. Susquehanna rallied to take a 14-13 advantage on a kill from Steven Frye, but the Comets scored four of the final five points, including a block and kill from Fitzpatrick, to win the set 25-21.

The second set featured 10 lead changes and Susquehanna scored the final three points to even the match 2-2. Frye contributed two kills and two aces during the set and Nick Lloyd, who chipped in with nine digs, added an ace for the Sabers. Frye led the Sabers with nine kills and three aces. Nate Carpenter led Susquehanna with 11 digs.

That 13 point run in the fourth set was too much for us, Susquehanna head coach Bill Albert said. We have a young, inexperienced team and it just got the better of them, but we played great the first three games and were real happy with that.

Abington Heights (9-2) will travel to play Elk Lake on Thursday at 5 p.m.

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Comets use a pair of runs to top Sabers

Comets blank Tigers

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RANDLEMAN The Asheboro High School varsity baseball team beat Randleman 4-0 Wednesday in a nonleague game.

Brady Wright pitched six innings and picked up the win, allowing five hits, while Tristan Marsh pitched the seventh for the save.

At the plate, Cam Welch had two hits, including a double, while Chase Kucinski and Alex Morgan each had an RBI single. Adam Gross notched a fielders choice RBI and Parker Clayton had a sacrifice fly.

Caleb Webster had two hits for the Tigers.

The Blue Comets (7-13) play on the road Monday in the first round of the Mid-Piedmont Conference Tournament.

RMS shuts out NERMS

LIBERTY The Randleman Middle School soccer team shut out Northeastern Randolph 7-0 Wednesday.

NERMS (1-2) travels to Southwestern Randolph today.

City-Am entries

The Asheboro Cultural and Recreation Services Department is taking entries for the 2014 Asheboro City Amateur. The tournament will be held May 30-June 1.

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Comets blank Tigers

Sage of Quay Radio – Sofia Smallstorm – The Post Human Society (May 2014) – Video

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Sage of Quay Radio - Sofia Smallstorm - The Post Human Society (May 2014)
This show officially airs at 8pm EST on May 6, 2014 on the Pyramid One Network: http://www.kinetichifi.com/listen/index.php?listen=pyramidone and on May 7, 2...

By: The Sage of Quay Radio Hour

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Sage of Quay Radio - Sofia Smallstorm - The Post Human Society (May 2014) - Video