Daily Archives: January 23, 2015

Its like Bitcoin, only better
Wall Street Daily Founder, Robert Williams, uncovered an emerging private currency sweeping across America and it #39;s about to explode in value. Some folks even prefer it over spending regular...

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Its like Bitcoin, only better - 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...

By: O #39;Reilly

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

BITCOIN VS YOUTUBE
Made 4 TV Gecko aka Mr.iPad Chain is back with another episode of his new internet show (THE URBAN BITCOIN). Gecko talks about Bitcoin topics in a new,hip,urban, funny way that the normal ...

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BITCOIN VS YOUTUBE - 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

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 temptations 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

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