Monthly Archives: March 2017

First Amendment applies to Trump, too – Bradenton Herald

Posted: March 6, 2017 at 2:52 pm


Bradenton Herald
First Amendment applies to Trump, too
Bradenton Herald
After reading Mr. James Frazier's Feb. 28 letter to the editor Trump's scorn of media disturbing, I have a question: Is the letter rhetoric or is he saying everyone is protected by the First Amendment except the president of the United States ...

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Justice Dept. drops Playpen child porn case to prevent release of Tor hack – ZDNet

Posted: at 2:51 pm

(Image: file photo)

Justice Dept. lawyers are asking a federal court to drop a case against a dark web child porn site because it says it cannot reveal how it used a browser exploit to target thousands of unsuspecting visitors to the site.

A court filing posted late on Friday in Washington state said that because the government is "unwilling to disclose" how it carried out the hacks, it has "no choice but to seek dismissal" of the case.

"The government must now choose between disclosure of classified information and dismissal of its indictment. Disclosure is not currently an option," said the filing.

However, the government's attorneys are asking the case to be reopened once the exploit is no longer classified.

The case, proven to be of the most controversial indictments in recent history, focused on Jay Michaud, a school administrator from Vancouver, WA, who was arrested in July 2015 for viewing child porn images.

Michaud was accused of accessing over a hundred threads on Playpen, a dark web site accessible over the Tor anonymity network, which hosted child abuse imagery for thousands of users.

Feds discovered the server was hosted in the US, and obtained a search warrant that seized the server.

But instead of pulling down the website, the FBI continued to run the website for almost two weeks, as part of efforts to discover the identities of others who accessed the site.

The FBI used a "network investigative technique" -- a hacking tool that in any other hands than the feds would be considered malware -- to deanonymize the users of the Tor browser, a widely used app for easy access to the dark web, during its 2015 investigation into the website.

Little is known about the hacking tool, but it was known to be able to gather real-world information on Playpen visitors, such as IP addresses -- details of which should have been protected by Tor.

But the government refused to reveal the full source code of the exploit in court, and so the judge tossed out the evidence, rendering a significant set-back to the government's case.

Given that the Tor browser uses much of the same code as Firefox, it's long believed that the vulnerability is a zero-day flaw affecting the browser.

In May, Mozilla filed a brief in the Playpen defendant's case asking the FBI to privately disclose the flaw in order to fix the bug that it says would affect the security of "hundreds of millions of users."

A judge is expected to rule on the case in the coming weeks.

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Justice Dept. drops Playpen child porn case to prevent release of Tor hack - ZDNet

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8 privacy tools that will keep you safe online – Techworm

Posted: at 2:51 pm

For any internet user, safeguarding sensitive and confidential information has become a high priority, as internet these days are becoming a less private place with several individuals, corporations, and even governments in some cases, tracking your activities to collect users information and metrics.

Also, it is very easy to track a user because of the IP, the unique address that we all use to connect to internet that makes online privacy a big concern. However, if you wish to keep your personal information private, you can use a VPN or proxy tool to help you. It covers everything from secure web browsing to secure file erasing.

Lets have a look at the privacy tools below:

1. Tor Browser

The Tor network (short for The Onion Router, which describes its multi-layered privacy technology) offers you an anonymous window to the Web. By far, the Firefox-based Tor Browser is the quickest and simplest to start using it.

Tors network of bouncing your traffic through multiple relays makes it nearly impossible to track a users identity or activity. You can access almost every website anonymously, including .onion addresses, which are only accessible while connected to Tor. Its also useful for accessing geo-blocked sites that block IP addresses from specific countries. Tor is available for Windows, Apple Macs and Linux.

2. CyberGhost VPN

CyberGhost allows users to connect to a VPN (virtual private network) and access the internet anonymously. The service is built for users who just want secure, private access when connected from public or untrusted networks. It re-routes your internet traffic to hide your location and identity. The privacy software has six elements: anonymous browsing, unblocking streaming sites, protecting your internet connection, torrenting anonymously, unblocking websites and choosing which VPN server to use

CyberGhost VPN is available as a free ad-supported app, as well as a paid-for edition that provides enhanced performance and more features. The free version should be perfectly adequate for daily or random use. However, it runs much more slowly than the paid-for premium service. The CyberGhost VPN client supports Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

3. Tails

Privacy has become a major issue in this age of mass surveillance and tracking by marketers (anonymous tracking for targeted content is acceptable). If you are someone who needs to keep the government and marketing agencies out of your business, you need an operating system thats created from the ground up with privacy in mind.

And, nothing beats Tails for this purpose. Its a Debian-based Linux distribution that offers privacy and anonymity by design. Its a distro whose aim is solely to keep the identity of the user completely opaque. It routes its traffic through Tor, designed to avoid your outward-bound data from being intercepted and analysed. According to reports, Tails is so good that the NSA considers it a major threat to their hacking activities.

4. Ghostery

Ghostery is a privacy and security-related browser extension and mobile application, which is distributed as proprietary freeware. You can simply install the privacy software and allow it to do its job. Ghostery also tells you exactly what each company is looking at and likely to do with your data. It is definitely a must-have for those who do wish to share every click with marketers. Its available for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Apple Safari, iOS, Android and Firefox Mobile.

5. GnuPG

GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG) is a free software, and its the open source version of the venerable PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) tool. GnuPG allows you to encrypt and sign your data and communication thats effectively unbreakable. It features a versatile key management system as well as access modules for all kinds of public key directories. It is a command line tool with features for easy integration with other applications.

6. KeyScrambler

KeyScrambler is the most useful method that encrypts every single key that you entered or type deep into the Windows kernel to prevent it from being intercepted by keylogging software. The positioning and timing of encryption key allow it to be much more challenging and burdensome for key-loggers to split or defeat KeyScramblers protection.

If you worry about keylogging or doubt that you are being logged whenever you type, this free privacy software is a good way to frustrate the watchmen.

7. Wise Folder Hider

Designed for Windows XP onwards, Wise Folder Hider is freeware that can quickly and safely hide not only the files/folders on local partitions or removable devices but also USB drives or the files/folders on USB drives. The hidden files/folders will be safely hidden no matter whether the drive is accessed in another operating system on the same computer or reinstalled on another computer. The only way to access hidden files/folders/USB is to enter the valid password(s) correctly. Its double password protection can ensure the absolute safety of your files/folders/USB.

8. AntiSpy for Windows 10

While Windows 10 is the most personal version of Windows, Microsofts attempts at knowing you better have alerted many privacy activists. AntiSpy for Windows 10 allows you to disable advertising IDs, SmartScreen filtering, whether apps can access your camera and so on.

Source: TOI

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8 privacy tools that will keep you safe online - Techworm

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New dark web scheme lets wannabe cybercriminals get in on ransomware – for free – ZDNet

Posted: at 2:51 pm

The service offers step-by-step instructions on building ransomware.

A new dark web scheme could allow any wannabe cybercriminal to grab a piece of the ransomware pie for free -- on the condition that any ill-gotten profits are split 50/50.

Ransomware -- a form of malware which encrypts a victim's files and demands a ransom to restore them -- has boomed in the last 18 months. A number of ransomware-as-a-service affiliate schemes allow even the most technically illiterate cyber thief to cash in on a form of crime which cost businesses over a billion dollars last year.

But while these schemes are sold to users for a fee -- be it a one-off payment, or as part of a subscription based service -- this new ransomware operation is providing malicious software to affiliates for free in exchange for a big slice of any successful scores.

The move represents another evolution in ransomware which could make it an even more dangerous threat, because criminals may be tempted to download it and launch a ransomware campaign as they don't need to part with their cash to do so.

"The simplistic and straight-forward design of Dot ransomware enables just about anyone to conduct cybercrime," warn Fortinet researchers, who predict Dot will soon become a big threat to businsesses.

"Although we haven't seen this ransomware in the wild, with the advertisements being made accessible on hacking forums, it's only a matter of time until people start taking the bait."

This particular scheme appeared during mid-February and offers users Dot ransomware. All the user needs to get started is to access to the download via the Tor browser and to register a Bitcoin address -- Bitcoin being the number one method of extorting ransoms.

Once this is done, the authors of Dot provide a guide to getting started, including recommendations of which file types to use to distribute ransomware, as well as recommendations for what ransoms to charge in which countries in order to maximise returns.

The authors even go so far as to provide a dashboard for users to keep track of the number and status of infections. The core of the malicious software service appears to be designed to look as if it's like any other form of legitimate set of software tools.

Dot's authors attempt to position the ransomware as like any other software service.

Offering Dot as a free, commissioned-based service has advantages for both the authors and their affiliates; the ransomware writers have an easy way of spreading their malicious software -- complete with with ongoing significant returns from successful infections -- while the would-be criminals get their hands on ransomware without having to pay.

However, the author has coded Dot to ensure that a technically literate user can't rewire the program to take all the payment for themselves.

Victims are infected with Dot via malicious attachments, which will encrypt their files when run and open a ReadMe HTML, informing them they need to pay a Bitcoin ransom in order to regain access to their data.

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New dark web scheme lets wannabe cybercriminals get in on ransomware - for free - ZDNet

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The Cryptocurrency Funds Have Arrived, And They’re Bringing Wall Street Money – Seeking Alpha

Posted: at 2:50 pm

If 2013-2016 was the era of venture investment in bitcoin and blockchain startups - VCs put north of a billion dollars to work, peaking at $290M in the first half of 2016 - then 2017-2020 will in hindsight be seen as the Wall Street era. The startup equity investors have come and - in the absence of unicorn valuations or breathtaking growth - they're starting to move on. But now the bitcoin and cryptocurrency funds have arrived, and they've brought public markets investors with them.

Just about every week I'll discover a new investment fund that gives investors liquid exposure to the cryptocurrency asset class. At latest count, there are at least 5 exchange-listed bitcoin investment products, 3 U.S.-based ETFs under review by the SEC, and hedge funds that cover just about every cryptocurrency asset type and investment strategy. By my estimate, these funds represent roughly 5-10% of the $24B in total that's now invested in cryptocurrencies.

For clarity, I define a cryptocurrency fund as a pool of professionally managed capital, available to outside investors, where the majority of AUM are invested in publicly tradable cryptocurrency assets. Examples of such assets include bitcoin, ethereum, and the 500+ altcoins and 50+ digital tokens listed on Coinmarketcap. Thus venture capital funds who invest in shareholder equity of blockchain startups don't qualify.

I've sorted the different funds into three broad categories and wanted to give a description of each category along with some prominent examples. They are:

Disclaimer: Please consider this information as strictly educational and not meant to represent specific investment advice or recommendations.

1. Publicly traded funds

These funds follow a buy-and-hold strategy and usually focus on a single asset. For now, all of them are bitcoin-only, although I expect publicly traded ethereum funds to come online perhaps as early as this year.

A management fee is charged for the service, which ranges from 1.5-2.5% per year. As more funds enter the space, fees will likely decrease, perhaps to below 1% which is what most vanilla ETFs charge. You may wonder why anyone would invest in a public bitcoin fund when you can just buy bitcoin and hold it yourself, but you could ask the same of gold. The biggest gold ETF - the SPDR Gold Trust - manages $35 billion USD. That's double the bitcoin market cap - all in one ETF. The attractions for investors are varied, from ease of access to peace of mind to lighter regulatory regimes. The consistent price premium of Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX:GBTC) shares over the NAV of its bitcoin holdings is more evidence that such vehicles are desired.

Within the cryptocurrency universe, there are roughly two types of such funds: ETFs and ETNs (what are also called asset backed notes). The main difference is that an ETF's value is collateralized by an equivalent value of its underlying benchmark asset and allows an investor to redeem their ETF shares for the asset.

An ETN doesn't allow redemption and doesn't make the same guarantees about how much e.g. bitcoin it actually holds. An ETN is better thought of as unsecured debt that roughly tracks the price of its benchmark asset but has looser reporting and compliance requirements. Because of these differences, ETNs are a bigger credit risk, and we've already seen this risk manifest when KNC Miner filed for bankruptcy. KNC Miner was the guarantor of the COINXBT and COINXBE ETNs on the Nasdaq Nordic, and the bankruptcy filing forced trading to a halt. Two weeks later, the investment firm Global Advisors stepped in and became the new guarantor and trading was allowed to resume.

Examples of bitcoin ETNs include BTCETI (which is co-listed on the Gibraltar Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Borse) and the above-mentioned Global Advisors' COINXBT and COINXBE.

Thus far no bitcoin ETFs have been approved. There are three U.S.-based funds under review by the SEC. They are, in order of their filing:

GBTC is a hybrid, in that it's currently an ETN which is filing to become an ETF. While it has filed for a $500M IPO on NYSE Arca to become an ETF, it is currently traded on the U.S. OTC exchanges and doesn't allow redemption of shares into bitcoin.

The only ETFs with bitcoin exposure are Ark Investment Management's ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEARCA:ARKK) and ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW), but these hardly count as official cryptocurrency ETFs because both hold less than 0.3% of their portfolio in GBTC.

Bitcoin IRA is an interesting outlier in that it's a public bitcoin investment fund, available to any investors who have or want to open an IRA, a type of U.S. retirement savings account. They allow the redemption of bitcoin, but the company is not listed on any publicly traded exchange. You must contact them directly to invest. Bitcoin IRA charge a 15% one-time upfront fee of any money invested.

Finally, while the publicly traded funds are all bitcoin, the ethereum funds are coming. One example is the EtherIndex Ether Trust which filed in July 2016 with the SEC to be listed on the NYSE Arca, but has seen little activity since. Here are my notes on its filing. I have seen some other ethereum-based efforts and I expect at least one will be approved for public trading this year.

2. Private buy-and-hold funds

These differ from public investment funds in that they usually have restrictions either on investment size (e.g., $100K USD and above) or status (e.g., accredited investors only). They're not listed on publicly traded exchanges, without the attendant regulatory requirements and investment disclosures, and you can't use investment software like Bloomberg to obtain quotes and place trades. But otherwise the strategy and product and fees are similar: they offer investors comparatively simple and safe exposure to cryptocurrency and charge an annual fee for the service.

The best known example is probably the Pantera Bitcoin Fund. Pantera Capital is a blockchain investment firm which has multiple funds. One of them specializes in equity investments of blockchain startups. The one relevant for our discussion is a private bitcoin buy-and-hold fund which has over $100M in AUM and charges 0.75% annual management fee and a 1% fee for redemption.

An ethereum example is Grayscale's Ethereum Investment Trust, which has not formally launched but will be a private product that provides qualified investors access to Ethereum Classic.

DLT10 Index is an interesting example of a private buy-and-hold fund which offers a proprietary basket of 10 publicly traded cryptocurrency assets. The index is a mixture of leading cryptocurrencies and digital tokens, with a preference for enduring assets.

3. Hedge funds

Last we have cryptocurrency hedge funds. A hedge fund is a pool of lightly regulated capital that invests in whatever it likes within some broad strategic parameters. They have active trading strategies including e.g., leveraged trading, price arbitrage, and algorithmic trading. In addition to charging a management fee comparable to the above two types of funds, they also charge a performance fee that in this space can range from 15-45%. The performance fee is only paid out when the hedge fund beats an agreed-upon benchmark, such as the price of bitcoin. So if a hedge fund can generate better returns than simply owning bitcoin, they're paid very well for doing so. This benchmark outperformance is called alpha.

Known cryptocurrency hedge funds include:

I believe the above-mentioned funds are all actively seeking outside investment. Coinfund.io is an example of a cryptocurrency hedge fund which is no longer taking outside investors. They focus on digital token investment, what are often called ICOs, and host a knowledgeable and active community chat on Slack.

A final interesting example is the TaaS fund (Token-as-a-Service), which will exist on the Ethereum blockchain and in March will sell up to $100M of their tokens via the ICO process. The fund will keep some proceeds to fund operations and invest the remainder in a proprietary mixture of bitcoin, altcoins, and other digital tokens. Token holders will receive an ongoing percentage of trading profits.

The hedge fund space - of the three categories - is likely to see the most growth and proliferation because of its light regulatory touch, the speed to market, and the chance for fund managers to make outsized profits in a still volatile and developing asset class.

The next 3 years are a window of opportunity for starting and investing in cryptocurrency funds

We've entered a golden era of professionally managed money moving into liquid cryptocurrency assets. The risks that prevented Wall Street investor types from entering the market earlier - lack of liquidity, regulatory uncertainty, China trading centralization, lack of sophisticated financial products - are now reduced enough that those hungry for returns have taken the lead and others are starting to follow.

There's no better time to start a fund or raise one, and there's no better time to take a cryptocurrency position if you manage money, especially when you consider the past price performance of cryptocurrency assets and research that proves bitcoin's lack of correlation with existing asset classes. An approved U.S. bitcoin ETF will only add fuel to the growing fire.

In the coming years, the above-mentioned three funds types will expand and evolve: Hedge funds will grow larger and develop more exotic trading strategies, increasingly blending cryptocurrency with mainstream asset classes like equities and commodities. Private funds will diversify from one cryptocurrency asset to multiple assets and seek listing on exchanges. Finally, publicly traded funds will expand from bitcoin to ethereum and then cryptocurrency indexes, and fees will likely come down as competition grows.

Thanks for reading! A number of people read drafts of this essay and I'm grateful for their feedback. I look forward to your comments and questions.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: I am long bitcoin and altcoins but do not have a personal investment in any of the funds mentioned here.

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Hong Kong Based Cryptocurrencies Exchange Bitfinex Adds Dash – Finance Magnates

Posted: at 2:50 pm

Hong Kong based cryptocurrencies exchange Bitfinex has added support for trading on the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Dash. The venue now enables tradersto buy and sell Dash forUSD and bitcoin (DASH/BTC andDASH/USD).

Dash VP of Business Development, Daniel Diaz said: The partnership is recognition of the way the market has been responding to Dashs vision and roadmap. I am a firm believer that the free market will always recognize true value when growth and performance is sustained over long periods of time. Partnering with Bitfinex is a very important step for Dash as we look to provide good, regulated on and off ramps to the network that really make user applications easier. Dash is in a transition towards the regulated fiat exchanges that will make it a lot easier for users and investors to move in and out of the Dash economy, which will reduce friction and allow Dash to trade directly for fiat currencies in the more popular exchanges in the blockchain industry.

Dash began the year at $11 and is now trading at $44 with a market cap of over $300 million -making it the third most valuable blockchain asset following Bitcoin and Ethereum while its trading volume has also shot up 22 times.

Bitfinex Chief Strategy Officer Phil Potter added, Bitfinex is extremely excited to be adding Dash to our exchange. Dash is currently experiencing its breakout moment right now and we want to be able to provide our growing customer base with seamless access to one of the rising stars in our space. Bitfinex prides itself on being the worlds largest digital asset exchange by USD. We expect an incredibly strong market for Dash and we look forward to a tremendous partnership with their team.

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Bitcoin Price Target For 2017 – Seeking Alpha

Posted: at 2:49 pm

Bitcoin (OTCQX:GBTC) is a totally different investment asset type than traditional asset classes. Traditional analysis methods do not applying when forecasting the price of bitcoin. That's why we apply a more fundamental approach in this article in order to come up with a bitcoin price forecast for 2017.

How NOT to forecast a bitcoin price

Most readers would turn to the cryptocurrency blogosphere where they will read ultra-bullish bitcoin price forecasts for 2017 similar to this one from Coindesk. The issue with this approach is that those sites only feature bitcoin enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, so they offer a very biased view.

Traditional financial media, on the other hand, have their classic story telling format. That is not a useful approach either for investors. For instance, CNBC looked at the ongoing stream of articles that compare bitcoin with gold (NYSEARCA:GLD), and concluded that "the comparison is perhaps a positive signal that bitcoin is being commoditized. But bitcoin is not a commodity, while gold has been a commodity for thousands of years." That obviously does not tell anything about the future price of bitcoin.

Fortune.com explained how demand for safe haven assets have fallen since the elections "on a stronger dollar, signs of future interest rate hikes, and potentially business-friendly policies that may arise from the Trump administration. Those potential regulatory changes would raise the chances of higher-yielding stocks." That also is not useful as input for a bitcoin price forecast.

The most interesting headline comes from CNBC: "Bitcoin predicted to rise 165% to $2,000 in 2017 driven by Trump's spending binge and dollar rally."

There is obviously no correlation between the bitcoin price and the dollar or any other regular asset. Large investors simply don't pull money out of currencies, stocks (NYSEARCA:SPY) or gold in order to buy bitcoins.

A legitimate bitcoin forecast for 2017

We believe that a combination of price analysis and fundamental analysis is the most appropriate way to come up with a legitimate bitcoin forecast.

Fundamentally, the bitcoin usage data look great: Usage of bitcoins keeps on increasing, and that is exactly what it fundamentally is all about. Because of the fact that bitcoin is a form of money, the widening acceptance of bitcoin is the most fundamental data point to consider.

According to Statista, bitcoin usage keeps on growing as seen by the number of Bitcoin ATMs, which increased from 538 in January 2016 to 838 by November. Most Bitcoin ATMs, as of July 2016, were located in the United States (345) and Canada (108). The Bitcoin ATMs located in Europe as of June 2016 constituted 24.02 percent of the global ATM market share.

Moreover, several bitcoin charts confirm a growing usage and acceptance:

Last but not least, this research paper on bitcoin's big picture trends identifies 3 marked regimes that have evolved as the bitcoin economy has grown and matured: From an early prototype stage, to a second growth stage populated in large part with "sin" enterprise (i.e., gambling, black markets), to a third stage marked by a sharp progression away from "sin" and toward legitimate enterprises.

In other words, fundamentally, the picture for bitcoin looks very good. This is not only a market for speculators anymore, but one of real users.

We are confident, based on the objective data set outlined above that bitcoin's price rise is not only legitimate, but will continue. That results in a bullish bitcoin price forecast for 2017 and beyond.

From a bitcoin price analysis point of view, the long-term chart (courtesy: Finviz) looks very constructive. Readers should compare the steep rally in 2013 with the steady and solid rise in the last 2 years. As the price of bitcoin took out all-time highs, it suggests it has much more upside potential.

The only 'negative' is that the price rise has accelerated in recent weeks. Investors want to see a steady rise, not a parabolic rise. So we hope there will be a healthy correction sooner rather than later to cool off emotions. Ideally, bitcoin's price corrects to the $1,000 to $1,100 area in the coming weeks.

We could easily see bitcoin's price move to $2,000 in 2017.

This bitcoin price forecast for 2017 originally appeared on InvestingHaven.com

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Bitcoin Price Target For 2017 - Seeking Alpha

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The rise and fall and rise of bitcoin – The Week Magazine

Posted: at 2:49 pm

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A single bitcoin is now worth more than an ounce of gold.

The digital currency crossed that threshold for the first time last Thursday, and at one point on Friday it was trading at $1,292.71 compared to gold at $1,226.89.

Of course, as Quartz noted, "the milestone is inherently arbitrary." If gold was measured by a different unit of weight, its value could be higher or lower. But the symbolism is still significant. An ounce of gold holds a special place in our popular imagination.

And it's an impressive mark for bitcoin to surpass. Back in late 2013, the value of a bitcoin came close to $1,200 but then it crashed spectacularly to $600 in almost no time at all. It briefly stabilized at $800, then it went into a slo-mo slide back to $200 over the course of 2014. Lots of observers wrote off the virtual currency as a failed experiment.

Now bitcoin is back, in defiance of the naysayers. To what do we owe its resurrection? To answer that question, let's go back to bitcoin's beginning.

Bitcoin a highly encrypted form of digital currency was founded on a certain renegade libertarian romanticism. It wasn't controlled by a powerful central government, but by a decentralized network of participants. By 2013, 70 percent of all bitcoin trading went through an exchange called Mt. Gox, founded in Tokyo in 2010 as a way for investors to trade bitcoin for real currencies.

Mt. Gox's CEO, Mark Karpeles, was neck deep in the romanticism of bitcoin. And while Karpeles was, by all accounts, a brilliant software entrepreneur, he also didn't understand the basic security features and best practices your standard financial or software firm uses to protect itself. Sure enough, a massive raid by hackers effectively bankrupted the company in late 2013. That was a huge factor in bitcoin's near-demise.

But the other issue was just that bitcoin was young. Even now, while a bitcoin may be more valuable than an ounce of gold, the amount of economic activity in the world that involves gold is still vastly greater. The total global gold supply adds up to $7 trillion. Bitcoin's total market value is just $20 billion. Bitcoin's smaller economic reach means that the downfall of a massive player like Mt. Gox could torpedo the value of the whole currency.

Bitcoin's resurrection has been more gradual than its initial rise. Bitcoin began bouncing back in mid-2015, and didn't cross the $1,200 threshold until just a few days ago. By contrast, its spike in 2013 from $200 to $1,200 only took a month or two. Today's relatively slower rise is likely a sign that the currency is less a hot new flash in the pan, and actually something gaining credibility with more mainstream institutions.

For instance, there are already exchange traded funds (ETFs) for bitcoin on some financial markets. These instruments allow investors to buy bitcoins without going through the tech-savvy rigamarole of maintaining their own bitcoin account. They just invest their money in the ETF, and the fund handles the rest. Later this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to make a decision whether such on ETF can be sold on the American financial markets.

Another factor in bitcoin's resurrection: the geopolitical turmoil created by Brexit and Donald Trump. Chaos and unrest particularly when it has an anti-elitist, populist bent drives rich people to panic and look for a safe place to stash their money. Gold-standard style investments like bitcoin (or, well, gold) can be pretty attractive to wealthy individuals who worry that currencies backed by governments might become increasingly unreliable when the government is headed by an erratic know-nothing.

But there's yet another factor in bitcoin's resurrection: And it has nothing to do with the virtual currency as a libertarian stateless alternative.

There's also bitcoin the technology, which pioneered the blockchain as a method of digital record-keeping. This is the innovation that allows everyone using bitcoin to agree on how much currency each user has and what transactions they've undertaken all without any centralized financial system keeping track of things.

That innovation has lots of traditional industries and investors pretty excited. Wall Street is an obvious candidate for adopting blockchain technology. But its potential applications are far wider. As the BBC pointed out, you could imagine something as mundane as dentists using blockchain to maintain medical records. A lot of the enthusiasm driving up bitcoin's value is enthusiasm for bitcoin's technology, not its currency.

Under pressure to expand its reach, will bitcoin give up its renegade libertarian ways? Or will mainstream industries and players just copycat the blockchain technology, leaving bitcoin a boutique investment for well-to-do survivalists? Only time will tell.

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The rise and fall and rise of bitcoin - The Week Magazine

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We Love Bitcoin, But Stop Comparing It To Gold – Seeking Alpha

Posted: at 2:49 pm

By Parke Shall

Those that read us know that we have been Bitcoin bulls for quite some time. With the price of 1BTC now approaching $1300, the question of whether or not we are staying in or cashing out has come up several times.

We wanted to write today to inform readers that not only are we staying long bitcoin, but we will, as we have been saying in the past, continue to add small amounts on any dips. We had a short term bitcoin price target of new all-time highs for this year that we reiterated in a previous article out in December 2016. In December of 2016, with bitcoin at $800, we stated that "Bitcoin Would Soar Through $1200 in 2017".

Now, it is time for us to focus on our multiple year long-term outlook for bitcoin. We don't believe that $5000 or even $10,000 is out of the question eventually, though it may take many years for the digital currency to reach that point. Needless to say, we remain bullish.

We know that bitcoin is becoming more and more of a news item over the last couple of weeks, as its price has run up significantly to now over $1200 per BTC. Anytime there's a price movement in any type of security like this, it makes the news. Many times, when penny stocks or other lesser-known securities rise in value, the media covers them without adequate understanding of what they are and how they work. Bitcoin is no different.

It has been getting more and more media coverage this past week yet the media, for some reason, continues to want to compare the price of one BTC to 1 ounce of gold. Yes, it is true that bitcoin has passed 1 ounce of gold in value. What does this mean? Absolutely nothing.

As bitcoin bulls, we would love to sit here and give you some convoluted meaningless answer as to why the price of one bitcoin passing 1 ounce of gold is meaningful, but there is really no common denominator basis of comparison between the two. You can put gold and silver on a ratio because you can reduce both metals to weight. You can't put bitcoin on a ratio with gold because one is a physical item with weight and a somewhat unknown but relatively finite supply and the other is a digital product that exists only online or in cyberspace.

So if you are a member of the financial media and are reading this, stop comparing the price of gold with the price of bitcoin.

Moving on, we could spend many paragraphs and many pages defending bitcoin as a storer of value. We could also, as generally Austrian thinking economists, make the argument that it has no value because it doesn't really exist. We think the answer for the short term is going to be somewhere in between. It exists because people are buying into it (not unlike Federal Reserve notes). It is a storer of value because it is limited in its supply. We have maintained in many of our articles that the major risk to bitcoin is the fact that it exists on an infrastructure that must be in place in order for it to be transacted. Whereas one person can go and hand gold to another person if the entire infrastructure of the world is brought down, bitcoin doesn't exist without our smartphones, our computers, and the Internet.

With this all said, we have written many articles over the last year talking about why would be buying the dip in bitcoin at various circumstances. After the Bitfinex crash, we came out and said that we would be buyers and after that, we wrote that we thought the digital currency was going to easily eclipse $1000 and then move through new highs. So far we have been right on.

Now let's talk about our outlook for the future. Despite bitcoin being incorrectly compared with gold, it continues to come up as both a hedge and a storer of value. Well you can take dispute with either of these, it is quite obvious that the public believes both of these to be appropriate. We do as well. Like any other financial asset that is in demand, it doesn't really matter what the ultimate product is, it only matters what the demand for said product is.

With the big banks and even the central banks working on different ways to incorporate the Blockchain into their business, it is obvious there has been buy-in on a major scale for a bitcoin. Many have argued that other digital currency's may come and take the place of bit coin and we actually believe just the opposite. We believe that because bitcoin was the original digital currency that it is going to have the most staying power and legacy status for many years to come. Other digital currencies may gain value on the fact that bitcoin has value, but there's only going to be one bitcoin at the end of the day.

In a world that is increasingly switching to digital, it is going to be tougher and tougher to make a case against bitcoin as long as large banks and governments continue to buy into the technology. There is no doubt that the blockchain technology is going to be the next step for a number of corporations and potentially a number of governments.

Investors need to realize that 100% of capital is at risk when they are dealing in such a speculative asset with very little track record behind it. With that said, we believe the bitcoin is going to remain in demand, become further accessible to retail spiking demand, and will have its credibility continue to improve going forward. While there are a varying group of long term estimated price ranges for bitcoin between $0 dollars and $1 million per bitcoin, depending on how seriously it is taken as a hedge against the financial system, we certainly don't think that the digital currency is going to stop growing in value anytime soon.

Over the course of its lifetime, we believe bitcoin is still in its extreme infancy and we would not be surprised to see the price eclipse $2000 by the end of the year this year. Further, our long-term targets for BTC remain between $2000 and $5000 for the next year or two. At this point, we may see corrections and we may see some stagnation but ultimately the most important point is that in the finite amount of supply and growing demand are going to continue to push prices much higher in the future. We remain long bitcoin.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BITCOIN.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Bitcoin Exceeds $20 Billion in Market Cap – CryptoCoinsNews

Posted: at 2:49 pm

The soaring gains made by bitcoin in its latest bullish run in 2017 has seen the cryptocurrencys market capitalization now exceed $20 billion for the first time in its history.

Bitcoins price rally and a few stumbles have already seen a dramatic year for the cryptocurrency, less than 3 months in. At the time of publishing, bitcoin is trading at $1,279, $20 away from its all-time high of $1,298 set on Friday, March 3, 2017.

Accordingly, current figures from CoinMarketCap reveals that a total of 109,320 bitcoins traded in a 24-hour period. With approximately 16.2 million bitcoins currently mined and in circulation, the worlds most prominent and valuable cryptocurrency is now valued at a little over $20.6 billion.

Pitting bitcoin against the worlds M1 (liquid money metric) scale on the CIA global list, the cryptocurrency is up a few places to reside at #66 in the rankings, now ahead of Bulgaria and Cuba and below Lithuania.

Bitcoin has now gained over a third in in market capitalization since the last week of 2016, a year which saw the cryptocurrency double in price over the year. The cryptocurrency crossed the $15 billion mark on December 28 last year as price pushed toward the $1,000 milestone.

Having begun the year above the $1,000 mark, bitcoins market cap hit $17.5 billion, before the bullish run hit a brick wall after intervention by Chinas central bank which began investigating bitcoin exchanges in the country. Bitcoin has since persevered. free from theinfluence of the PBOC as Chinese traders took to alternative platforms.

On March 2nd, bitcoin surpassed parity with gold, a milestone for the cryptocurrency that is quickly being regarded as a store of value for investors around the world. Bitcoins gains have led to a positive trend among other cryptocurrencies. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, is nearing a market cap of $2 billion. Dash, third in the list after Bitcoin and Ethereum hit an all-time high market cap of $329 million the same day bitcoin announced it was more valuable than gold.

For a live Bitcoin Price chart, clickhere.

Image from Shutterstock. Charts from BitcoinWisdom and CoinMarketCap.

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Bitcoin Exceeds $20 Billion in Market Cap - CryptoCoinsNews

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