Category Archives: Bitcoin

The new Medici?

When online retailer Overstock began accepting bitcoins in January, many in the crypto community cheered the move as an important step in the currency's eventual universal acceptance. What most didn't realize, though, is that buying goods is not all Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne has in mind.

In an Oct. 6 announcement, Byrne revealed that he was planning a completely decentralized financial exchange using blockchain technology. Byrne, whose disdain of Wall Street is well documented, said he thinks this system will ultimately replace the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq.

"We can bring a technology to market that does everything that Wall Street does," he said. "We will have made the biggest financial disruption in 800 years."

Harkening to the advent of modern banking in the Renaissance, Overstock has dubbed its project "Medici." Byrne said it may eventually replace retail as the primary focus of his company.

Read MoreCNBC Explains: How to mine bitcoins on your own

Marketing and bluster aside, Medici offers a clear value proposition: An equities or bonds exchange that cuts out the middlemen could offer greater efficiencies and cost-savingsand allow for the layman to more readily participate in the market.

Although that task may seem daunting from a regulatory standpoint because it seeks to fully upend the current system, Byrne predicted he will be offering the first securities over his exchange in April as "early indications are actually quite positive" from regulators.

Any new exchange will be examined closely by the Securities and Exchange Commission to make sure it satisfies regulatory requirements for fair trading and adequate disclosure, Shadab said.

Also, the technological and regulatory hurdles facing Medici are not necessarily as trivial as Byrne thinks, said Charles Hoskinson, director of the Bitcoin Education Project, who has been involved with several blockchain projects.

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Bitcoin tech and the future of business

Despite its infancy, Bitcoins are being called one of the greatest developments of the new financial services landscape. Here's why.

Ten months ago, I set up my digital wallet and bought my first bitcoin. Weeks later, after five years on Wall Street, I decided to leave behind the bulge-bracket banks and their endless rows of gray and navy suits and join the ranks of forward-thinking disruptors who just might transform the financial services industry forever.

Consideringmy conservative finance background, youre probably wondering why I made the jump. More importantly, you would be smart to ask whether the esteemed institutions I left behind would even consider looking at something as nascent as Bitcoin. Its true that Bitcoin and digital currencies are still in their infancy, but what they lack in age, they more than make up for in potential. Bitcoin might radically alter our concepts of money, store of value, and the means by which assets are exchanged the world over, and therein lies the opportunity-- and the risks.

Today I spearhead investor outreach for the broker-dealer providing sales and marketing for the Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT), a private, open-ended trust that is invested exclusively in Bitcoin and derives its value solely from the price of Bitcoin. I spend my time educating hedge funds, asset managers, family offices, and other investors about the digital currency space. As such, I thought that it would be helpful to provide this audience with a Bitcoin 101. Upon learning about Bitcoin, I think youll come to understand why it has attracted so much attention and investment from the venture capital community and, increasingly, from Wall Street.

So, what is Bitcoin?

First, you need to understand that Bitcoin actually refers to two different things. There is Bitcoin, big B, which refers to the underlying technology and global payment system, and bitcoin, little b, which refers to the digital currency that makes the network and technology work. Id argue that the two cannot be separated.

Bitcoin, the open-source protocol, was released in 2009 by an anonymous programmer who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto. At its core, Bitcoin centers on the concept of the blockchain, a public ledger, which records every transaction on the Bitcoin network. The blockchain employs innovations from cryptography, peer-to-peer technology, and economics to allow two parties who dont know each other to instantly and securely transfer assets -- without a trusted third-party intermediary.

Payments are a good early use case. Jill can send Jack money without a bank clearing the transaction and without Jack ever worrying that Jill has duped him and double spent the same funds with another party. Jill sends funds to Jack by broadcasting a transaction to the Bitcoin network that she wants to transfer funds from her public key (a randomized alpha-numeric address stored on the blockchain) to Jacks public key, and she proves that she is entitled to transfer those funds by providing her corresponding private key. Dont get hung up on the terminology: The public and private keys are just the Bitcoin equivalent of your bank account number and password. The key difference between Bitcoin and banking is that while transactions are public and pseudonymous, the addresses and numbers of bitcoins involved in a given transaction are known to everyone and are recorded on the blockchain.

Bitcoins come into existence through a process called mining, where individuals/institutions who have invested in powerful computers to run the Bitcoin software compete to correctly process transactions on the network. This involves confirming the ownership and movement of Bitcoin between owners. The reward for spending time, energy, and computing processing power? Freshly minted or mined bitcoins.

Mining solves two problems: first, how to fairly distribute the new currency; second, how to incentivize early pioneers to process transactions. The Bitcoin protocol awards miners with new bitcoins according to an algorithm that adjusts predictively over time. There are approximately 13.4 million bitcoins in circulation, which at todays price of US$350 per bitcoin, carries a market capitalization around 4.5 billion dollars. The Bitcoin protocol stipulates that there will only ever be 21 million created, and we can estimate that the 21 millionth bitcoin wont be mined until the year 2140.

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Bitcoin 101: Why It's Attracting Wall Street Investment

Kim Young-won

The Korea Herald

Publication Date : 13-11-2014

A leading Bitcoin organisation founder said Samsung Electronics, a chipmaking powerhouse, will likely benefit the most as the global market for the digital currency Bitcoin grows further down the road.

At least half a billion US dollars, up from $10 million two years ago, will be spent on purchasing Bitcoin mining systems (built using highly efficient chips) worldwide next year or in 18 months, said Peter Vessenes, chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, a US organisation committed to promoting the use of the cybercurrency, at a news conference Tuesday.

The news conference was held on the sidelines of the Daejeon Global Innovation Forum, a global tech conference taking place in the city of Deajeon from Wednesday to Thursday.

Much of the money will go directly to foundries with the highest technology in the world, including Samsung, Intel and TSMC, he added.

Samsung is one of a few chipmakers capable of producing 10-nonometer-class chips.

Since obtaining Bitcoins requires an enormous amount of computing prowess, those who want to get their hands on the digital currency must be equipped with cutting-edge chip technology and computer systems.

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'Samsung to be biggest beneficiary of Bitcoin market'

Bitcoin is used as a currency in some stores, even though it doesnt have the backing of a central bank or government.

Bitcoin has come a long way, from a mysterious and controversial crypto-currency to a widely known medium of exchange.

Although faced with occasional challenges (such as the MtGox bitcoin heist, Silk Road incident or Chinas regulatory stance), the bitcoin community remains unshaken, showing a surprising amount of resilience and trust in the digital currency.

As time passed, many new altcoin variants (alternatives to bitcoin) have sprung to life, the most notable of which are Litecoin and Peercoin. Litecoin is advertised as faster and more efficient, and Peercoin uses the concept of proof-of-stake, which means you gain Peercoins based on the amount of the currency you hold and not on your computers processing power, as is the case with bitcoin.

Bitcoin this year gained enough momentum to become a market-disrupting force. More than 60,000 businesses now accept the currency (Dish Network DISH, +1.33% joined in August), and the value of venture-capital investments made in bitcoin jumped 28% in the second quarter from the first quarter.

So what will be the trends, and challenges, in the years ahead?

Bitcoin may become a new Western Union: This is what one Reddit user said:

Bitcoin and Circle just solved my remittance problem. I live in Belarus, people. I receive my salary here, in a local bank account tied to a debit card in U.S. dollars. One of my big problems is transferring my salary back to my U.S. account with minimal fees so that I can make payments on student loans and such.

With Circle, I can now send any amount of money to my Coinbase account to be withdrawn to my local bank account with negligible transaction fees. This is a game changer, folks. I dont care if bitcoins value drops to $0.10; its now the only way Im going to be transferring money.

Alternative currencies are disrupting the way money transfer is handled worldwide. With services like Circle, money transfers are now becoming instant, secure and free as they should be.

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Your Digital Self: Why youll finally be using bitcoin soon

Codius - Beyond Bitcoin Episode 20
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/beyond-bitcoin-20-codius.

By: Let #39;s Talk Bitcoin!

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Codius - Beyond Bitcoin Episode 20 - Video

Bitcoin Billionaire Hack for iOS No Jailbreak
Features: Tons of Hyperbits No Jailbreak Required Instructions: 1. Download and extract the file. 2. Connect your device to PC and open iTools or iFunbox. 3. Find Bitcoin Billionaire app...

By: iapptecholicgames

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Bitcoin Billionaire Hack for iOS No Jailbreak - Video

Jeffery Tucker On Ending The State With Bitcoin.
Jeffery Tucker stopped for a few minutes to talk about his upcoming book Bit by Bit and the future of technology and its role in ending the state.

By: DudeWheres MyChange

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Jeffery Tucker On Ending The State With Bitcoin. - Video

bitcoin Botswana and coinversity 2014
Our second formal Bitcoin meetup.

By: Alakanani Itireleng

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bitcoin Botswana and coinversity 2014 - Video

Naked News - Bitcoin - Proof of Strip Ep.8
CLICK 2 TWEET! http://ctt.ec/2c7f0 NEW 2 BITCOIN? Learn with my entertaining beginner #39;s guide http://bit.ly/1qDlEFu MY SITE http://bit.ly/1wRFSB4 ~~~~~~ THIS WEEK Crypto Bozo - CEO of...

By: NakedBits.com

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Naked News - Bitcoin - Proof of Strip Ep.8 - Video

Andreas Antonopoulos The Teacher - Bitcoins Gravy Episode 41
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/episode-41-andreas-the-teacher.

By: Let #39;s Talk Bitcoin!

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Andreas Antonopoulos The Teacher - Bitcoins & Gravy Episode 41 - Video