Category Archives: Bitcoin

The Bitcoin Blockchain could offer benefits to banks that are willing to experiment with it.

The modern financial system has a fundamental problem: Its not designed for the Internet. Even though money and transactions are becoming increasingly digitized, we keep using payments rails that were originally designed for paper checks. And, in some ways, the financial system is less than compatible with the online world people are shopping and transacting in.

A good example of this conundrum is how the Internet has affected payments security. JPMorgan Chase, which suffered a data breach this past summer, will likely double its $250 million annual cyber security budget in the next five years. Our payments rails just werent built with advanced persistent threat attacks and malware in mind.

All of the work that people are doing in cyber security, its really people are trying to patch for that problem that our financial system wasnt built for the Internet, Will OBrien, CEO of BitGo, said yesterday at a Money2020 panel on how traditional payments players can dabble in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin was built for the Internet. Strip away the currency aspect and look at the technology behind Bitcoin, and you have the first Internet protocol for storing and exchanging value. And that protocol leverages the Blockchain, the first open-source financial database that records everything that happens on the Bitcoin network and verifies all of that activity with a third party. The implications of the Blockchain technology could go well beyond payments. So there are opportunities for companies beyond Bitcoin startups to leverage it.

Bitcoin is potentially the most important technology innovation of our lifetime. It has such far-reaching potential, Cedric Dahl, CEO of Buttercoin, remarked. The Blockchain has enabled something that has never been possible before: Two people who dont know or trust each other can agree that they trust each other with something.

The Bitcoin Blockchain could be used to verify more than just possession of funds for Bitcoin transactions. It could be leveraged to verify all sorts of records like legal documents. Or it could be used to verify the credit-worthiness of unbanked or underbanked individuals, Adam Ludwin, CEO of Chain.com, commented.

[For more on alternative uses of Bitcoin, check out: Exploring New Use Cases for Bitcoin.]

The real value of the anonymity of Bitcoin is that you dont need to know your customer. The Blockchain can substitute for the credit-worthiness of an individual. It can enfranchise people and bring them on to the financial grid, Ludwin said.

It might not lookas ifthese things are possible yet, as Bitcoin is still in its early days. And Bitcoin companies acknowledge that more innovation is necessary for the Blockchain technology to reach its full potential.

Go here to see the original:
Banks, Bitcoin & the Blockchain

When the cryptocurrency darkcoin launched earlier this year, it distinguished itself from dozens of bitcoin copycats by promising to keep users transactions far more anonymous than its predecessor. Now that promise is being tested in the Internets fastest-growing proving ground for privacy technologies: the online black market for drugs.

Over the last month, two of the dark web markets selling an anonymous, mail-order catalog of narcotics and other contraband have begun supporting darkcoin transactions. On a site called Nucleus, visitors can now use darkcoin to buy LSD, MDMA, and marijuana. On the competing market Diabolus, dealers accept it for cocaine, synthetic stimulants like ethylone and alpha-PVP, and even counterfeit Euros. Those two markets still represent only a tiny fraction of the growing dark web drug economymost of which uses bitcoin exclusively. But darkcoins entrance could signal a new means of transaction in that underground industry, and one thats far harder for law enforcement to trace.

Using [darkcoin] on Diabolus is no more difficult than using bitcoin, and we hope that this currency will receive more adoption because of its superior anonymity, a Diabolus administrator known as Accida wrote on the Reddit forum devoted to dark net markets two weeks ago. Ultimately, Diabolus cares about protecting your security and anonymity, and well consistently take action to maintain it as best we can.

PVP-alpha, marijuana, and ecstacy being sold for darkcoin on the drug site Nucleus. Screenshot: WIRED

Darkcoin is designed to scramble any attempts at blockchain tracing. Darkcoin users can, whenever they want, swap their coins with two other users, a process known as CoinJoin. That exchange is organized by a so-called Master Node, one of the servers that runs the darkcoin network in exchange for periodic payments in the currency. And since that coordination of CoinJoin transactions is protected by encryption, its nearly impossible for an outside observer to match up darkcoin payments with anyones identity.

Despite all of that, darkcoins creator Evan Duffield says hes never intended darkcoin to be used for dark web drug sales. But he cant stop drug vendors from being attracted to its privacy properties. Yes, it was accepted and implemented by these two markets. I cant really control that, he says. The goal has always been to make a currency thats privacy-centric and is more for mass consumer base types of things. Its not just for buying drugs online.

But he still sees Diabolus and Nucleus adoption of darkcoin as a positive sign for his budding currency system. Bitcoin, he points out, got an early boost from Silk Road, which accepted it long before more mainstream vendors like Dell and Overstock.com. Duffield points to dozens of websites that already accept darkcoin payments, many in exchange for private web hosting or VPN services to encrypt and anonymize internet traffic. Early on with bitcoin the only thing you could do with it was gamble and buy drugs. Then it got past that and was accepted on many sites all over the internet, says Duffield. The same thing is happening with darkcoin.

Adoption by the narcotics underground could give darkcoin a needed injection of demand: A speculative bubble brought darkcoins price to more than $13 in May, making it the second-most valuable cryptocurrency after bitcoin at the time. But since then, its exchange rate has plummeted back to less than $2; all existing darkcoins are now worth close to $8 million.

Booms and bust in value, however, have never mattered to the privacy-sensitive dark net economy as much as they do to cryptocurrency speculators. A currencys privacy properties, after all, have little to do with its dollar value, as the black market Silk Road administrator known as the Dread Pirate Roberts said after a bitcoin crash in 2013. Bitcoins foundation, its algorithms and network, dont change with the exchange rate, he wrote in a message at the time. It is just as important to the functioning of Silk Road at $1 as it is at $1,000. That may be even more true of darkcoin, which is specifically designed to allow anonymous transactions.

Since the FBI takedown of the Silk Road in October of last year, next-generation cryptomarkets have been evolving and experimenting, using features like multi-signature transactions and even peer-to-peer selling systems to better protect transactions from surveillance. But bitcoins fundamental privacy problems persist. Darkcoin, along with other anonymous money projects like Dark Wallet and the still-in-development cryptocurrency Zerocoin could change that.

See the original post here:
Online Drug Dealers Are Now Accepting Darkcoin, Bitcoins Stealthier Cousin

BITCOIN FILTER #27
BITCOIN FILTER #27 (Nov 4) BITCOIN FILTER meets every Tuesday night from 6PM to 7PM Decentralized everything. This is the mega trend of our times. Bitcoin incarnates this trend for money...

By: consensus Reality.io

Visit link:
BITCOIN FILTER #27 - Video

Bitcoin Market Manipulation: Recorded in Japan
CRYPTOCURRENCIES MINING ARE LIKELY TO MOVE INTO CORPORATE BANKING. 1. In the 1970s the home computer was used mostly by home hobbyists. 2. In the 1980s the home computer ...

By: 711 3388

See the article here:
Bitcoin Market Manipulation: Recorded in Japan - Video

Balaji Srinivasan on how Bitcoin Accelerates the Evolution of Artificial Intelligence
The present, the good, the bad, and the future of bots trading everything for bitcoin, and replicating themselves too. Here is my essay on Leaf-Cutter Ants, ...

By: Alex Millar

View original post here:
Balaji Srinivasan on how Bitcoin Accelerates the Evolution of Artificial Intelligence - Video

The Bitcoin Group #54 -- FinCen Clarifies, Bitcoin 2.0 in the clear? SEC, CVS, RiteAid and Happy ...
THIS WEEK: ---------------------------- Congrats to Chris Ellis: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/world_passport/ FinCen Clarifies https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/fincen-clarifies-virtual-currency-...

By: World Crypto Network

View post:
The Bitcoin Group #54 -- FinCen Clarifies, Bitcoin 2.0 in the clear? SEC, CVS, RiteAid and Happy ... - Video

Both PayPal eBay are also considering integration of Bitcoin into their payment services
Click on this link http://tinyurl.com/UndergroundBankingSystem Listen, we #39;re on the verge of accepted payment system becoming a mass market-accepted payment system. And when...

By: The Underground System

Continued here:
Both PayPal & eBay are also considering integration of Bitcoin into their payment services - Video

Fiesta presentacin Primer Cajero Robocoin de Compra/Venta de Bitcoin de Espaa.
Hotel One Shot Recoletos 04. Madrid 29 Octubre 2014.

By: Bitcoin Spain

Read more:
Fiesta presentacin Primer Cajero Robocoin de Compra/Venta de Bitcoin de Espaa. - Video

TRANSMISSION 10 : Epicenter Bitcoin
Donate BTC: 19LsH8NPDu5ozG9byojL8CqqWTUHTSb8VG Donate Doge, XDP, or assets to: DHLTxVS1XZ3KeVhLocRWYd9E9WAmosUsrb Donate Viacoin, XCP, or assets to: ...

By: World Crypto Network

Go here to read the rest:
TRANSMISSION 10 : Epicenter Bitcoin - Video

Hufflepuff Making 1000 Bitcoin Profit On PrimeDice.com
Hufflepuff making 1000 Bitcoin Profit on PrimeDice.com Made by daved @ primedice https://primedice.com/?ref=daved Tip jar: 135pPzxSVPuaqDufggbsfb5WYhMX9JSEMk Awesome music in this ...

By: daved PrimeDice

View original post here:
Hufflepuff Making 1000 Bitcoin Profit On PrimeDice.com - Video