Bitcoin Blows Up, Exchange Rate Jumps Ten-Fold in Recent Weeks. Are we witnessing the birth pangs of a new decentralized global currency?
Or is Bitcoin merely an age-old investment mania repackaged for the digital age? Recent headlines are humming over the booming digital currency Bitcoin—it’s either the next big thing or the digital equivalent of Tulipomania. Why Bitcoin scares banks and governments. The virtual currency Bitcoin, which last week reached $147 for a single coin.
Photograph by Zach Copley Among the many unpleasant discoveries made by those who stashed their cash in Cypriot banks is that the island's government could stop them moving their money elsewhere. Capital controls are supposed to be a thing of the past, a figment of the pre-globalised world. But it turns out that when banks are threatened, the gloves come off. One of the side-effects of this rude awakening seems to have been a surge of interest in a virtual currency called Bitcoin. The Bitcoin phenomenon is one of the most intriguing things to have happened in cyberspace since the invention of the peer-to-peer networking that undermined the music business and enabled developments such as Wikileaks. To the average punter, who knows nothing of cryptography, this sounds like a scam.
"The root problem with conventional currency," wrote Nakamoto in 2009, "is all the trust that's required to make it work. Bitcoin value surpasses $100 — is this another bubble? The value of a single Bitcoin surpassed $100 today, a huge milestone for the virtual currency.
But with its crazy rise in the past few months, it’s time to start seriously wondering if Bitcoin is in a bubble. Bitcoin is a virtual, decentralized currency that no government or central bank controls. As of this report, a single Bitcoin is trading at $104.50 on Mt. Gox, the largest Bitcoin exchange. In January, the currency was trading at $15 a pop. The currency’s rise has been bolstered by several major announcements in the past six months by large companies.
Daily chart: A Bit expensive. What Is Bitcoin and What Can I Do With It? I think there is a lot of odd questions and misinformation about bitcoins that people still don't understand. 1.
While exchanges have been hacked (think of these like stock trading companies but they only buy and sell bitcoins) the base protocol is still secure and is in itself a form of security. 2. If you want you can keep your bitcoin wallet (your bitcoin bank account) stored locally. For the security crazy this might mean keeping a USB stick with a minimal linux install should they want to access their account. 3. 4. 5. Also I don't know if I saw this information anywhere but it IS magnitudes greater to mine bitcoins with your GPU's then your CPU's.
Bitcoin. An optimistic theory of Bitcoin as a 'hedge against the entire global currency system' Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy's Last Safe Haven. One of the oddest bits of news to emerge from the economic collapse of Cyprus is a corresponding rise in the value of Bitcoin, the Internet’s favorite, media-friendly, anarchist crypto-currency.
In Spain, Google (GOOG) searches for “Bitcoin” and downloads of Bitcoin apps soared. The value of a Bitcoin went up to $78. Someone put out a press release promising a Bitcoin ATM in Cyprus. Far away, in Canada, a man said he’d sell his house for BTC5,362. Bitcoin was created in 2009 by a pseudonymous hacker who calls him or herself Satoshi Nakamoto (and who might be several people). Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% There are 10,952,975 Bitcoins in circulation. A dollar bill has a serial number and travels from buyer to seller. How did they get there? How is this different from PayPal (EBAY)? Bitcoin shrugs all this off. Bitcoin is no more arbitrary than derivatives or credit default swaps. Maybe Bitcoin’s devotees are right, and it’s the currency of the future.
But Bitcoins didn’t go away. A Guide to Bitcoin Mining: Why Someone Bought a $1,500 Bitcoin Miner on eBay for $20,600. With the price of bitcoins skyrocketing, mining is suddenly big business, so enticingly big that one wannabe miner was willing to pay a 1,333 percent premium to get his (or her) foot in the door of this wildly lucrative bitcoin bonanza.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the bitcoin gold rush. The craziest part? This wasn’t an auction for a physical, working, ready-to-ship bitcoin mining machine from Avalon, which claims to be the first to develop turnkey, bitcoin-specific mining computers for sale. For $20,600 (bidding started at a reasonable $500), the lucky winner only received a place in line and the promise that an actual (pre-ordered) miner will be delivered sometime next month. If that sounds ridiculous, well, it’s because it quite possibly is. But clearly there are bitcoin-savvy folks betting that paying 13 times the price of a machine will actually pay off. How bitcoin mining works Click to enlarge: How bitcoin works, by Joshua J. Anyone can technically become a miner. Bitcoin. Decentralized cryptocurrency Bitcoin (₿) is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash.
It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.[8] Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions, its high electricity consumption, price volatility, thefts from exchanges, and the possibility that bitcoin is an economic bubble.[14] Bitcoin has also been used as an investment, although several regulatory agencies have issued investor alerts about bitcoin.[15] History Creation. Expensify Now Offers Support For Bitcoin, An Alternative To PayPal For International Contractors. Expensify has announced it is now supporting Bitcoin to give international contractors an alternative to PayPal and the high fees associated with the service.
Bitcoin is an online currency that has gained international acceptance and recently the support of Silicon Valley Bank through a partnership with CoinLab and its deal with Mt. Gox, the owner of the world’s dominant Bitcoin exchange. CoinLab will be Mt. Gox’s exclusive partner in the United States and Canada. The World's First Bitcoin ATM Is in Cash-Strapped Cyprus. Yep, that's a bitcoin ATM.
Via TDV's release. Charging ahead of the bitcoin start-up stampede, Jeff Berwick (Founder of Stockhouse.com and TDV Media), has announced the debut of Bitcoin ATM, with hope to launch its first machine in Cyprus. This couldn't be more timely, as Antreas Artemis, head of the island nation's largest bank, has suddenly resigned amidst a banking crisis in the small Mediterranean country.
To try to quell the crisis, which has led some to speculate that Cyprus might make a disastrous exit from the eurozone, the country will now enforce weekly withdrawal limits. Banks, meanwhile, are closed until Thursday, and Cyprus's finance minister has said that bank accounts with 100,000 euros or more may see up to 40 percent of those funds converted into bank shares. An ATM powered by bitcoin might be the answer, or so sayeth its ambitious creators.
World's First Bitcoin ATM To Open In Cyprus, Of Course.