Will Bitcoin Be Used To Fund Terrorism

 

One of the charges that has been levied against Bitcoin is that it is involved in the funding of terrorism. In the current media, such a charge is highly damaging, but is it entirely without foundation? In an article titled “‘Bitcoin and the Charity of Violent Physical Struggle,’ supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) called for terrorism-supporters around the world to fund a global jihadist campaign by using Bitcoin. The blog advises ISIS on how Bitcoin can facilitate the anonymous transfer that suit the needs of an army in jihad. However, the pro-ISIS blog that suggested the funding move did not take the time to consider if Bitcoin was Sharia compliant, something more hardcore Islamic fundamentalists will undoubtedly want to consider.

The pro-ISIS blogpost stokes fears around the world that Bitcoin will be used for terrorist funding, though it is just a suggestion and ISIS is not currently accepting Bitcoin donations at all. In February this year, the Canadian Government warned that Bitcoin could be used as a means of funding terrorism. Indeed, last May, the US Government’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office stated that there was a level of concern that: “The introduction of virtual currency will likely shape threat finance by increasing the opaqueness, transactional velocity, and overall efficiencies of terrorist attacks.”

The article, Bitcoin and the Charity of Violent physical struggle, advocates the encryption of transactions by the means of Dark Wallet, Thus making it harder for state agencies fighting terrorism to track the transactions. The post later goes on to explain that: “This allows our brothers stuck outside of the ardh Dawlatul-Islam to avoid government taxes along with secretly fund the Mujahideen with no legal danger upon them.” It then goes on to remind Muslims of their need to give to charity, and then seeks to draw a similarity between this sunnah and funding terrorism.

“This system has the potential to revive the lost sunnah of donating to the Mujahideen, it is simple, easy, and we ask Allah to hasten its usage for us.”

 So, what does this mean for Bitcoin? Not what you might think! Let us look, for a moment, at where terror groups receive funding and why they are facilitated to operate. Let me then suggest that one solution to funding of terrorism may well turn out to be Bitcoin. One of the main weapons used to combat terrorism is the targeting of finance. Terrorists with modern weapons are far more effective, particularly in poorer countries, than uneducated and poorly funded fighters. It must be stated that one of the main sources of funding for terrorists is…. governments!

The late Colonel Gadaffi used massive amounts of Libyan oil money to fund many organisations, including, The Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam, Tupamaros, 19th of April Movement and Sandinista National Liberation Front in the Americas, the ANC among others in Africa, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Action Directe, ETA, the Red Brigades, and the Red Army Faction in Europe, and the Armenian Secret Army, Japanese Red Army, Free Aceh Movement, and Moro National Liberation Front in Asia.  Joseph Stalin funded the North Korean Army, he also provided Adolf Hitler with significant funds in the early days of the Nazi party.  The use of terror as a method of control within the USSR must also not be underestimated. Stalin had a policy of funding Communist Party activities throughout the world, something that Chinese communist also emulated over the decades.

When the USSR invaded Afghanistan the American CIA trained and armed the Taliban, facilitating them to carry out a campaign against the Soviet army. It is undoubtedly, not the only terror group that the US has, on various occasions, assisted throughout the world. There is indeed a fine line between freedom fighter and terrorist; it is often simply a matter of perspective. But, what have all of the above examples got in common? Well, for one thing, most of the organizations have been either stood down or defeated. One other they all have in common is that all of the above examples happened before Bitcoin, the funding they received was in the form of bullion, local currencies, arms and/or training. We know that the organizations were funded because of admissions made. Bitcoin can indeed be used to fund terrorism, but there will be a path; the path may well be encrypted, but there will still be a path. It is this writer’s opinion that Bitcoin will present tools that the state may well choose to use to track terrorist funding.

There is, of course, another matter to be considered. Many financial services providers allow workers to send home money. From London to certain African countries can cost as much as 12.5%. For an economic migrant, sending a portion of their wages home, this is almost criminal. Bitcoin allows almost free money transfers. Not all criminals wear masks, many wear suits. If ISIS is looking at Bitcoin as a means of funding terrorist activity, they are looking at Bitcoin in the same way that Western Union and Visa are looking at it. ISIS is looking for funding and in this it has nothing to hide, doesn’t need to hide its interest for fear of commercial sensitivities.

I have, over the years, visited several mosques including the very beautiful Blue Mosque in Istanbul. I was made feel welcome. I have also visited synagogues, I again felt welcome. Terrorism is not a matter of religion. It is a matter of power. The powerful must never be allowed to target the weak as a means to achieve their own objectives.

Source : http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com

How Coinalytics is Building the Bloomberg for Bitcoin

As the tales of nearly every entrepreneur and enthusiast illustrate, it’s not hard to become fascinated with bitcoin and digital currency.

Usually, bitcoin believers tell a familiar story about how they discovered cryptocurrency, including the moment of realization that lead them to become entirely engrossed in its untapped potential. Still, while there are those who seek to capitalize by building and innovating in the bitcoin ecosystem, others aim to use their understanding to benefit financially from what remains an emerging market.

For many, bitcoin’s price is inseparable from bitcoin the technology. According to CoinDesk’s State of Bitcoin Q2 report, bitcoin’s price is a popular subject. For example, four of the top 10 most-read CoinDesk stories in the second quarter of 2014 related to bitcoin’s price.

The popularity of stories on price suggests that many bitcoin enthusiasts are seeking to better understand the market as investors. But, in order to do that, they need tools that go beyond the headlines to indicate the underlying health of the market.

A startup called Coinalytics is just one destination that aims to cater to this burgeoning market. As Fabio Federici, founder of Coinalytics, told CoinDesk:

“[Coinalytics] wanted to answer this simple question, basically. Why is the price going up, and why is the price going down?”

Early beginnings

Coinalytics began in Germany, where Federici, a Switzerland native, participated in Startup Weekend, Berlin.

That event encourages participants to try new things. During the early stages of the competition Federici and his two teammates realized that bitcoin was interesting, but the timing wasn’t right for a project aimed at the masses.

Federici recalls:

“Looking the numbers at the time, having a consumer product – there wasn’t enough traction.”

The early Coinalytics idea was to take a number of data sources that were freely available and make them more useful for analysis and application.

The Startup Weekend team built a mock-up and a running prototype within 48 hours that collected data and displayed price. Their approach and final result netted the project an award for “Most Innovative Idea” at the competition.

From idea to action

Inspired by his success in Berlin, Federici decided to forgo his MBA studies in Europe to head to Silicon Valley. While attending various bitcoin meetups in the area, he met 500 Startups’ partner Sean Percival.

At the time, Percival had recently announced 500 Startups’ next batch would include bitcoin startups, and that he would be mentoring them. Coinalytics was eventually accepted into 500 Startups’ Batch 9, which included five bitcoin companies in total.

Federici told CoinDesk that the startup accelerator allowed Coinalytics to build a strong product, saying:

“We started working on the analytics and gathering all the data that’s around. We’ve spent a lot of time on the back end, on the infrastructure to make sure it is easy for us to add new data streams.”

By 500 Startups Demo Day in July, Coinalytics had developed a dashboard as well as infrastructure to let users add new types of data to its platform.

Coinalytics CEO Fabio Federici pitching his company to investors at 500 Startups Demo Day.

The company is currently using information culled from the block chain, prices from many exchanges and sentiment from social media, among various sources of data.

Coinalytics also brought on two other founders during 500 Startups – Bill Gleim; a former software engineer at Google, and James Edwards; previously a data architect for Amazon Web Services – to peer deeper into bitcoin’s data structures.

“The next step is going to be doing deeper analytics on the block chain itself – where we see a big gap right now,” said Federici.

He added that Coinalytics is going to focus on building what the company calls ‘entities’ in order to show connections between addresses on the block chain.

This will show users how bitcoin flows through the system,  a different view than that of the block chain. “[It] won’t show every transaction, but [it will] at least show connections, how the bitcoin flows between entities,” said Federici. 

Bitcoin’s Bloomberg

Still, data collection for bitcoin-related metrics back in November 2013 might have seemed novel at the time. But now, there are now several other startups trying to become the source for bitcoin analytics – and many existing financial services businesses that could be interested as well.

However, Coinalytics thinks its solution will continue to offer a unique perspective into the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.

Federici likes to tell people that Coinalytics is “the Bloomberg for bitcoin”.

Bloomberg has been very successful selling data for financial markets, and the news and information giant could eventually be competition for Coinalytics should it ever get into the digital currency business. In fact, it is already showing bitcoin prices on its well-known Bloomberg terminals.

Federici said he’s not concerned about a possible rivalry, however. Rather, the phrase is just a way to easily explain what Coinalytics does, since bitcoin is still new to many in the financial world.

He added:

“’Bloomberg for bitcoin’ is context for investors. A lot of investors are not 100% into bitcoin. And bitcoin is still hard to get. This helps to explain what we are building.”

While Coinalytics has competition from startups like TradeBlock, which recently raised $2.8m from Andreesen Horowitz, Barry Silbert and others, Federici says there is space for many companies to help answer data-based questions about bitcoin.

“There will be ways to figure out a niche,” he said.

The Coinalytics pricing dashboard compares differences – and opportunities – across bitcoin exhcnages

The startup plans to reamain in the Bay Area now that its 500 Startups session is over. Coinalytics has found interest, for example, from other bitcoin companies in the region that don’t have the time to collect and analyze bitcoin-related datasets.

Federici said:

“Basically, [the companies] don’t have the data themselves, so they want somebody to focus on that and figure out either patterns in the data or interesting information they can use. “

Coinaltyics hasn’t announced any big companies as customers yet. But, the startup seems confident it can provide insight for traders, venture capitalists and bitcoin entrepreneurs trying to profit and create products within the industry. 

Coinalytics is currently in private beta. Early access signup to the platform is available on its website.

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

Money20/20 Announces Bitcoin Promotion and Hackthon 

 

Money20/20 is entering its third year in a big way. As one of the leading financial-anything events in the industry, Money20/20 attracts thousands of attendees from the biggest companies in the industry. Though Money20/20 is a payments and financial services conference first and foremost, the innovative properties of Bitcoin have unquestionably become a significant part of said industry. This year, Money20/20 has built a dedicated (Bit)coin World to recognize the progress made by the fledgling industry. The keynote speakers for (Bit)coin World are none other than Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, To put things in perspective, only around 10% of the speakers lined up for the conference are in any way related to the Bitcoin industry. Money20/20, of course, accepts Bitcoin for registration costs and has done so in previous years as well. What you might not have known, though, is that Money20/20 held onto their bitcoins instead of converting them to Fiat. Money20/20 is now giving those bitcoins back to the community.

Money20/20 Offers Bitcoin To Registrants

This week only, all new registrants will receive 0.1 BTC as a gift. Money2020 decided to offer this unique incentive to conference participants after executing a similar program with existing registrants. Last month, Money20/20 sent out a survey to the several thousand registered guests and offered a 0.1 BTC optional incentive for completing the survey. Money20/20 revealed that the majority of registered attendees are VP-level or above, with a plurality at C-level or above. 29% of respondents to the survey included a Bitcoin address to claim their prize. Money20/20 is offering this 0.1 BTC incentive to show their continued support of Bitcoin and they expect mid-August registration numbers to rise as a result of the unique promotion. Money20/20′s promotion will run until the end of this week. The organizers of Money20/20 noticed that year after year, their cryptocurrency events were always standing room only.

“Since our inaugural event in 2012, bitcoin and the associated cryptocurrency technology has become one of the most prolific areas of innovation  in the industry—and Money20/20 has made a conscious and concerted effort to ensure its coverage.”

Money20/20 Hackathon

Earlier in August, Money 20/20 announced the ‘Money20/20 Hackathon” to be held in the days prior to the start of theMoney 20/20 conference, which officially kicks off on November 2nd. Teams of one to five members will compete for $125,000 in cash prizes, and the overall winning team will have the priceless opportunity to present their project to conference attendees through Money 20/20′s Launchpad360 program. The teams are tasked with creating applications based on the application programming interfaces (APIs) from “10 of the top innovators in the financial services sector.” Hopeful developers will be creating never-before-seen implementations from the APIs provided. The APIs come from companies on all ends of the fintech spectrum: from companies like Blockchain.info and Chain.com to more established service providers like Mastercard and PayPal.

By working with Money 20/20, Chain.com and Blockchain.info will be at the forefront of Bitcoin’s latest push into the mainstream spotlight. While Bitcoin companies are always present at specified Bitcoin conferences, this year’s Money 20/20 conference will be one of the first times that two, not just one, Bitcoin companies’ APIs will be offered to developers on the same even playing field as Mastercard’s and PayPal’s. Money20/20 is offering a $250 travel and lodging stipend to qualified participants, but conference registration is not included. CCN will be in attendance at Money20/20; we are thrilled to see how the Hackathon winner incorporates Bitcoin.

Source : http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com

Bitcoin Lender BTCJam Reports No Customer Funds Lost in Hack

BTCJam has suffered an apparent security breach that affected an unknown number of users.

The peer-to-peer lender was quick to reassure its clients that no bitcoins had been lost from their accounts. A spokesperson said the incident was the result of a hack at its email provider, which allowed the attacker to access funds belonging to customers with low security settings.

BTCJam started experiencing some issues over the weekend and was offline on Sunday.

BTCJam reassures users

The latest issue was reported by a BTCJam user on Reddit. The user said the site was down and support had not yet responded to requests for assistance.

Chief product officer Gustavo Guida responded to the thread saying the company was working to get its services back up.

“The majority of our coins are in our cold storage and no users will lose any bitcoins at all,” he added.

Guida said BTCJam is investigating the issue. A few hours later it was up and running again; Guida apologised for the downtime.

The company later posted on its public blog:

“A recent hack at our email provider Mailjet allowed a hacker to gain access to some of the transactional emails of BTCJam for a period of two hours. Through this, he was able to initiate unauthorized transactions from a small amount of users who did not have Two Factor Authentication enabled.
The problem is now solved and no users have lost any bitcoins as a result of this.”

The article added that as a security measure, the lender would move the most critical transactional emails to its own server and strongly encouraged users to enable two-factor authentication.

Investigating the situation

Shortly after services were restored, Guida said the company managed to identify just “a few” invalid transactions.

“We are finishing our investigations and will reinstate the affected accounts back to the previous state so no bitcoins will be lost at all,” he said.

In the meantime other users reported downtime and suspicious transactions, but for the time being it appears this was a minor issue which did not cause any significant disruptions or losses.

BTCJam is a startup based in San Francisco with the goal to bring peer-to-peer lending to a global audience. Using bitcoin allows BTCJam to approve loans and transfer the funds almost instantly regardless of location. The concept can also be used to provide quick loans to unbanked people in developing regions.

Source : http://www.coindesk.com 

Op-Ed: No, Bitcoin Was Not Created By The CIAinShare1

An unfortunate reality of the internet is that anyone can make any claim and if it is outrageous or controversial enough, they will get attention.

Recently, a site appeared on the Internet claiming to be a group of “hacktivists” called CIAproject.org, which feels the need to repeatedly remind us that they are “not the CIA”  that claims Bitcoin was created by the CIA or the NSA. Their claims were then reported on as something that might have some validity by the ibtimes and one of our competitors.

While I am careful about using the phrase conspiracy theory, since that is often used to discredit legitimate theories of conspiracies (see NSA spying as one example of a “conspiracy theory” that ended up being true, COINTELPRO is another). However, in this case, the negative connotation behind the phrase seems appropriate.

I should note that I have no issues with true hacktivists, so long as they present the evidence obtained during their deeds. While some are misguided, I see the majority of them as virtual Robin Hoods, taking a bite out of the power structure in a way they are unable to respond to. The problem is that this "hacktivist" group has done very little actual hacking, and is posting wild claims without any real evidence.

What Evidence Do They Have?

CIAproject's “evidence” consists of four connections, each of which is more tenuous than the one before. First, they point to Satoshi Nakamoto's name. As they state, the name roughly translates to Central Intelligence. But as ibtimes points out, it is also a fairly common Japanese name.

That flimsy piece of evidence is the theory's crown jewel, but there is no evidence that the pseudonym chosen by Satoshi sharing similarities with the CIA is anything but a coincidence.

The second piece of evidence brought by the CIAproject is Satoshi never revealed anything that would reveal his identity. This, they say, is evidence of intelligence training. However, it ignores the fact that thousands (if not millions) of people manage to remain anonymous online everyday. The actual hacktivist group Syrian Electronic Army has pissed off enough powerful people that billionaires would love to find out who they are and shut them down. They have been unable to. It seems unlikely that the Syrian Electronic Army is also a CIA puppet group.

The group also claims that since Gavin Anderson spoke to Satoshi for years but never met him in person or talked to him on the phone implies that he is actually “they” and that they are an intelligence community. The only thing I will say to this is that I have had internet friends that I talked to for years, on message boards and elsewhere, without ever meeting or talking on the phone. I suspect many reading this have had similar experiences. I don't suspect all of them are CIA agents.

The third piece of evidence they bring is that the online forum Bitcointalk, which was frequented by Satoshi Nakamoto and continues to be the most popular Bitcoin forum on the web, censors talk about Bitcoin being a CIA project.

That claim seems either false or exaggerated. There are numerous threads on the possibility, and a quick search through the forum will reveal them. Bitcoin talk does occasionally delete threads that are repeats of topics already discussed multiple times, and that may be the reason that some topics were deleted (although we have heard no such claims elsewhere).

And the last piece of evidence is so flimsy, it hardly makes sense at all. CIAproject claims that since Satoshi decided to use SHA-256 rather than PNRG, which was a more popular cryptographic algorithm at the time but was later revealed to have CIA and NSA backdoors installed, that means Satoshi must have had some inside information that PNRG was compromised and therefore went with SHA-256.

A few points here. PRNG was in fact more popular than SHA-256, but that doesn't mean PRNG would have been the default choice. First off, PRNG had some public issues, even back in 2008 when Bitcoin was created. Its OpenSSL was compromised on Linux (the OS of choice of early Bitcoin adopters) back in 2008. Furthermore, it was public knowledge at least back to 2007 that the NSA was promoting and modifying PRNG. Even back then, people who paid attention to these things were aware of PRNG's security issues and that the NSA was publicly pushing for it to be the standard. We may not have known for a fact that the NSA was putting back doors into PRNG, but a lot of people suspected as much. So, that Satoshi didn't pick the security algorithm that was favored by the NSA and suspected of being (and later confirmed) compromised by the NSA is actually evidence that Satoshi was not a CIA operative.

So, if their evidence is so flimsy, why post the video at all? For its trouble, CIAproject got mentioned in both a popular crypto website and a popular mainstream business site. It seems likely that the entire post was a ploy to grab some eyeballs.

Who Is CIAProject?

The site also claims Reddit is a CIA project because it banned “247 News” which is a site that looks to be funded and run by CIAproject itself. They claim this is enough evidence to declare Reddit “officially” a CIA project.

The site also has many sub categories, ranging the normal gamut of usual conspiracy theories. Everything from 9/11 truth to the Bilderbergs, to religious groups. There is an entire section dedicated to “Jews” and another to “Hindus” and yet another to “Buddhists”. There is no “Christian” or “Catholic” categories, although there is a “Cathoic” category.

All of the categories are empty except for the Reddit and Bitcoin categories. Those are filled only with the “evidence” mentioned above.

The site's forum is similarly devoid of content, with the entirety of the posts coming from the admin.

But perhaps most damming of all to the site's intentions is its homepage. Completely devoid of anything useful, it has a search engine that only searches its connected sites. Below the search engine are links to fake sites claiming to be the “#1 Bitcoin Wallet” and “#1 Bitcoin Exchange[.]” The intention of these sites are unclear as there is no where to sign up. It also has bitcoin search engines that seem to have no actual connection to Bitcoin, a “Bitcoin bank” and a site called “iBit Tunes”.

Now, why would a site that is trying to warn us about Bitcoin's connection to the CIA push for more Bitcoin use and adoption ,especially in such a nonsensical way? It is not as if keeping Bitcoins in their wallet would stop the CIA from following transactions on the blockchain.

The fact of the matter is, despite their claims that the site was funded by an (unnamed) Non Profit Organization and that they are “Not The CIA” we know nothing about who is actually funding this site. It could potentially be the CIA spreading “FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty and Dissent) or a young teenager looking to make his mark on the internet using wild claims, or it could be potential scammers, hoping to somehow get people's Bitcoin.

The site is protected by a Whois guard and was registered on August 1st.

In the end, it hardly matters if the CIA or the NSA or whomever created Bitcoin. The math is there and it is open source. Anyone can look at it and verify its security. We know for a fact that the Tor network was created by the CIA, it wanted a private and anonymous internet for its operatives. That hasn't stopped the application from being very useful for people wanting to avoid organizations like the CIA. If Satoshi really was the CIA, then they have created something that they can no longer control. Sure, they can watch the blockchain, but we have known that since Bitcoin's inception.

So What Does It All Mean?

Probably nothing. Simply that there is a person or group of people out there who either legitimately believe the CIA created Bitcoin and Reddit, or someone wanted ot see how much interest they could drum up with bogus claims. In either case, these supposed "hacktivists" need to show some evidence if they want to be taken seriously by anyone any media outlet willing to do ten minutes of research.

Source : http://cointelegraph.com

First Data: Gyft Deal Will Help Us Evaluate Bitcoin

Traditional payments giant First Data sent a ripple through the bitcoin community last month when the company announced it had acquired mobile gift card provider and long-time bitcoin industry advocate Gyft as part of a deal with undisclosed terms.

Following the announcement, bitcoin’s vibrant reddit community was quick to begin speculating as to what the news could mean for Gyft’s long-popular service and what, if anything, the acquisition inferred about First Data‘s interest in the bitcoin space.

In a new interview with CoinDesk, Senior Vice President of First Data Prepaid Solutions Mark Putman has addressed these concerns, confirming that, though the focus of the acquisition was Gyft’s mobile gift card platform, the company intends to take advantage of Gyft’s position in the bitcoin space to further its knowledge of emerging payment methods.

Putman told CoinDesk:

“We’re going to be watching extremely closely. [...] Getting the company comfortable with bitcoin would be the approach we’re taking right now.”

Despite fears expressed by some Gyft users, Putman said that First Data has no plans to alter Gyft’s existing service, adding: “We’re focused on making sure that [service] continues to work like it has in the past for Gyft.”

Notably, First Data earns more than $10bn in annual revenue through processing fees, selling and leasing point-of-sale (POS) devices and debit network fees, among other revenue streams.

Observing the industry

Putman went on to suggest that First Data has been watching developments in the bitcoin space, but that this interest doesn’t currently extend beyond its broader desire to maintain an understanding of new payment methods.

Still, Putman indicated that the company’s interest in Gyft has lead to more internal research on bitcoin, stating:

“I would definitely say [our bitcoin research] accelerated as a result of the acquisition.”

For now, Putman says, First Data will continue to work with fellow Atlanta-based bitcoin merchant processing provider BitPay to convert bitcoins it receives to US dollars.

Notably, Putman declined to comment on BitPay’s business model and what assessment, if any, the company has made about its potential to offer a similar service to the bitcoin space. First Data offers a number of processing services to its clients, with an emphasis on POS devices.

Putman also suggested his company may have some reservations about bitcoin as an emerging payment method, mentioning fraud and regulation as issues that are important to any business decision First Data makes.

Hands-off approach

Vinny Lingham, co-founder and CEO of Gyft, told CoinDesk that his San Francisco-based company was attracted to the deal because of the synergy he felt between First Data and Gyft’s corporate cultures.

Lingham told CoinDesk:

“It’s a great bunch of guys, and we like working with them, and that’s what you look for in your partners.”

Putman suggested that First Data, in turn, aims to allow Gyft to continue to build its budding platform, and that its aim is to not interrupt what it already feels is an emerging company in its own right.

Lingham went on to note First Data’s successful acquisition of the Andreessen Horowitz-backed POS startup Clover as another influence on the deal.

Expanding its reach

Overall, Lingham voiced optimism that the acquisition will empower Gyft to enroll new merchants, thus continuing to enhance the quality of its mobile gift card offering for general consumers and bitcoin customers.

For example, Lingham said that this validation would help encourage more small businesses and major retailers to join the platform, though he foresees that issues will still arise on an individual basis owing to the nature of his company’s core offering.

Lingham concluded:

“Having a company like First Data behind us saying that this is the future, and pushing us as the de-facto wallet standard for gift card delivery was a big part of why we wanted to get their stamp of approval. It just made a lot of sense.”

 Source : http://www.coindesk.com

Viacoin Team Implements Smart Contract Protocol Built on Altcoin Block Chain

The first decentralized smart contracts protocol built on top of an altcoin block chain is now live.

ClearingHouse, a descendent of Counterparty, was created by the team behind viacoin and has been in active development since the alt first launched last month. The team has attracted top talent in the bitcoin space, most notably Bitcoin Core developer and Coinkite advisor Peter Todd who has been hired to work on his Tree Chains concept.

On 11th August, the viacoin development team announced new details regarding ClearingHouse’s internal currency, XCH, and information on how users can exchange viacoins for the new currency. Notably, a new Web-based client interface that implements the ClearingHouse protocol, Clearwallet, was also made public.

CoinDesk spoke with viacoin developer BTCDrak, who said that because the ClearingHouse protocol is built on top of the viacoin block chain, certain structural and political complications that have previously plagued decentralized contract platforms are largely sidestepped.

He explained:

“Because ClearingHouse and viacoin are part of the same project, the viacoin block chain will always accommodate ClearingHouse’s needs.”

He added that, in the past, the teams behind projects like Counterparty have faced pressure from bitcoin’s development community that ultimately impeded progress. Using viacoin as a basis, ClearingHouse-based projects can avoid these obstacles entirely.

First look at smart contract protocol

Clearwallet is the first implementation of ClearingHouse, giving users a decentralized environment for conducting various contracts. No keys are stored on the server and all transactions happen purely between the two parties.

As shown in the image above, the simple user interface currently offers an asset marketplace, a betting terminal and section for decentralized games. Clearwallet also offers a live chat box, with early adopters already investigating the implementation.

In its original announcement, the viacoin-ClearingHouse development team announced that the exchange rate between VIA and XCH would be 100 XCH per VIA. A 45-day sale period has already begun, with a diminishing exchange rate that will end at 85 XCH for each viacoin.

According to BTCDrak, exchange volume is up and nearly 230,000 viacoins have been converted to XCH, or roughly 143 BTC at press time. Users have already executed several trades in Clearwallet’s VIA/XCH marketplace.

Looking ahead, reputation and identity support will be implemented that add further layers of complexity to how the protocol can be leveraged. As the team noted in the blog post, this includes the creation of decentralized organizations, facilitation of online polls, the sale of goods and services and even the development of new cryptocurrencies.

Decentralized platforms grow in number

The ClearingHouse protocol represents the latest entry in a group of decentralized contract platforms, which also includes Counterparty and the off-block chain decentralized contract network BitHalo. Ripple Labs is also working on its own smart contracts platform, Codius.

Beyond contracts, decentralized platforms are attracting attention for their intrinsic security and appeal to a broad segment of the bitcoin community. It’s this level of grassroots support that has made such projects largely possible.

Among the projects taking shape in this space is BitcoinJ developer Mike Hearn’s decentralized crowdfunding platform Lighthouse. While no date has been given, the platform is expected to launch sometime in the next month.

Commerce has also proved to be a major area for decentralized development. Peer-to-peer marketplace OpenBazaar, created by Brian Hoffman and based on the Toronto Bitcoin Expo Hackathon winner DarkMarket, seeks to bring the principals behind decentralized actions to consumer-to-merchant interaction.

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

Rakuten US Subsidiary Begins Accepting Bitcoin

Rakuten Super Logistics, an order logistics company owned by Japan-based e-commerce giant Rakuten, has begun accepting bitcoin payments for its shipping services.

The integration comes nearly a month after speculation began that the e-commerce company could soon leverage bitcoin as a payment method. In July, CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said in a speech that he believes Rakuten will adopt bitcoin “sooner or later”.

As reported by Tech In Asia, Rakuten Super Logistics cited consumer demand as the reason for the decision.

Company CEO Joseph DiSorbo said that by adopting bitcoin, the company has opened itself up to previously untapped customer bases, noting:

“We are working to apply this new technology to the benefit of market participants, especially those who can’t now easily access the global e-commerce marketplace.”

Notably, Rakuten Super Logistics chose BitPay as its merchant processing provider. Speaking to CoinDesk, BitPay Executive Chairman Tony Gallippi said that the deal brings bitcoin awareness to a signifcant international market, while also highlighting bitcoin’s capabilities for business-to-business (B2B) merchants.

Gallippi told CoinDesk:

‘The B2B opportunities for bitcoin are largely untapped today, and companies like Rakuten Super Logistics are at the forefront of B2B bitcoin adoption.”

A retail giant stirs

Rakuten is one of the largest companies to demonstrate an interest in bitcoin to date, reporting $5bn in annual revenue and $31bn in assets as of fiscal year 2013.

According to recent data, Rakuten represents the third biggest company to have at least some elements within its corporate structure to integrate digital currency.

Computing giant Dell, which began accepting bitcoin payments last month, remains the world’s largest company to take bitcoin, reporting roughly $57 billion in revenue last year.

Rakuten, founded in 1997, is comprised of a diverse group of businesses under one corporate umbrella. The company is involved in financial services, travel and media as well as e-commerce.

When Rakuten first publicly acknowledged its interest in bitcoin, founder and CEO Mikitani remarked that the developmental arc of the Internet made digital currency adoption somewhat of an inevitability.

Bitcoin’s footprint grows in Japan

Given Rakuten’s outsized role in Japan’s e-commerce ecosystem and the growing prevalence of digital currency enthusiasts throughout the country, the pairing is a significant one.

Coming months after the Japanese government declined to pass new regulations regarding bitcoin, the integration by Rakuten is another sign of bitcoin’s growing prominence in Japan.

Despite being the former home to the now-infamous bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, the domestic market is home to startups like bitFlyer that are raising funds to create new companies in the emerging space.

The number of bitcoin supporters has grown, resulting in grassroots efforts to promote digital currency and its underlying technology. From business community standards groups like the Japan Authority of Digital Asset to meme-themed altcoins, Rakuten’s integration reflects the rising level of the interest in bitcoin among the country’s investors and consumers.

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

Dish Network To Begin Accepting Bitcoin

 

It was just a couple of months ago that we reported the story of Overstock accepting Bitcoin. At that time, Overstock was the largest company to date to begin to accept Bitcoin as an official form of payment. However, Overstock was only able to hang onto that title for a few short months, as Dish Network has just announced that it will begin accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment as of the start of the third quarter of this year (July 1, 2014). While Overstock reported 2013 total revenue of $1.304 Billion, Dish reported $13.9 Billion in total revenue for the same period, making Dish roughly ten times larger than Overstock when measured by revenue volume. As of March 31 of this year, Dish has a customer base of roughly 14.097 million pay-TV subscribers. This is another glaring example that Bitcoin continues to make inroads into mainstream commerce. Since the total number of Bitcoins will never exceed 21 million coins, the more people and merchants who use Bitcoin, the more its value will continue to increase.

From the company’s press release:

“DISH today announced that it will become the largest company to accept bitcoin. As the first subscription model pay-TV provider to make this move, DISH will begin accepting bitcoin payments from customers starting in the third quarter. DISH Network L.L.C. is a wholly owned subsidiary of DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH).

‘We always want to deliver choice and convenience for our customers and that includes the method they use to pay their bills,’ said Bernie Han, DISH executive vice president and chief operating officer. ‘Bitcoin is becoming a preferred way for some people to transact and we want to accommodate those individuals.’

DISH has selected Coinbase as the payment processor for bitcoin transactions with customers who choose to pay their bill online with the bitcoin wallet of their choice. DISH will use Coinbase’s Instant Exchange™ feature to exchange bitcoin payments to U.S. dollars at the moment of the transaction.

‘We’re excited to support DISH and their current and new subscribers for their bitcoin transactions,’ said Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam. ‘This is a large step forward in the growing momentum of customers paying companies in bitcoin for things we do every day, like watching premium TV.’

‘As a bitcoin payment processor, Coinbase will help DISH make the payment experience easy for our customers and make it easy for DISH to receive immediate credit in dollars, at an attractive cost for DISH,’ added Han.”

Source : http://planetbtc.com

BTC and LTC Cloud Mining Services Current Price Comparison

It has been over a month since we’ve published a price comparison of the Bitcoin and Litecoin cloud mining services that we are using, testing or seem like a good option, as well as some that are probably not going to ever ROI for the term of their contract with the current difficulty and price, so that you can compare the different options better. Also it seems that there are still not that many easy to use Scrypt cloud mining services available and with the exchange rate of LTC going down it is getting interesting as it seems that most Scrypt ASIC hardware manufacturers are already moving to start providing cloud mining services as well.

Bitcoin cloud mining services:
- Lunamine – 0.0024 BTC per GHS, “lifetime” vailidy with electricity fee, no pool fee
- Bitcoin Cloud Services – 0.0028 BTC per GHS, 5 years, no pool fee, no maintenance fee
- PBMining – 0.0029 BTC per GHS, 5 years, no pool fee, no maintenance fee
- CEX.io – 0.0036 BTC per GHS, indefinite, no pool fee, has maintenance fee
- Hashop.io – 0.0069 BTC per GHS, 2 years, no pool fee, maintenance electricity fee
- Cloud Hashing – 0.00875 BTC per GHS, 1 year contract, pool and maintenance fees
- Cointerra Mining – 0.00876 BTC per GHS, 1 year contract, pool and maintenance fees

Litecoin cloud mining services:
- Scrypt.cc – 0.11199 BTC per MHS, indefinite, no pool fee, no maintenance fee
- Genesis Mining – 0.138 BTC per MHS (0.135 with promo code nSO2TE), 1 year, no pool fee, no maintenance fee And a word of advice about Lunamine, it seems that the service has the lowest price per GHS, however in the last few days withdraw requests have not yet been processed and since this is still a very new service you should be careful should you decide to invest there! Also note that lately CEX has reached a lower and more attractive price with lowered maintenance fees and the other advantage is the exchange where you can trade your hashrate, ScryptCC also has an exchange where you cans ell your purchased hashrate, unlike with the other services. Cointerra and Cloud Hashing are still keeping higher prices that do not get updated with the increase of the BTC network difficulty, so they still do not seem that attractive with their expensive 1 year contracts compared to other services, even though with them you should not worry about possible scams.

Source : http://minerdesk.com