LocalBitcoins Debuts Bitcoin Billing as First Merchant Feature

LocalBitcoins has added a new section to its website where users can send and manage invoices, allowing them to receive customer payments in bitcoin.

The offering marks the peer-to-peer platform’s first merchant-specific product, and follows a period of heavy demand, according to founder and CEO Jeremias Kangas.

Kangas framed the tool as a basic offering that would nonetheless prove effective at meeting the needs of merchants today before expanding to include additional functionality later.

He told CoinDesk:

“Many of our users have requested this feature, and it extends quite nicely our existing toolset.”

Kangas indicated that the invoicing tool was originally developed for the company’s bitcoin ATM product, but he said the decision was made to extend it to all users. While simple in its current iteration, LocalBitcoins plans to build on this offering, saying:

“Soon, it will be easy to integrate to websites via our API, basically allowing the same kind of processes BitPay and Coinbase are currently offering.”

The CEO added that such a move could allow LocalBitcoins to take advantage of its global reach and available liquidity in a wide range of local currencies, while integrating novel features that allow merchants to take advantage of its local trader network.

How billing works

Like many of the peer-to-peer platform’s offerings, its new merchant tools have a minimalist design that favors ease of use over functionality.

Users can issue invoices in any currency, and the amount included will convert to BTC at the current exchange rate when opened by the recipient.

Payment can be made with any bitcoin wallet, and each invoice uses a unique bitcoin address as a payment reference.

Bitcoin ATM orders

The announcement also demonstrates how LocalBitcoins is seeking to build on its existing services to create a wider network of offerings for both consumers and merchants.

For example, LocalBitcoins announced last week that it had begun taking orders for a bitcoin ATM it first revealed back in February. One unit costs roughly €1,499, plus VAT for individuals in the European Union.

The company says that the ATM is unique because it does not require an Internet connection. The ATM issues and receives redeemable codes along with cash, while the actual bitcoin exchange happens on the LocalBitcoins website, making the machine a “cash-box”.

According to the company, the ATM has been able to handle more than 300 BTC in volume with premiums of 5–8%. It is programmed to handle any known currency, although it can only transact using one at a time.

Security concerns

Despite its success in expanding globally, LocalBitcoins has been the subject of a number of security concerns this year, including delayed transactions and wallet issues caused by malware, a security breach targeting the site infrastructure and an outage brought on by server hardware issues.

The company is also at the center of a Florida state criminal case involving a user charged with operating an unauthorized money transmission business.

Based in Finland, LocalBitcoins aims to help facilitate the buying and selling of bitcoin for local currency. Users post their trade on the website or can respond to others’ offers, choosing to pay in cash in person or through online banking.

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

Overstock Now Accepts Bitcoin in Over 100 Countries Worldwide

Overstock officially launched its updated e-commerce checkout system today, a new feature that allows shoppers in 107 new countries to buy products with bitcoin via its international website, O.co.

The announcement marks the first expansion of Overstock’s bitcoin payment service beyond the US, bringing the checkout option to major global markets such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Israel and Japan. The news comes roughly nine months after Overstock first began accepting bitcoin this January through a partnership with Coinbase.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne framed the expansion as a way for the company to showcase bitcoin’s cross-border payments capabilities, while expanding real shopping opportunities to the digital currency’s users in new markets. Far from being a value add to the company’s new international checkout system, bitcoin will serve a pivotal role in Overstock’s larger strategy for O.co.

Byrne told CoinDesk:

“This is our international marketing strategy. We’re hoping that bitcoin enthusiasts around the world start shopping at O.co because they know they can spend bitcoin on more than 1 million products here and have them delivered to the whole globe.”

Byrne further revealed the latest way that Overstock will seek to incentivize shoppers using both its US website and its international platform, saying that 4% of the money the company saves by using bitcoin will be donated to support groups that promote and defend bitcoin adoption.

The Chamber of Digital Commerce will be the first recipient of funds from Overstock, though Byrne could not confirm if the group had yet received any funds.

Supporting bitcoin worldwide

Byrne told CoinDesk that Overstock is already in the process of vetting bitcoin organisations from around the globe. The goal, he said, is to create a list of groups that, like the Chamber of Digital Commerce, will be able to benefit from spending on the e-commerce website.

Rather than establish any formal marketing strategy to promote the launch, Byrne said Overstock will rely on the support of the global community, who with their spending will be able to ensure that non-profit digital currency organisations can continue their work.

Byrne told CoinDesk:

“If all the bitcoin users around the world did their shopping at O.co in bitcoin, just the 4% of that would provide a tremendous amount of funds to be given back to bitcoin foundations. That’s all the money they would need. All the foundations would get fully funded.”

Chamber of Digital Commerce president Perianne Boring told CoinDesk that her organisation was honored at the news, saying:

“We are gratified that the work of the Chamber is being recognized and we pledge to use these funds to further promote the acceptance and use of digital currencies among government and the larger public.”

Implementation delay

Of course, the formal international bitcoin payments launch came nearly two weeks after its originally scheduled launch on 1st September, a delay that was widely discussed among Reddit users in the bitcoin community.

Addressing this subject, Byrne said the delay was due to the difficulties the company experienced when integrating its new checkout process into its international website. He said that today’s launch marks the end of a six-month effort by his team, of which just one month was dedicated to bitcoin development.

Representatives from the company told CoinDesk on 2nd September that the process had been held up by unforeseen development delays, and that it hoped to have the upgraded international website up and running by 4th September.

However, both deadlines passed without any updates until today’s news.

International ambitions

Bitcoin could also prove to be a boon for Overstock, which currently sees only about 10% of its traffic from overseas.

By adding bitcoin support, Byrne hopes to change this narrative, winning customers who are more likely to use bitcoin as their primary online spending tool. For example, Byrne told The New York Times in August that he believes adding bitcoin as an international payment option could bring the company as much as $2m in additional revenue this year.

Notably, the move coincides with Coinbase’s own international expansion announced yesterday. The California-based bitcoin services provider and payment processor is now available in 13 European countries.

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

Peter Thiel: Bitcoin Payment System ‘Badly Lacking’

Peter Thiel, the notable entrepreneur and Silicon Valley venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, has expressed his dissatisfaction with the current volume of bitcoin payments, saying a payment system to surround its technological base is “badly lacking”.

Thiel made the comments while participating in a Reddit AMA (ask-me-anything) earlier today, where several questioners asked his opinion on bitcoin and other digital currencies.

He responded:

“PayPal built a payment system but failed in its goal in creating a ‘new world currency’ (our slogan from back in 2000). Bitcoin seems to have created a new currency (at least on the level of speculation), but the payment system is badly lacking.”
“I will become more bullish on Bitcoin when I see the payment volume of Bitcoin really increase.”

Thiel did not respond to follow-up questions on the matter.

Person of interest

Given his anti-establishment political stance and past involvement with PayPal and hardcore libertarian projects like The Seasteading Institute, German-born Thiel has long been watched by the bitcoin community. As he noted himself, a key goal behind the original PayPal concept was to create an internet-based global currency.

His Founders Fund was also an early investor in BitPay, to the tune of $2m.

His views on bitcoin otherwise, however, have been lukewarm. While he appears to believe in its underlying principles, in 2013 he said bitcoin had a “20% chance of success”.

Just a couple of months later he appeared more optimistic, telling a conference that bitcoin and encrypted money systems had the potential to change the world.

He said at the time:

“It is worth thinking about money as the bubble that never ends. There is this sort of potential that bitcoin could become this new phenomenon.”

He also noted that many of the arguments against bitcoin, including that its value was fake or the result of a bubble, also applied to the world’s fiat currencies including the US dollar.

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

Bank of England: Bitcoin Could Disrupt UK Monetary Policy

The Bank of England’s ability to govern monetary forces in the UK economy could be undermined if digital currency is broadly adopted, according to a new BoE report.

The study was the second issuance in a two-part publication on digital currency as part of the bank’s most recent Quarterly Bulletin. It follows a previous report in May, in which it called bitcoin a kind of commodity.

While acknowledging the bitcoin protocol as a “genuine technological innovation”, the Bank of England largely dismisses bitcoin’s ability to function on a wider scale, although it does suggest that broader adoption could take place in the future.

The report cites price volatility and the risk of diminishing returns for miners as systemic problems that, in its authors’ views, will keep digital currency from becoming more than an auxiliary payments infrastructure.

However, the report does look at the hypothetical mass adoption of digital currency. In a scenario in which the UK economy becomes, in the Bank of England’s words, “bitcoinized”, the central bank’s chief monetary authorities would become increasingly unable to influence prices and economic activity as a whole.

The report states:

“Since in this extreme scenario all payments would be conducted away from sterling as base money for essentially all of the economy, the Bank’s ability to influence price-setting and real activity would be severely impaired.”

The authors go on to say that “such an outcome is extremely unlikely” owing to the barriers to broader adoption cited in the report. Notably, the report concludes that this reduction in influence is “implausible absent a severe collapse in confidence in the fiat currency”, suggesting that digital currency could fill a monetary vacuum should a national currency experience a significant change in value.

Bitcoin ‘could serve as money’

One of the major questions explored in the Bank of England’s report is whether or not bitcoin is a form of money. The study relies on a common, three-part definition of money that involves three use cases: as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account.

The Bank of England explains that, under current conditions:

“Digital currencies could serve as money for anybody with an internet-enabled computer or device. At present, however, digital currencies fulfil the roles of money only to some extent and only for a small number of people. They are likely at present to regularly serve all three purposes for perhaps only a few thousand people worldwide, and even then only in parallel with users’ traditional currencies.”

However, this could be subject to change. The report highlights that, long-term, growing confidence in digital currencies could lead to broader use as a store of value and a medium of exchange.

For accounting purposes, the Bank of England acknowledges that few businesses, if any, denominate their records in bitcoin. Should this practice emerge, that element of the definition of money could become more relevant for digital currencies.

A ‘bitcoin economy’ would fail

The report contains a hypothetical scenario in which digital currency served as the basis currency for an economy. Suggesting that price deflation and poor economic performance would arise, the Bank of England concludes that a bitcoin economy would pale in comparison to one backed by a centralized, national currency.

Specifically, an economy based on digital currency would face the risk of “welfare-destroying volatility”. As the bank explains:

“In most existing digital currency schemes, the future path of supply is pre-determined and governed by a protocol that ensures that the eventual total supply will be fixed. This has the effect of removing any discretion from the determination of the money supply.”

The report goes on to say that certain steps could be taken to reduce volatility in an economy that uses digital currency. These includes making the coin supply growth rate more variable, pegging the block reward amount to the number of transactions or level of broad demand for bitcoins.

Too early to tell

According to the Bank of England, bitcoin and digital currencies do not – at present – pose a threat to the broader financial system. Yet it does suggest that, should broader adoption take place, the integration of bitcoin with complex financial instruments and global marketplaces could deepen the impact of any price volatility on the broader economy.

The report notes that there is “little incentive” currently for a major shift from fiat to digital currencies. However, the technology’s use as a form of money – and the broader applications of the decentralized ledger – could expand in the future.

The authors conclude:

“Digital currencies do not, at present, play a substantial role as money in society. But they may have the potential to come to exhibit at least some of the functions of money over time.”

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

RushWallet Adds Instant Bitcoin Fundraising Feature

Example of a RushWallet Fundraiser: Sean’s Outpost

RushWallet, the browser-based platform that generates fully functional bitcoin wallets in mere seconds has added a new feature: fundraising campaigns.

The RushWallet team says the ‘Fundraiser’ tools can be used to fund one-off projects of any size, including charity and startup campaigns, office pools, poker games, bets and even freelancers invoicing for jobs.

Easy progress tracking

Essentially the new feature gives campaign organizers a more convenient way to keep track of one or more collection projects, providing the ability to manage several campaigns from the same basic wallet address and monitoring what percentage of pre-set target amounts have been raised.

All functions take place locally in the user’s browser or on the bitcoin block chain, and there is no central server.

Users can also add a YouTube video to the main page, should a multimedia introduction be desired.

To kick off the new service and demonstrate its features, RushWallet has teamed up with Sean’s Outpost to fund the charity’s latest project: the transformation of an 11,000 sq/ft thrift store into a skills workshop for its homeless clientele in Pensacola, Florida.

How it works

Users begin by creating a new wallet at RushWallet.com, or using an address/wallet created previously. Users may opt to set a password for the new wallet or keep it open for convenience. However, passwords are strongly recommended for users on public machines and wallets that may hold large amounts of bitcoin.

If it’s a new wallet, note down the URL and keep it secret, as this is the ‘brain wallet’ allowing full access to the bitcoin addresses.

To create a Fundraiser from the wallet, click on the ‘Settings & Tools’ icon at the top right of the screen, then select the ‘Fundraiser Manager’ icon that appears.

Creating a project

From there, you may either create a brand new fundraiser or import a previously created one. Complete the details including name, target amount in BTC, and other options. Also note the 10-digit ‘Fundraiser ID’ code.

Fundraiser projects

The fundraiser will then launch in a new browser tab. It also provides a shortened link and buttons to automatically post the fundraiser details on Facebook and Twitter.

Creators can ‘sweep’ funds from the fundraiser address into the original wallet that created it at any stage, and the total percentage raised indicator will remain unchanged.

Clicking on the ‘Payment Request Manager’ button in ‘Settings & Tools’ allows you to create a request a specific amount, or in other words, an invoice.

Creating a Payment Request

Both Fundraisers and Payment Requests have unique ID codes which can be imported into another browser if needed.

Decentralized and free

RushWallet comes from the same team of developers based at Toronto’s cryptocurrency co-working space Decentral, which also developed the KryptoKit instant wallet plug-in for Chrome browsers.

RushWallet fundraisers, the brainchild of lead developer Steve Dakh, continue the team’s ethos of developing bitcoin services that prioritize speed, convenience and decentralization.

Team leader Anthony Di Iorio told CoinDesk that since all functions are browser-based, no-one has the ability to track or control how the service is being used.

“It’s decentralized. We have absolutely no say in what the funds are being raised for. We don’t know what people are doing, because it’s not stored on any server. All the information turns into the link itself.”

Source : http://www.coindesk.com

BitFlyer Launches FundFlyer Crowdfunding Platform

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BitFlyer has launched Japan’s first “Post Mt. Gox” exchange in April of 2014. Japan is one of the world’s largest economies and from February to April they were forced to shop overseas for Bitcoin. BitFlyer was soon followed by others, including Quoine, which is aimed more at professional traders. In contrast, BitFlyer wants to target a more general consumer market, especially newcomers to cryptocurrency trading. This story is more about its latest venture however, a crowdfunding platform called FundFlyer. The announcement comes just about one month after bitFlyer said that it had raised more than a $1.6 million and was in the market for a new venture, one that would give them more of an international reach.

FundFlyer will be integrated into the bitFlyer platform as part of it feature list. Set up in a similar fashion to other more well-known crowdfunding sources such as the familiar “Kickstarter”. Japan has its own crowdfunding platform called Shooting Star but it is fiat currency only. FundFlyer however wants to move Bitcoin into the Japanese mainstream first through crowdfunding and then move out internationally.

There are three basic project models available.

• The Donation Model
• The Investment Model
• The Purchase Model

These models have different project categories such as events, the arts, software development, community disaster relief and many others, including political activity. bitFlyer plans to use the new platform to build long lasting community institutions. Project managers are able to set both gift levels and funding goals and the project only pays 10% of the total to fundFlyer and there is currently an introductory offer of 0% usage fees. Projects are only paid if they reach their targets and are payable in either Bitcoins or fiat currencies and if the project fails to reach its goals all funds are returned to those who donated.

The service is certainly starting off on the right foot with its first project being for the head of the Japanese government’s IT Strategy Committee, Mineyuki Fukuda. Fukuda has experience with crowdsourcing because of his fiat currency-based crowdfunding project. He is joined by CEO Yuzo Kano, who formally traded with Goldman Sachs and Takafumi Komiyama, CTO and an office staff of fourteen. Fukuda’s project has already raised 1.443 BTC of its 4 BTC goal with three days remaining in the program.

The Japanese government has been stoically silent about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies even going as far as to state:

“We’re in charge of money. If it’s not money, it’s not the Ministry of Finance/Financial Services Authority’s jurisdiction.”

The bitFlyer exchange is completely compliant with the Japanese “know your customer” (KYC) regulations that financial institutions in Japan are required to follow which includes regulated prices and payment of consumption taxes, which were recently raised 3%. This early jump will be helpful because the Japanese tax authorities are expected to pay consumption taxes on any Bitcoin not acquired in Japan.

Source : http://cointelegraph.com

FormulaFX Becomes Latest Online Forex Broker to Integrate Bitcoin Payment

We’ve an assortment of brokers to offer trading in bitcoins and other digital currencies, but as of yet only a handful of firms have begun to offer account funding in bitcoins.  Joining those ranks is Gibraltar registered FormulaFX which announced that it was beginning to offer bitcoin payments for funding trading accounts along with its existing options.  However, as of yet the broker isn’t offering trading in bitcoins.

Connecting with the broker, a representative from FormulaFX explained to Digital Currency Magnates that they were focusing on bitcoin payments and didn’t mention any plans to offer trading in bitcoins.  In their public statement the broker added that “By offering the option to invest [in forex] directly with Bitcoins, FormulaFX innovates by allowing Forex investors to bypass conventional currencies, preserving the advantages, independency and profitability of the virtual currency.”

While not that many brokers have added bitcoins as a funding option for accounts, the digital currency has shown to have interest from financial firms.  Specifically, bitcoins have been cited as providing a low cost funding option in regions where strict limits are imposed by financial institutions on cross-border online credit card purchases.  In addition, as a financial product, some countries, namely India have banned banks from allowing credit cards to be used for funding online forex brokerage accounts out of the country.  Until last year, Liberty Reserve was a popular option for circumventing regulatory restrictions.  However, as a decentralized currency, bitcoins offer a more secure funding option than that of Liberty Reserve which was shut down by US officials last year.

Source : http://dcmagnates.com

Why bitcoin buffs hate New York’s proposal to regulate bitcoins

Taking real steps towards regulating virtual currency.Reuters/Mike Segar

Global, anonymous, and free from any central authority, bitcoin and other digital currencies are not easy to regulate—by design. But a proposal released yesterday by the New York State Department of Financial Services attempts to do just that.

The proposal would create “BitLicenses” for companies doing business with bitcoins in New York. Some welcome the move to regulate virtual currencies, which could be a step toward bringing them into the mainstream. But critics say New York’s rules are too stringent and, if adopted, will sink the state’s burgeoning bitcoin business and set an unwelcome precedent as other states consider policies.
These are the main criticisms that bitcoin enthusiasts are making of the proposal:

It’s too intrusive

Under the policy, businesses would be required to maintain transaction information, including the identities and physical addresses of involved parties, on file for 10 years. This undermines one of the central tenets of virtual currencies—that they’re anonymous.

It’s too financially rigid

“Each firm must hold Virtual Currency of the same type and amount as any Virtual Currency owed or obligated to a third party,” the press release says. Moreover, companies are prohibited from doing anything with currency save for holding it stagnantly, and are required to maintain a bond or trust account—of an unspecified amount—“for the benefit of its customers.” In other words, bitcoin businesses won’t have anything like the flexibility of regular banks, which are allowed to make investments with customer cash.

It’s ignorant of the nuances of bitcoin businesses

The only companies that don’t fall under the regulation are those that accept bitcoin payments as goods and services, such as the e-commerce company Overstock.com. But the policies lump together companies that actually hold bitcoins—like Mt. Gox, the notorious Japanese exchange that saw nearly half a billion dollars disappear from under their noses—with companies like ChangeTip that just facilitate transactions.

Bitcoin is still a wild west for regulators. While the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network broke ground last year in deciding that companies that exchanged virtual for real currency should be regulated as money transmitters, New York is the first state to broach the subject. And the state’s superintendent of financial services, Benjamin Lawsky, seems eager to engage with the bitcoin community—for the second time in the past four months, he asked for feedback in a Reddit bitcoin thread that has garnered over 1,500 comments so far.

Bitcoin buffs will have some time to register their displeasure. After the proposal is formally published in the July 23 edition of the New York State Register, there will be a 45-day comment period before the DFS revises and finalizes the rules.

Source : http://qz.com

Pademobile Brings Mobile Bitcoin Access to 3 Million in Mexico

 

 

Bitso, Mexico’s first 

 

Bitcoin exchange, has revealed to CCN a partnership with Pademobile that will allow all 3 million of the payment company’s customers to purchase bitcoins from their mobile phones. The Mexican Bitcoin exchange has claimed they want to “strengthen the purchase and use of Bitcoin in Mexico” with this move. 

 

Pademobile is the company that was able to bring Bitcoin acceptance to every 7-11 in the country earlier in the year. Bitso has also announced that credit cards will now be accepted on their exchange platform, which makes them one of the first companies in the world to accept that particular deposit method.

Pademobile is Building a Foundation for Bitcoin in Mexico

With this combined effort from Bitso and Pademobile, the groundwork is being laid for Bitcoin adoption in Mexico. Although the Mexican peso does not have the same kinds of problems currently seen with the currencies of Argentina and Venezuela, this move makes it much easier for anyone interested in Bitcoin in Mexico to start using the currency instantly. Bitso’s CEO and co-founder Pablo Gonzalez has stated, “We have big plans together.”, so it’s possible that this won’t be the last move from these two innovative finance companies in Mexico.

A New Option for International Remittances

The Mexican peso is not exactly the most troubled currency in the world, so it’s likely that Bitcoin adoption will happen at the international remittances level before anywhere else. Mexican citizens received over $20 billion in remittances in 2013, and the low cost of sending money between countries via Bitcoin could offer a reason for people in Mexico to start using bitcoin as a currency. The costs associated with sending money from the United States to Mexico are not as high as other international remittance markets, but the cheapest options for these kinds of money transfers do require bank accounts on both ends of the transaction.

It’s no secret that a large number of the people who want to send money from the United States to Mexico are in the country illegally, and it’s difficult to get access to a bank account when you don’t have any form of ID. For what it’s worth, Bitcoin also offers an extra layer of security and privacy for illegal immigrants who do not want to leave a paper trail back to Mexico.

Buying Groceries with Bitcoin?

An interesting takeaway from this story is the fact that Bitcoin remittances could be coming into the country at the same time that 7-11 accepts Bitcoin as a payment method. This may lead to adoption of bitcoin as a currency due to the fact that it could make sense to pay for groceries at 7-11 with bitcoins received from another country rather than paying a fee to convert those bitcoins to Mexican pesos. The moves that Pademobile is making right now should definitely give reason for people to be bullish on Bitcoin adoption in Mexico. Whether bitcoin will be adopted as a currency or just a payment system remains to be seen.

Source : http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com