Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

BitCoin, LiteCoin, etc.

Bitcoin trades slump as cryptocurrency’s rise stalls

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The currency has been useful as a rival to traditional payments processors, as transfers made in Bitcoin can be near instantaneous and performed at very low cost compared with conventional services.

Preston Byrne, a fellow of the Adam Smith Institute and a commercial lawyer specialising in securitisation and cryptocurrency in the City of London, says that speculative investment in the currency has pushed up its price.

The Bitcoin protocol employs a built-in transaction fee of 0.1pc per transaction. Many users also choose to pay additional rewards so as to receive their orders more quickly. And as the currency has appreciated, so have the fees.

Mr Byrne suggests that while lower than late last year, historically elevated prices and equivalently high fees have been enough to put off many new buyers. As such, daily transaction volumes have slumped, falling to levels typical for 2012 - when Bitcoin was relatively unknown.

That has meant that many of the currency's immediate benefits such as lower transaction costs have been "significantly reduced", says Mr Byrne.

Higher nominal values have driven many users to trade exclusively within private exchanges, which do not show up publicly, as bitcoins are not moved about.

Account balances at these exchanges are merely updated, allowing users to avoid being stung by transaction fees.

Mr Byrne says that Bitcoins trading volume to date has consistently represented a very small number of the total tokens outstanding some estimates place it at less than 1pc of bitcoins in existence.

A study published last December - "A Fistful of Bitcoins: Characterizing Payments Among Men with No Names" - estimated that 64 to 75pc of the dominant cryptocurrency has never been spent.

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Bitcoin trades slump as cryptocurrency's rise stalls

Bitcoin is barely regulated — and these congressmen want to keep it that way

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By Rebecca Robbins July 30 at 1:57 PM

Many technophilesand libertarians already love Bitcoin. If three bitcoin-friendly congressmen have their way, federal lawmakers could, too.

Bitcoin industry representatives descended on Capitol Hill on July 29 to trumpet the cryptocurrency to any staffers who would listen.

Not many, though, were listening. Although a morning briefing on the issue drew several dozen Hill staffers, attendance was sparse at an educational evening tabling event.

Conversation at the evening event buzzed for a few minutes when the three congressmen hosting Bitcoin Demo Day stopped by to shake hands and pick up fliers. But for much of the event, bitcoin start-up vendors and entrepreneurs outnumbered their intended audience: curious Hill staffers. As the event wounddown in its final half-hour, many of the vendors free slap-on bracelets, stickersandkeychains were left untaken.

Still, low turnoutdidnt quell the upbeat sentiment of the day. While the events were billed as strictly educational, their agenda was clear: to encourage legislators to continue their laissez-faire approach to regulating the virtual currency.

Its a good thing we haven't seen Washington standing in the way of digital currencies, and we need to raise the awareness level here so that we dont pass any well-intended laws that impede the tremendous benefits that [the currencies can bring], Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) said in an interview at the evening tabling event.

It was a scene that would have been difficult to imagine just five months ago, when the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the worlds largest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy and said hackers had stolen bitcoins valued at $460 million, leaving users with little recourse. That disaster came on the heels of several arrests of high-profile members of the Bitcoin community on money-laundering charges.

The scandals prompted calls for greater regulation of and even a ban on a decentralized virtual currency designed to keep the governments hands out of financial transactions. The Bitcoin network allows users to make transactions using pseudonyms, allowing for anonymity not possible with traditionalcashlessexchanges.

But the resulting regulation was minimal. The Internal Revenue Service said in March that it regards bitcoins as a form of taxable property, not a government-backed currency, a ruling that was greeted with mixed reactions from the currencys backers. Congress continued a series of optimistic hearings on Bitcoin, and in May, the Federal Election Commission okayed the donation of bitcoins to political committees.

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Bitcoin is barely regulated — and these congressmen want to keep it that way

Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Blockchain Returns to App Store and Coinapult Tackles Bitcoin Volatility

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Apple welcomes back Blockchain's wallet app to its App Store, while Coinapult takes aim at bitcoin's volatility.

A brief period of stability has settled over bitcoin after a few bad days of tumbling prices, marked by two separate and sudden drops.

Both litecoin and peercoin also enjoyed a moment of calm, each shifting in value by less than 1% since yesterday.

The biggest mover across all markets was rainbowcoin, which jumped by more than 850% over the last 24 hours. Despite the massive leap, the cryptocurrency geared towards the LGBT community still only has a relatively modest market capitalisation of around $50,000 (30,000).

Bitcoin and Apple make peace

Blockchain has returned to iOS after Apple reinstated its bitcoin wallet app to the App Store yesterday.

The move comes more than five months after Blockchain and other bitcoin-related apps were banned by Apple.

"We're very excited to continue investing in iOS again and working with Apple to reimagine how the world transacts," said Nicolas Cary, CEO of Blockchain.

Following the February ban, Cary labelled Apple "anticompetitive" and "capricious" and warned that its treatment of bitcoin was a strategic mistake that would result in Android taking the early lead in fintech and bitcoin software.

Coinapult takes aim at bitcoin volatility

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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Blockchain Returns to App Store and Coinapult Tackles Bitcoin Volatility

Kanye West Defeats Coinye Cryptocurrency in Lawsuit

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When the creators of the Coinye West were finally unmasked and served with a lawsuit back in March it seemed that the contentious cryptocurrency was on the ropes, and now the legal proceedings have finally drawn to a close, reports NBC News. Documents filed in the case last week brought an official end to Kanye West's lawsuit against South Park-referencing e-coins.

Kanye first started battling the creators back in January with a cease-and-desist letter, but it quickly became clear that the men behind the currency had inflammatory goals. Even when faced with legal action, they said they'd only suspend service once 'Ye himself asked them to stop. After months of legal proceedings, however, they've met an anticlimactic end. Kanye filed suit against a handful of named defendants, most of whom lost the suit by default for failing to acknowledge the charges. According to the documents that surfaced last week, three defendants chose to settle with Kanye.

At least now all involved can get back to their lives and Yeezus can get back to being a blowfish.

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Kanye West Defeats Coinye Cryptocurrency in Lawsuit

Kanye West Buries Coinye With Lawsuit Victory

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Coinye West, a whimsical addition to the cryptocurrency craze, whose founders hitched its name and logo to the wagon of one of the biggest stars in hip-hop, has officially died. In documents filed July 22 in New York, a U.S. District Court declared Kanye West the victor over most of Coinye's makers, some of them John-and-Jane Does, by default because they never bothered to respond to his complaints.

The parody electronic currency was announced in January but quickly shut down after West filed a cease-and-desist order and sued the large group of defendants for unspecified damages. The lawsuit complained that the defendants "usurped West's name and likeness for the sole purpose of propping up the perceived 'value' of the defendants' 'digital coin mine' and its 'crypto currency.'"

The coin's first logo was of West's face wearing his trademark windowshade sunglasses. Following the lawsuit, the logo was altered to make West a cartoon fish (ala "South Park"). The Coinye site, coinyecoin.org, still invites people to "Start using CoinyeCoin today."

In March, two months after Coinye was abandoned, a frustrated West amended his lawsuit to include names, background and even emails of some of the defendants, who "cowardly sought to remain anonymous by using Registry privacy services and other means" to stay hidden," he alleged. The suit claimed defendants came from a wide range of places, including the United States, China, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Slovakia.

In the end, only three of the defendants, Richard McCord, David McEnery and Harry Willis, settled with West. In court papers, McCord, of California, denied being involved in the coin's creation. According to a report by coindesk.com, McCord's lawyer called it "unfortunate that a parody turned into such an expensive endeavor."

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Kanye West Buries Coinye With Lawsuit Victory