Daily Archives: February 7, 2017

TheWrap Is Hiring a Reporter to Cover the First Amendment … – CT Post

Posted: February 7, 2017 at 9:58 pm

TheWrap Is Hiring a Reporter to Cover the First Amendment

TheWrap has addeda reporting position devoted to writing aboutmatters relating tothe First Amendment.

The reporter will cover challenges to freedom of the press, expression, assembly and religion inan erawhen those freedoms are under new and severepressures.

The decision follows multipleattacks by the White House on the media, including President Donald Trump referring to the press as the opposition party and top presidential adviser Steve Bannon enjoining the press to shut up and listen. It also follows the rise of fake news sites and a debate over the role of social media networks like Facebook in disseminating falsified reporting. All of these will be the daily reporting territory for this new position.

Also Read: Trump vs. Press Freedom: How Much Damage Can He Do?

TheWrap has posted the following position, and is taking resumes for an experienced reporter and writer:

TheWrap is a news site focused on the entertainment business, culture and media. The subjects we cover including journalism, movies, TV shows and the internet exist because of the First Amendment. From curbs on religious freedom to threats on the news media, we believe the First Amendment is under attack.

As our First Amendment reporter, you will cover every aspect of the First Amendment in America today. You should be endlessly fascinated by this subject, and passionately committed to reporting on freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. You will write about how the First Amendment functions and is challenged in the U.S. today, writing with wit, depth and flexibility.

This beat could fuel dozens of stories a day, so youll need strong news instincts and judgment to prioritize which ones are the most important, as well as excellent time management to balance breaking news, short dispatches and investigative pieces. You wont always need to write fast, but youll have a much easier time if you can. Youll develop a network of sources of all viewpoints, reflecting the reality that governments, corporations, activists and individuals can all prop up or undercut First Amendment freedoms. You should alsobe a deep thinker who will help us define this role in ways we cant yet imagine.

This is a full-time position that includes competitive pay, health insurance and vacation.

Apply toeditors@thewrap.com

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Demand return of First Amendment rights – Wausau Daily Herald – Wausau Daily Herald

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Letter to the editor 11:32 a.m. CT Feb. 7, 2017

American flag.(Photo: Getty Images/Fuse)

EDITOR: Our First Amendment right, Freedom of Speech, is being repressed more and more each day. Information has been removed from our government websites, government employees have been issued gag orders and the press has been told to shut up.

As more and more of these rights are getting taken away, the harder it will be to return them. Do you really want to live in a country where the government controls what you believe by controlling the information that is released to you? If this does not scare you, why doesnt it?

Thank you to all those government employees who are standing up for our rights by archiving this information before it was removed, by creating alternate information sites, by standing up to protect your right to choose what information to believe.

This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is a United States Constitution issue. Stand up and demand the return of your First Amendment rights before it is too late.

Mary Hague,

Mosinee

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Trade Coin Club Review: Cryptocurrency exchange Ponzi ROIs

Posted: at 9:56 pm

There is no information on the Trade Coin Club website indicating who owns or runs the business.

Infact, at the time of publication the Trade Coin Club website was nothing more than a placeholder for the companys logo.

The Trade Coin Club website domain (tradecoinclub.com) was privately registered on August 2nd, 2016.

Alexa currently estimate that the two largest sources of traffic to the Trade Coin Club website are the US (22%) and Brazil (18%).

As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.

Trade Coin Club has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market Trade Coin Club affiliate membership itself.

The Trade Coin Club compensation plan sees affiliates invest bitcoin on the promise of an advertised daily ROI:

Every four months each Trade Coin Club affiliate must pay a 25% fee on ROIs paid out.

Referralcommissions in Trade Coin Club are paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliates unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Trade Coin Club cap payable unilevel levels at eight, with affiliates paid a percentage of funds invested by their unilevel team as follows:

Residual commissions in Trade Coin Club are paid out via a binary compensation structure.

A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a binary team, split into two sides (left and right):

Both binary sides start off with one position. Once filled, asecond level is generated by splitting each of the two binary positions into another two positions each (4 positions).

Subsequent levels of the binary team are generated as required, with each new level housing twice as many positions as the previous level.

At the end of each day new investment volume is tallied up on both sides of the binary team.

A Trade Coin Club affiliate is paid a percentage of funds invested on their weaker binary side.

How much of a percentage they are paid is determined by their Trade Coin Club affiliate rank:

In addition to investment volume, each Trade Coin Club affiliate must also pay a monthly fee:

These fees are used to pay recruitment commissions via a 312 matrix.

A 312 matrix places an affiliate at the top of a matrix, with three positions directly under them:

These three positions form the first level of the matrix. The second level of the matrix is generated by splitting each of the three positions into another three positions each (9 positions).

Subsequent levels of the matrix are generated in the same manner (up to 12 levels), with a complete 312 matrix housing 797,160 positions.

Positions in the matrix are filled via direct and indirect recruitment of new Trade Coin Club affiliates.

For each matrix position filled in their matrix, a Trade Coin Club affiliate is paid 0.003 BTC a month (so long as each affiliate in the matrix continues to pay their monthly fee).

A bonus 0.003 BTC commission is paid out if a personally recruited earns five times the amount theyve invested.

Trade Coin Clubs Rank Achievement Bonus is based on how much bitcoin an affiliate earns through residual binary commissions a month.

Trade Coin Club affiliate membership fees are based on how much an affiliate invests:

Trade Coin Club represent that revenue to pay daily ROIs is sourced via cryptocurrency trading software.

Our system makes millions of micro transactions every second, making it humanly impossible.

Allowing our members to generate profit every second, every hour and every day.

The problem with this assertion is two-fold:

First theres no evidence that Trade Coin Club has any such system, much the less that it generates the promised minimum daily advertised ROIs.

Second, if the owner(s) of Trade Coin Club had such a system, why would they need to solicit investment from affiliates?

Even a modest bank loan would eventually turn into a fortune under a 0.45% daily ROI scenario.

The mandatory 25% ROI fee every 4 months is also another tell, as Trade Coin Club affiliates arealready slugged with monthly fees.

The 25% fee is just a vehicle to trap paid out funds in the system for longer.

The reality of Trade Coin Club is the only verifiable source of revenue entering the company is affiliate investment.

The use of these funds to pay off existing investors equates to Ponzi investment fraud.

Not withstanding the large percentage of invested funds used to pay recruitment commissions, further denting the credibility of ROI generation through legitimate cryptocurrency trading.

On their own, Trade Coin Clubs recruitment commissions make the company a pyramid scheme. Combined with the daily ROI youre looking at a Ponzi pyramid hybrid.

Throw in the lack of information provided about the company, whos running it and the use of bitcoin, and Trade Coin Club is pretty much set up the same as any other cryptocurrency based Ponzi scheme.

Once recruitment dies down and the daily ROI collapses, best of luck getting your bitcoin back from the anonymous Trade Coin Club scammers who stole it.

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Cryptocurrencies: Who Outperformed Bitcoin in January? – Eastern Daily News

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To most people especially those not familiar with other altcoins when they come across the word cryptocurrency, they only think of Bitcoin. Well, this is understandable because Bitcoin is the most popular and the most commonly used cryptocurrency. Since its introduction eight years ago, Bitcoin has been growing at a rapid rate and iswidely referred to as the father of all cryptocurrencies. Other cryptocurrencies have been developed since then, though most of them are not well known. They are really providing real competition for Bitcoin. All these altcoins want a share of the market and, just like Bitcoin, use the blockchain platform.

There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies out there, so its almost impossible to know them all, but there are those that cant be ignored due to their increased number of users and their increased growth in value. Bitcoin has been doing fine so far this month (February 2017) with its price currently above $1,000. In January, however, things were not so good. At one time in January, its price dropped from $1,200, to about $987, in a matter of hours. According to this article, Bitcoin was able to pick itself up because it started the month at $963 and ended at $970 and has continued to grow in February.

Bithubprepared a list of the 20 best performing cryptocurrencies in the month of January 2017. As you can see on the list, Bitcoin performed okay. Looking at the best performers, starting with CounterParty (XCP); its an asset issuing platform. It announced last year that all the functionality of Ethereum will be available on the Bitcoin blockchain. This extended Bitcoins capabilities to include smart contracts. This cryptocurrency gained 70 percent in a month. Moving on to the second best Cryptocurrency performer in January Bitcrystals (BCY). This cryptocurrency acts as the currency in EverdreamSofts free-to-play game mobile game Spells of Genesis. This is an arcade-style game that embraces the blockchain technology in its story line and its economy. Bitcrystals gained 65 percent in January.

MaidSafeCoin (MAID) is the currency behind the MaidSafe network. In this network users can do a lot of things through a decentralized mesh network of computers, which includes creating and hosting websites and also storing private data. MaidSafeCoin grew by 47 percent in January. There are other Cryptocurrencies that were left off thislistdue to their smaller market share, but rose significantly on small volumes hece are worth mentioning. Pascal Coin (PASC) which grew by 10,765 percent, Byteball (GBYTE) grew by 244 percent and Golem (GNT) which grew by 192 percent.

Looking at how the fiat currency, in this case the USD, performed that month; as we have seen in recent years since the introduction of cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies cant match the cryptocurrencies in terms of growth. This is because, unlike digital currencies, they are affected by factors such as inflation and political developments. The US Dollar is reportedto have dropped by 2.6 percent in the month of January.

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Can Brave’s Bitcoin Payment Platform Save Online Publishing? – IEEE Spectrum

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Last year, Brendan Eich, former CEO of the Mozilla corporation and designer the Javascript programming language, launched Brave, a Web browser that blocks advertisements by default. Now Eich is rolling out a new Bitcoin payment platform, integrated right into the browser, that he hopes will provide an alternative revenue stream for publishers. He views it asa replacementthe one Brave takes away, which he argues is dysfunctional and on the verge of collapse.

As of September, people using Brave have the option of creating a wallet in the browser, loading it with bitcoins, and sending small payments to publishers based on the anonymized metering of their Web traffic. For now, Brave plays a central role in facilitating the transactions, although it has sought to do so in a way that protects the privacy of Brave users.

When you create a wallet with Brave, you actually share it with a company called BitGo, meaning that you and BitGo each own one key for the wallet, both of which need to be present in order for a payment to go through. After loading bitcoins into this wallet, you specify the total amount of money you would like to spend on your Web browsing. Then, after a month goes by (measured by the days you actually spend using the Brave browser), bitcoin transactionssigned by both you and BitGo trigger the disbursement of that money into a Brave settlement wallet.

Before a website operatorcan collect the funds, itmust go through a verification process with Brave to prove that itsrunning a legitimate business. In return for providing this service, Brave takes five percent of all the donations that come through.

In order to attract people who dont already own bitcoins, or who may not even know what Bitcoin is, Eich and the Brave designers have made the digital currency as invisible as possible in the Brave Payments experience. We try not to put Bitcoin all up in your face, says Eich.

To that end, people have the option of funding their wallets with a credit or debit card. The payment actually goes to Coinbase, the largest Bitcoin exchange in the U.S.But when the money lands in your wallet, it is denominated in Dollars. Eich says you can expect, in the coming months,to be able to pay with Stripe as well.

Although Bitcoin is invisible in the user experience, it is essential to the privacy of the system. According to Eich, the users Brave client is the only place where browsing history gets stored. Normally, sending transactions across the bitcoin network to escrow accounts for known websites would give away information about who is visiting which websites, because every transaction is recorded in a public ledger. However, Brave uses a cryptographic protocol called Anonize(which puts to work zero-knowledge proofs similar to the ones that shield transactions in the digital currency Zcash). Anonize hides the correlation between browsing history and the payments that are received.

We dont want to be a tracker. We dont want that data. Its better that we cant have it than that we could have it and promise to be good,says Eich.

The Brave Payment systemalso leverages a feature of Bitcoin called multi-signature transactions to ensure that Brave cannot misusethe funds in browser wallets. We use this feature to avoid custody of funds. Each user has effective custody of their Brave user wallets funds for the purpose of microdonating to their top publishers, says Eich. The transparency of the Bitcoin blockchain further means that anyone can audit the flow of funds to keep Brave accountable.

Because of the programmability of Bitcoin, it is also possible that Brave could use it in the future to design a fully decentralized version of the browser in which escrow accounts automatically verifywebsites and disbursefunds, rather than relying on Brave to manually intervene.

By adding payments to the Brave browser, Eich is not just giving people a way to donate totheir favorite websites in return for the revenue theyve lost to ad blocking technology. It is the first step in a grandiose plan to completely reformulate the funding architecture of the Web and perhaps even save online publishers.

When Eich describes the online marketing ecosystem, he makes it sound like a dark sewer writhing with parasites and disease. Dip a foot down into the muck and leeches latch on to slurp up every drop of attention they can get. Peel them off, and little poison darts are left to fester under the skin. There are the cookies and tracker pixels that keep tabs on your every move. If youre really lucky, youll catch a bad case of malware while youre down there.

No self-respecting publisher would send their readers down into this dangerous world. And yet they do, because for every victim they offer, the parasites send back a fraction of the blood they suck.

But this isnt going to work forever, says Eich. Part of the blame goes to ad blockers, which saw a 30 percent increase in adoption rates over 2016, according to a report by Business Insider. But there is also the problem of third parties, which carve off so much of the advertising revenue pie that very little actually makes its way to publishers.

The system is not stable. It suffers from these rent seeking parasites, says Eich. Publishers are under stress. I cant name names, but there are a lot of publishers that say they see 18 months to some event where they have to be parceled out to some private equity or sold. And these are big U.S. brands. These are not small online publishers. Obviously the New York Times has Carlos Slim as benefactor and the Washington Post has Jeff Bezos. But not all of them are so fortunate.

If, as Eich says, the entire industry is in a death spiral, when it finally croaks, he wants Braves direct payment model to have matured into a viable alternative.

In December, Coindesk, one of the most prominent Bitcoin news websites, announced that it been verified with Brave Payments as a preferred customer. Obviously, our readership maps entirely with the early adopters for something like a Bitcoin enabled Web browser. So, it made a lot of sense for us. And Ive actually been pleasently surprised at how much weve seen come through, says Ryan Selkis, the managing director of CoinDesk.

But will Brave be as popular among people who are not naturally inclined to enthusiastically latch on to any slightly Bitcoin-related innovation? Since February, Brave has verified 120 publishers. And 37,000 new Brave Payment wallets have been created, holding an average balance of around 8 Dollars, according to the head of communications at Brave.

IEEE Spectrums general technology blog, featuring news, analysis, and opinions about engineering, consumer electronics, and technology and society, from the editorial staff and freelance contributors.

Sign up for the Tech Alert newsletter and receive ground-breaking technology and science news from IEEE Spectrum every Thursday.

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Bitcoin price soars past $1060 as political worries intensify – MarketWatch

Posted: at 9:55 pm

The price of a single bitcoin on Tuesday touched its highest level in more than a month as populists in the U.S. and Europe threaten the established political order, increasing the appeal of alternative investments like cryptocurrencies, market strategists said.

The price touched $1,060 US:BTCUSD on Tuesday, according to Coin Market Cap. Thats its highest level since Jan. 4, when bitcoin traded as high as $1,100, its highest level in more than three years.

A poll released over the weekend showed Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate representing Frances National Front party in the April presidential election is poised to win the first round of balloting. The news sparked a selloff across European bond markets, and rattled stocks.

Read: Treasurys boosted; Europe election jitters set tone

Bitcoins valuable more than doubled in 2016, largely thanks to Chinese buyers who hoped to protect their wealth from a rapidly depreciating Chinese yuan USDCNY, +0.0073% by using bitcoin to circumvent stringent capital controls.

The U.K.s June vote to leave the European Union, U.S. President Donald Trumps unexpected electoral victory and the rising popularity of far-right candidates in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have made the political situation in the West appear increasingly precarious, market strategists said.

The dollar gained 0.3% to trade at 6.88 yuan on Tuesday.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss run a bitcoin exchange on which investors trade on average $1 million in bitcoin per day. But is this cryptocurrency safe or a fad?

Previously, the currencys valuation languished in 2015 and 2014 after the collapse of popular bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox effectively ended a speculative bubble that saw the price of a single coin climb to an all-time high around $1,2050 in late 2013.

Bitcoin weakened sharply in January after Chinese authorities announced they would investigate the countrys largest cryptocurrency exchanges to ensure compliance with local laws. Initially, investors feared this could signal a shift to a more aggressive approach by Chinese regulators who had previously left the cryptocurrency world more or less along.

Read: And 2016s best-performing commodity isbitcoin?

Also read: Bitcoin could soar if the Winklevoss ETF is approved

Check out: Grayscale Investments files to list its bitcoin trust on NYSE

Instead, Chinese authorities appear to have reached an understanding with local exchanges. Several exchanges adopted a 0.2% trading fee to cut down on market manipulation while strengthening controls to prevent money laundering, all in accordance with regulators wishes.

Others are betting that the U.S.s first bitcoin-focused exchange-traded fund now faces an easier path to approval thanks in part to the unexpected electoral victory of President Donald Trump, who has promised to scale back financial regulations. The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to make a decision by March 11.

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Book Review: Reinventing Remittances with Bitcoin – Bitcoin Magazine

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Book Review: Reinventing Remittances with Bitcoin
Bitcoin Magazine
With the advent of Bitcoin in 2009 came its most obvious use case, namely, making the global transfer of money as simple as sending an email. The success of this has now informed the world of remittance, a billion-dollar market with profound ...

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Venezuela Seems to Be Cracking Down on Bitcoin – Bitcoin Magazine

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Q Costa Rica News
Venezuela Seems to Be Cracking Down on Bitcoin
Bitcoin Magazine
It appears that the Venezuelan authorities have had enough of Bitcoin. Over the past two weeks, police in the Latin American country arrested eight Bitcoin miners in three different cities. While some of them were accused of cybercrime and stealing ...
Venezuela's Main Bitcoin Market Shuts Down amid Arrest of MinersQ Costa Rica News
Bitcoin exchange temporarily shuts down amid Venezuela crackdownCalvinAyre.com
Interest in Bitcoin Continues to Climb in Turkey, Colombia and Venezuela; LocalBitcoins Volumes Hit Records in All ...Razor-Forex (blog)
Eastern Daily News -DCEBrief (press release) -newsBTC
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Bitcoin Acceptance by Merchants & Retailers Crucial for Mainstream Adoption – CryptoCoinsNews

Posted: at 9:55 pm

Bitcoin company executives and analysts including Irene Katzela, CEO of Chain of Points, firmly believe retailer and merchant adoption is the key to bitcoin mainstream adoption.

Since 2014, the bitcoin industry and market have seen a rapid emergence of bitcoin-accepting merchants. Companies like TigerDirect and Expedia have begun to offer bitcoin as one of their main payment methods.

Currently, bitcoin is perceived more as a store of value and a safe haven asset rather than an actual digital currency. Some bitcoin investors like Roger Ver argue that the development community of bitcoin must work towards transforming bitcoin into a settlement system and digital cash rather than digital gold.

While this approach isnt necessary as bitcoin can be used as both a store of value or settlement system depending on certain users, it is important to understand that limited merchant adoption is restricting the mainstream adoption of bitcoin.

With the integration of various scaling technologies like Segregated Witness (Segwit) that are currently on the verge of activation, bitcoin blocks are set to see at least a 2.1x increase. Considering the average blocksize of 1 mb, a 2.1x expansion of the bitcoin blockchain will appropriately scale the network.

In contrary to what many investors claim, the expansion of bitcoin blocksize will not abruptly bring hundreds of millions users into bitcoin. The user base of bitcoin is not growing at linear rate. Instead, it is demonstrating an exponential growth rate as the digital currency is still at an early stage of adoption.

As Katzela emphasizes, it is important to persuade the general population and consumer base to utilize bitcoin by introducing its benefits and advantages over cash or other traditional forms of payments in existence. Some bitcoin platforms like Purse.io are already targeting the general population or mainstream users by offering 20% discount on products. Some individual merchants also provide special discounts to bitcoin users, as bitcoin significantly decreases credit card fees or financial service fees handled by merchants.

When a user tries to utilize bitcoin for the first time and sees that it is secure, fast, and cheaper than credit card payments or bank transfers due to a merchants effort in providing a discount or a special promotion in appreciation of lowered fees, the adoption rate amongst beginner bitcoin users will drastically increase.

The savings on the merchant side are clear considering the fees incurred by using existing payment methods. An increasing number of merchants pass some of the cost savings onto consumers, in the form of discounts and incentives. As these cost savings continue, consumers will soon realize that virtual currency enables lower prices for goods and services, said Katzela.

An increasing number of merchants are beginning to accept bitcoin as theyre seeing a significant decline in the volatility rate of bitcoin. The digital currency has been demonstrating stability over the past 12 months.

As Katzela explains, the number of merchants accepting bitcoin is increasing but the mainstream user base of bitcoin isnt growing at a similar rate. Bitcoin-accepting merchants that arent taking a step further to convince mainstream users in using bitcoin will only appeal to existing consumer base of bitcoin.

Aiming only to increase the number of merchants that accept virtual currency is only half of the equation for wide consumer adoption. Achieving greater consumer adoption equates making consumers feel safe using virtual currency in their everyday lives, said Katzela.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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The First Government To Secure Land Titles On The Bitcoin … – Forbes – Forbes

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Forbes
The First Government To Secure Land Titles On The Bitcoin ... - Forbes
Forbes
The first time that a national government has used the bitcoin blockchain to secure and validate official actions went well.
Hawaii to Consider Bitcoin-Friendly Blockchain Bill to Boost Tourism ...CryptoCoinsNews

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