Bitcoin Weekly 2014 October 15: Bitcoin breaks $400, Antonopoulos speaks to Canadian Senate, Butterfly Labs vs. FTC

The Bitcoin market had an exciting week with the market value breaking over the $400 mark againbut its been hovering above and below the $400 band since that happened. Canada received an amazing talk from Andreas Antonopoulos, previous Chief Security Officer at Blockchain.info and author of Mastering Bitcoin, who spoke to the Canadian senate with an impassioned explanation of Bitcoin and its innovative future.

In the legal corner of Bitcoin news, Dorian Nakamotoa man outed by Newsweek alleged to be the Satoshi Nakamotois seeking a lawsuit against Newsweek for what happened after the article that brought attention to him. Still no word on who or what the actual Satoshi Nakamoto happens to be. And, Butterfly Labs is striking back against the Federal Trade Commission after a complaint shut down the business as part of an investigation into its practices.

Last, but not least, a new website has launched that gives an up-to-date measure of historical Bitcoin volatility at btcvol.info.

When the market value of bitcoin fell below $400 near September 27th, it must have led to a community-wide depression. It seems this way because now that the market value has risen, once again, above $400 (sometime midnight Sunday) it triggered a few joyous posts on reddit.

Since then, the price has hovered near $400, rising and falling in a band between $415 and $395.

Andreas Antonopolous last week went in front of the Senate of Canada and spoke to the government body about the regulating Bitcoin. The first eleven minutes is Antonopoulos speech and the remaining almost hour-and-a-half of the video is questions. Even if you dont have two hours to watch, its worth watching his opening statements.

Antonopoulos argues against tight regulation on Bitcoin because it will stifle innovation and during the questions segment rebutted numerous queries about crime and money laundering by discussing the nature of privacy and security with Bitcoin. He especially did a good job of showing how while BItcoin is more transparent than fiat money it can also be more secure.

The senators ask interesting and extremely thoughtful questions, most of which center around consumer protection and economics; but amid the most enlightening was Who are Bitcoins biggest detractors around the 41:20 mark.

In an attempt to resolve the hunt for the legendary Satoshi Nakamotothe mythical Batman and inventor of BitcoinNewsweeks Leah McGrath Goodman claimed that Dorian Nakamoto of California happened to be the mythical Bitcoin inventor. This led to a major disruption of Nakamotos life.

This has happened before. A reporter for The New Yorker interviewed Michael Clear, another cryptographer with a math backgroundyet also denied being Satoshi. However, Dorian Nakamoto had the benefit of a very similar name.

See the original post:
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 October 15: Bitcoin breaks $400, Antonopoulos speaks to Canadian Senate, Butterfly Labs vs. FTC