Feed

It's All About the Bitcoins

By Jessica Roy 9/27/12 2:51pm

It's All About the Bitcoins

Mr. Andresen, approaching baller status. (Photo: Facebook)

Gavin Andresen Launches Nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation to ‘Standardize, Protect and Promote’ Bitcoin

Bitcoin may have just gotten an upgrade.

Bitcoin Gavin Andresen announced today on the Bitcoin Talk forums that he has launched a non-profit, modeled on the Linux Foundation, that will seek to “help people exchange resources and ideas [about Bitcoin] more freely.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the Linux Foundation, it’s a non-profit aimed at promoting the growth and advancement of Linux, an open-source operating system. David Perry, author of Coding in My Sleep, describes the foundation as: Read More

By Jessica Roy 9/05/12 9:43am

It's All About the Bitcoins

Mr. Shtylman (Photo: Twitter)

Virtual Heist Paralyzes BitFloor, the U.S.’s #1 USD Bitcoin Exchange

The problem with virtual currency is that it doesn’t take an Italian Job-style heist to make off with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoins. There’s no need for expert safe crackers, gun-wielding maniacs or limber laser dippers; despite the currency’s hardcore encryption, all you need is an Internet connection, a hacker and probably some Mountain Dew.

The relative ease and inexpensiveness of robbing a Bitcoin repository has most likely contributed to the rash of heists the virtual currency has endured since June 2011. Bitcoin has certainly seen its share of bad publicity. Over the last 15 months, more than 290,000 BTC have been stolen, according to CNET and Bitcoin talk forum.

A big heist on Monday night signaled the 10th since June, and was so damaging that it has shut down BTC exchange BitFloor, which–according to BitFloor founder Roman Shtylman–is the number one USD exchange in the U.S. (Mr. Shtylman says it also ranks number four worldwide.) The hacker successfully stole 24,000 BTC, which amounts to over $250,000 as of this writing. Read More

By Jessica Roy 7/16/12 10:47am

It's All About the Bitcoins

(Photo: Max F. Albrecht)

Vending Machine Art Project Converts Euros Into Bitcoins

For his summer exhibition at Bauhaus University, German art student Max F. Albrecht turned an old vending machine into a Bitcoin vending machine. You feed Euro coins into the machine and it prints out a box with an easywallet.org link in it. Navigate to that link and you’ll see your bitcoin, which you can then send to whoever you want. Mr. Albrecht helpfully offers the case of Wikileaks as a worthy Bitcoin recipient. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 1/16/12 10:27am

It's All About the Bitcoins

A scene from "Bitcoin for Dummies."

Bitcoin on TV! The Good Wife Riffs on Satoshi With ‘Mr. Bitcoin’

Bitcoin has made its way into the great canon of television drama. The e-currency made its television drama debut last night on CBS’s legal thriller The Good Wife. Jason Biggs guest starred as an information rights lawyer who gets in trouble when he refuses to reveal to the Treasury Dept. the name of a client who created an online currency called Bitcoin. Treasury wants the name of the mysterious Mr. Bitcoin, as anyone who mints a private currency in competition with the dollar is in violation of the federal law—and puts Mr. Biggs’s character on the hook for 18 months, then 10 to 30 years of inprisonment. Treasury thinks Bitcoin is being used for illegal activities. Jim Cramer testifies in court. Drama! Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 1/09/12 9:41am

It's All About the Bitcoins

xbdz6h

Titcoins! What Porn Can Do for Bitcoin

Bitcoiners are always griping that the e-currency needs more users, not more publicity. The intersection of Bitcoin and porn, however, is likely to bring both. But the question is a logical one: if Silk Road brought Bitcoin into use by letting people buy drugs and other useful things semi-anonymously, perhaps taboo-but-legal sites could do the same. “Bitcoin won’t be popular until porn sites start accepting it as a discrete alternative to credit cards, which are a huge barrier to entry I think for many of their potential customers,” writes one user over on Reddit. Another pointed out that porn sites have been early adopters of technology before: “Porn used SD video cameras like the Sony VX1000 that proved small chip video was good enough for the small screen. The VCR, the DVD all owe their success, at least partially, to porn.” Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 10:54am

It's All About the Bitcoins

cOuh4h

Bitberries! Bitcoiner Uses Heat From Mining to Dry Strawberries

One Canadian bitcoiner has figured out how to make the wasted electricity produced by bitcoin mining slightly less wasteful by using it to dehydrate strawberries (organic ones!). The anonymous Bitcoiner lives in Western Canada, and, according to a friend posting on Reddit, the town is fired up about the e-currency. “You likely will be able to use bitcoins most places in town by late spring (local pub, grocery, computer shop, bed and breakfest [sic] already on board),” says the friend, posting under the handle freeborn. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 9/15/11 9:23am

It's All About the Bitcoins

bitcoin banner

Despite Cyberattacks and Overspeculation, Bitcoin Economy Continues to Evolve

Bitcoin has been trading at the depressed price of between $6 and $7 USD for the past few weeks, which seems bad for the once high-flying digital currency that had climbed to $33 USD at one point. Hardly a week has gone by without some extreme crisis. In addition, New Yorker finance columnist James Surowiecki, wrote a long treatment of Bitcoin for the MIT Technology Review in which he notes pessimistically that “the number of actual transactions conducted in bitcoins, and the value of those transactions, has been shrinking.” Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 8/30/11 12:38pm

It's All About the Bitcoins

liberty gold

Bitcoin as a More Socially Responsible Alternative to Gold

“Gold’s current price of almost $1900 will certainly mean more abuse, corruption, militarization and the erosion of indigenous rights around the world,” writes anti-gold bug Sakura Saunders, the co-founder and editor of ProtestBarrick.net, a campaign against the gold mining company Barrick Gold, the world’s largest pure gold mining company, which ProtestBarrick claims is guilty of human rights violations and environmental destruction in the course of doing business. The activist group has decided to throw its weight behind Bitcoin as a more socially-conscious alternative to gold. Read More