Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies

CEO of Bitcoin startup Xapo Wences Casares Hopes Future is in Developing World

By Forexminute - Jonathan Millet | Bitcoin | May 21, 2014 11:04AM BST









Developing nations have a lot of scope for digital currencies, says Wences Casares, the CEO of Bitcoin startup Xapo. Earlier ForexMinute reported one of his statements that one Bitcoin will be worth one million dollars in the next couple of years. From his various statements it looks like the Xapo CEO is over enthusiastic about the digital currency.

Casares Wences had then said that the lack of appreciation on the part of Bitcoin bulls in the US had been detrimental to the digital currency and for that he had cited the example of his home country Argentina wherein according to him the fluctuation had led to trouble. He had also said that emerging markets were prone to wild currency fluctuations.

Now, from his statement that developing countries are the one that may give boost to the digital currency is being taken seriously as his predictions are often wild seemed to be logical? He also holds trust from hundreds of investors who poured in funds for his startup company Xapo as they hope that he will give them better returns.

His vision has influenced investors in Silicon Valley and prompted them to pour in money into his Bitcoin startup. In his message Wences Casares, founder and CEO of Bitcoin startup Xapo, said that developing nations hold the key for Bitcoin. He was putting his opinion at a WSJ.D event Tuesday night.
His company Xapo has raised $20 million from venture-capital firms, offers underground vaults for people to store Bitcoins and a “wallet” to facilitate transactions. He believes that Bitcoin is receiving investors of two kinds; one are in developing countries who are looking for a safe and secure investment in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Will be a Reserve Currency in the Coming Years

The other according to Wences Casares is the investors in developed economies that are into speculation and profiting. His opinion about the failure of major Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox is that this is temporary and won’t last long. He hopes that there’s a better than 50% chance that within 20 years Bitcoin will become the new gold standard.

According to Wences Casares central banks around the world will use Bitcoin for reserves. He clears that Americans can’t see this because he feels that they suffer from “prosperity blindness,” living in a country that has long had a stable currency.

According to him fifty years from now, the world will realize that whatever the government thought and did about Bitcoin is about as relevant as what the postmaster general did about email.

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Hedge Fund Says Bitcoin will Soon Overtake PayPal and Rally 50 Percent in Near-Term

By Forexminute - Deepak Tiwari | Bitcoin | May 24, 2014 12:19AM BST





Hedge fund Laureate Trust has acknowledged the phenomenal rise of bitcoin, saying the current plunge in bitcoin price at $522.57 as a good opportunity to buy the virtual currency which it expects to increase 50 percent very soon.

Beverly Hills, California-based Laureate rated bitcoin as a speculative buy in February after it weathered two storms that saw it plummet 70 percent within a few weeks.

CEO Peter Tasca of Laureate Trust stated in a press release, “Whenever you have an instrument that trades over 300 million US dollars a day, it must be recognized. The digital currency works, Bitcoin has greater volume transactions than Western Union and we anticipate it will overtake PayPal later this year.”

“In the next one or two years, Bitcoin can surpass the dollar transaction volumes of other established payment companies including Discover, and even American Express, MasterCard, and Visa,” stated SmartMetric CEO Chaya Hendrick.

Data on Bitcoinwatch.com shows that the average daily transactions involving bitcoins are nearly $300 million, pushing the currency closer to overtaking PayPal for the first time this year on transaction volume basis.
EBay, which owns PayPal, recently dubbed bitcoin traders BitPay and Coinbase as its rivals in the electronic funds transfer sector.

Tasca noted that governments had moved in to create a favorable regulatory environment for bitcoin, which makes it safer and lowers the risk of volatility that was experienced in the recent past. Laureate also adds that the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox had spawned new opportunities for firms that secure bitcoins such as Circle.com, and provided financing opportunities for existing bitcoin-related firms.

Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire said that his firm is regulated as a money transmitter, and that it has developed and invested in a technology that ensures customer funds are safely stored.




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Expresscoin Launches Bitcoin Exchange Services

By Forexminute - Deepak Tiwari | Bitcoin | Jun 12, 2014 11:40AM BST




In an announcement the Santa Monica-based Expresscoin says that it has launched a new service to buy and sell Bitcoin, often called Bitcoin exchange service. However, it will also be processing other alternative currencies, such as Dogecoin. The company believes that it would be able to provide safe and secure Bitcoin exchange services despite the recent hacking reports.

Expresscoin is the same company that was known as Cash Into Coins; however, now as it is the Bitcoin economy it wants to bring Bitcoin to the masses with its service, helping average customers to buy and sell Bitcoin without needing access to a brokerage firm. Though there are several other established Bitcoin exchange services providers, it hopes it won’t affect it.

Co-founded by Will Wheeler and Joseph Hsieh, Expresscoin claims to have had $15M in USD transactions in its first year; however, it says that it was bootstrapped from $200,000 in seed investments from friends and family. Opening an account with the company customers can view their account balance in BTC; however, it is looking into adding other options as well.

Less Charges, Maximum Convenience for Customers

Regarding the charges the company says that it currently charge a 3% transaction fee, minimum of $5, for any purchase over $40. In a blog the company says that it has officially moved from Cash Into Coins and putting its full energy and time into Expresscoin. It is still representing the same people and the same customer service team that customers used to working with.

Expresscoin believes that as it expanded, its goal to be the easiest and safest way to buy digital currency hasn’t changed; however, it also makes clear that its ambitions has expanded significantly. Now, as digital currency grew much bigger than it would have ever imagined, in just one year, it is willing to reach to new people.

To enable customers to get more payment methods, more digital currencies, and easier ways to manage their purchase experience, Expresscoin also willing to bring in several other digital currencies like Dogecoin. The company also pays generous transaction fees on customers’ behalf to ensure transactions propagate throughout the Bitcoin network quickly.
Answering the question whether it uses customer deposits for anything, Expresscoin says that deposits are not sent anywhere or leveraged in any way as they might be by using a bank. It promises that 100% of customer funds are securely stored.

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To the moon
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Dutch Bank ABN Amro Experimenting With Bitcoin

By Forexminute - Deepak Tiwari | Bitcoin | Jun 19, 2014 4:00PM BST




If the reports published in Automatiseringgids.nl are to be believed, Dutch Bank ABN Amro is mulling a plan to experiment with Bitcoin and several other digital currencies. The news is making rounds; however, if probed deeper, it looks like the first information regarding the news came up from Menno van Leeuwen, the so-called ‘Innovation Manager’ at the state-owned bank.

From the statement from Leeuwen, it looks like he just feels and gave the opinion that it wouldn’t be wise for the bank to ignore technological development like Bitcoin and other digital currencies. He even added that the idea behind experimentation is an effort to be prepared for change, namely in the financial industry.
The article is available in Dutch and various translations are being circulated everywhere. When some user posted the news in /r/Bitcoin, it received a lot of appreciation and many users were pleasantly shocked. Some of these users feel that if ABN Amro is really going to test the digital currency, it would be a huge step towards acceptance of Bitcoin.

Dutch translation of the text says that Leeuwen says that banks are facing challengers from outside, who invent new things and if someone ignores that, he can be in for undesirable surprises. The article says that the trial is an initiative of Menno van Leeuwen, the manager at the Innovation Center of the nationalized bank.

The Experiment May Last for Three or Four Months

Quoting Leeuwen the article says that the Bitcoin is not a regular payment; however, it is a subject that requires a highly secure environment. It says that since the bank has a lot of experience providing safe environment as a bank, the combination with the Bitcoin that it is going to test in over the next couple of month will definitely be positive one.

Menno van Leeuwen, manager at the Innovation Center of ABN Amro which has emerged as a playground for new ideas and technology inside the ABN Bank can play vital role in the overall acceptance of the digital currency. However, for that it is important that during the experiment period, it receives positive outputs.
The experiment will be the part of the center’s policy wherein it hosts short, fast-track projects that serve the purpose of getting quick insight in new technology. Generally, the duration of such projects is 10 to 12 weeks. Thus, it looks like Bitcoin experiment too is not going to last for more than a couple of months.

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Bitcoin News Mash-Up: Western Union Prefers Regulated Bitcoin, Swiss Government Thinks It’s Insignificant

By Forexminute - Yashu Gola | Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency News | Jun 26, 2014 6:52PM BST





Western Union CEO Hints to Adapt Regulated Cryptocurrencies

During an interview to Bloomberg TV show, CEO of Western Union Hikmet Ersek said that his company could adopt Bitcoin for remittance service if it is regulated with proper framework. With few countries already on terms with regulating cryptocurrencies, there might be a chance that Bitcoin will integrate into the worldwide renowned services of Western Union.

Swiss Government Rubbishes Bitcoin, Calls it “Insignificant”

The latest to join the long list of Bitcoin ignorers is the Swiss Federal Council which thinks that the first ever cryptocurrency is too insignificant to legislate. The report was created in response to the postulated made by National councillors Thomas Weibel and Jean-Christophe Schwaab in 2013. The postulate then discussed about the potential risks and opportunities around Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Intuit Introduces a New Bitcoin Service

Renowned finance management solution providing company Intuit has tied itself with the emerging alternative currency Bitcoin. The company recently announced that it is allowing its merchants to accept Bitcoin through their newly introduced service PayByBitcoin.

“Intuit is providing the connectivity and software services to direct customers to the small business operators CoinBase wallet, and to record the transactions in QuickBooks Online. Intuit will not receive or hold any funds related to the PayByCoin transactions, either in USD or bitcoins,” Intuit official blog reads.

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ForexMinute.com – As per the schedule, US Federal Agency has auctioned over 30,000 Bitcoins (worth around $17 million) in a 12-hour long event on June 27th.

For obvious reasons, there was a huge negativity already distributed inside the Bitcoin market, with few speculations claiming a notable drop in Bitcoin prices after the scheduled auction. But to everyone’s surprise, the Bitcoin prices have done a complete reversal.

Going against the tides of negative speculations, the Bitcoin prices seems to have survived the much-hyped auction storm. Indeed it was dropped by a huge margin during between the trading hours of June 24th and 26th, but bounced back right ahead of the Friday’s auction.

It might be obvious that experts were expecting a huge drop in this cryptocurrency’s volume trade, which could have eventually brought the prices down as well. The market itself was bearish in the wake of US Marshall Service’s announcement of auctioning Silk Road Bitcoins. But the impact soon wore off just ahead of Friday, when Bitcoin prices rebounded and started trending upwards.
Although, it doesn’t mean that the dark clouds are past. In strict sense, the rise and fall of Bitcoin, at this time, solely depends on the bidder who will be selected to sweep all the Bitcoin blocks Monday. Indeed, he would wait to sell his coins until Bitcoin prices reach a definite peak. In best cases, he would simply hold on to his coins and circulate it inside the cryptocurrency circle only, thus maintaining the supply-demand ratio.

More can only be said on Monday when the name of the lucky bidder will be announced. Until then, Bitcoin market is expected to stay stable. Keep watching this space to know more.

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Filmhuis Cavia, a Movie Theater in Amsterdam, Holland Accepts Bitcoin Now

By Forexminute - Deepak Tiwari | Bitcoin | Jun 29, 2014 3:28PM BST




Filmhuis Cavia, a movie theater in Amsterdam, Holland is now accepting digital currencies
like Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Litecoin. In announcement the owners of the cinema house said that they will be the first cinema worldwide to enable customers to pay using cryptocurrency, peer to peer payment networks with no central bank or authority.
The decision according to them was influenced by the nature of Bitcoin and other digital currencies. The cinema owner says that cash and anonymous coins respect customers’ privacy and that is something he has been working out for over the years. The announcement says that for payment and ticket sales the cinema will use coinofsale.com.

Filmhuis Cavia says that it has been screening films in Amsterdam for over 30 years, working solely with volunteers. However, now that it has started accepting Bitcoin, it hopes it will help it expand on the founding principles as a formerly squatted cinema. It intends to be able to pay filmmakers and distributors with Bitcoin.

Answering to a question what ‘squatted cinema’ means from a Redditor, the user representing the cinema house said that the building was squatted in the eighties, as in old school building broken into and transformed by philosophy and film students. He said that after a bunch of years the cinema house became a legal renter of part of the building.

Watch Documentaries, Avant-Garde Cinema

The representative was also asked questions about the decision to accept various other digital currencies like Dogecoin and Litecoin. In response, he said that the decision was based purely on the feedback and requests from the customers. Many of them asked for it in the first testing period. The company may decide on the future of these currencies after some time.

It came out the Filmhuis Cavia is located where Bas de Lange organized the highly successful bitcoinference.com earlier this year. Thus, it looks there will be many people who would be using the services. They just won’t have conversations but also watch movies in the nearby theater that just announced to embrace the digital currency.

The movie lovers would have good time at Filmhuis Cavia which brings avant-garde cinema, documentaries, etc. For instance, it organized Documentary Film Festival on 28 & 29 June wherein some of the finest crafted Romanian documentary films that cover subjects ranging from outcasts to revolutionaries were shown to audience.

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Last 24 hours in the cryptocurrency market has been well enough for few coins, but are equally sad enough for other few, especially those in top ten market cap list. With Bitcoin finding a much-awaited surge and stability, and Darkcoin and Dogecoin continuing to lose its edge, the last 24 hours in market were of equal proportions.
But meanwhile, it is Peercoin that became the talk of the digital town when it climbed one step above in the cryptocurrency market and grabbed the status of the 4th richest digital currency, beating Darkcoin by margin. This escalation also helped Peercoin injecting optimism in the market; its value against the USD has increased 12% in last 24 hours.

On the other side, the reason of Litecoin sudden drop is unearthed by its blockchain. An anonymous Litecoin user sold its 30,000 units of coins in exchange of either fiat or cryptocurrency that ultimately injured the coin’s market cap and price. This also gave critics to mouth few bad words for Litecoin. Although, it is still possible for the coin to rebound anytime soon.

Dogecoin was further a talk of the town for all wrong reasons. It dropped more than 12% in the last 24 hours and gave air to the speculation that was*predicting it to have been losing its steam earlier. The community however looks calm as ever and is hoping to deal with this drop by simply ignoring it;.
Here is the full report:

BTC/USD

This pair opened at a comfortable point – around $646 – and went on closing at $648. The rise and stability achieved by BTC/USD, thanks to the Silk Road Bitcoins auction, was certainly visible in yesterday’s trading hours and is hopeful to remain the same even today.
At press time, the BTC/USD is being valued at around $647 and has increased 0.38% in last 24 hours.

LTC/USD

The killing drop LTC/USD saw earlier still has its impact on. The pair opened yesterday at around $7.9, but quickly surged in following hours to eventually reach the peak of $8.42. It although failed to stay there and fell once again due to negative sentiments in the market. The pair eventually closed at around $8.128.
At press time, the LTC/USD pair has surged over 0.75% in last 24 hours and is valued around $8.07.

DRK/USD

The first transaction anonymity offering digital currency Darkcoin is itself becoming anonymous with each passing day. The coin continued to trend downwards in yesterday’s trading hours, probably because of the lack of any major announcement regarding its hardfork. Its pair DRK/USD opened at $8.169 and went on slipping throughout the day, to eventually close at around $7.
At press time, the pair has fallen around 6% in last 24 hours and is trading at $7.63.

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Lamassu Brings Rakía, a Brand-spanking-new Open Source Back-end System for their ATMs

By Forexminute - Deepak Tiwari | Bitcoin | Jul 7, 2014 8:42AM BST




Lamassu which has revolutionized the in-person acquisition of Bitcoin via a streamlined thirty-second process earlier introduced a modular two-Bitcoin ATM system; has now brought in Rakía, a brand-spanking-new open source back-end system for its ATMs. The decision is aimed to continue providing A better experience for its clients.

The New Hampshire-based Bitcoin ATM maker, Lamassu has carved a niche for its product as it is not just reliable but also comes with excellent manufacturer’s warranty. The latest open source back-end system that it has brought in now will redefine how the company’s networks of ATMs in use around the world are utilized by customers.

Thus, the company is often trying to provide cutting-edge and upgraded technology. Now, operators of the Lamassu devices which presently allow consumers to buy Bitcoin with fiat currency in a matter of seconds will be independent nodes, and won’t have to rely on a centralized service.

A source from Lamassu says that now BTC ATM operators will have complete control over setting pricing, commission fees, and background trading operations. He further adds that on top of that, operators will potentially be able to accommodate integration with “any relevant Bitcoin service or software.”

The source also disclosed that when using Lamassu’s Santo Tirso stand, these devices can be transformed
into two-way ATMs i.e. the end user not just can buy the digital currency with fiat but also sell them in exchange for local currency. Thus, it is going to provide complete solution for buyers and sellers of Bitcoin.

To Give Tough Competition to Western Union and Other Similar Companies
Rakia platform according to Lamassu would be to have a two-way machine in two international airport hubs. Lamassu CEO Zach Harvey in his statement said that it’s important to note that the company does not plan to be the next Western Union, MoneyGram or Travelex; rather, it wants to create a platform for thousands of small businesses.

He says that the platform is aimed to provide competency to small businesses compete against the legacy financial institutions like Western Union and others and against each other. According to him these are markets in dire need of fierce competition to bring down transfer and exchange fees.

Nonetheless, as Rakía is open source, developers will be able to make tools that can make these machines even more useful and according to Lamassu CEO this is an evolution of the Bitcoin ATM format and the company has already spoken to several key Bitcoin businesses that are excited about integrating their services with the new Rakía platform.

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