As bitcoin becomes a growing part of forward-thinking investors’ portfolios, there’s one huge unresolved question: How do I report it in my taxes? With many newly minted “bitcoin wealthy” investors in 2013, it’s not a small question, particularly as April 15 approaches. Unfortunately, the U.S. government isn’t even sure how to classify bitcoin at the…
This week, online electronics retailer TigerDirect joined the exclusive club of bitcoin-accepting merchants to see over $1 million in total BTC transactions. The Florida-based company has only been accepting bitcoin for less than two months, and saw nearly $250,000 in BTC transactions in the first day. It’s worth noting that TigerDirect’s parent company, Systemax, sees…
If Xapo’s pitch is taken at face value, the California-based bitcoin security company will provide unprecedented levels of protection for user funds. In the wake of the Mt.Gox debacle, it’s not surprising that demand for a safe means of storing bitcoin is a high priority. Venture capital funds seem to think it’s an idea with…
In a report earlier this week by Reuters, Mark Wetjen, the acting chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC), was quoted as saying that his department is “looking into” regulation of bitcoin and other virtual currencies. “It’s been initiated, there’s been an internal discussion at the staff level,” Wetjen said. The CFTC regulates…
As international awareness of bitcoin grows, regulators across the globe are racing to create polices for handling the virtual currency. This week, several countries hinted at coming plans for regulation of bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. Here are the highlights of this week’s regulation news. Mexico: Banco de México issued a warning about the risks of…
Speaking on CNBCs’s Squawk Box today, investment legend Warren Buffett warned investors to “stay away” from bitcoin, and claimed that the cryptocurrency was little more than a “mirage.” Buffett’s comments came in response to a question posed by Quicken Loans founder and chairman Dan Gilbert, who noted that bitcoin was the “big two-syllable word that…
For many people, the biggest disincentive to experiment with bitcoin isn’t the volatility, it’s the price. Or rather, the perceived price. At $630, where bitcoin has been hovering most of this week, buying a single bitcoin is $100 more expensive than buying a share in Apple ($530). While experienced bitcoiners know that BTC can be…
Startup accelerator Boost is aiming to make itself the Y Combinator of the bitcoin world. Last year, the venture capital company funded ten bitcoin-related startups in summer and winter classes. Over the next three years, Boost aims to grow that number tenfold. Speaking with CoinDesk yesterday, Boost’s founder and CEO Adam Draper explained the program’s…
The next update to the Bitcoin software took another step towards final approval yesterday with the quiet unveiling of 0.9.0 release candidate 3. The testing version of the Bitcoin client provides a preview of the official release, expected in the next few months. While most of the changes in the code are likely to be…
As governments across the globe race to develop laws and policies for handling virtual currencies like bitcoin, one of the biggest problems they face is simply knowing what general category cryptocurrency falls under. They’re clearly not legal tender, or even currency, even though in practice virtual currencies act like money. In a new report from…