Last week, a single mining pool, GHash.io, briefly gained over 51% of the hashing power of the entire network. Although several core developers have claimed that a true 51% attack is extremely unlikely, and that the centralization of mining power isn’t the huge problem it has been presented as, this did little to slow the…
Conservative Member of Parliament Douglas Carswell is no stranger to the concepts of cryptocurrencies. In fact, he’s generally seen as one of the few advocate for bitcoin in the British government, even though he has called himself “a bit of a Bitcoin sceptic” when it comes to the digital currency’s long-term prospects. Last year, Carswell…
In a move aimed at protecting its national currency, the boliviano, Bolivia’s central bank official prohibited the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies today. Although the policy was created by El Banco Central de Bolivia back in early May, it has only recently become known to the general public following a story by Spanish-language news…
Japanese lawmakers announced yesterday that they would not be implementing regulations on bitcoin or other virtual currencies for the time being. The announcement from Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the ruling government party in the country’s Parliamentary system, won’t be official policy until additional hearings are completed. Speaking with Reuters, LDP lawmaker Takuya Hirai said:…
Last week, the Bitcoin Foundation announced a plan to finally solve one of the digital currency’s nagging problems: The lack of a Unicode-approved symbol. Although bitcoin has officially used the symbol of a capital “B” with two vertical strokes through it (in the style of the U.S. dollar), that symbol doesn’t exist in the Unicode…
Latin America-focused bitcoin payment processor BitPagos raised $600,000 in its first round of seed funding. Investors included well known bitcoin advocates Tim Draper and Barry Silbert, as well as contributions from venture capital funds Pantera Capital and the Boost Bitcoin Fund. BitPagos participated in the Boost VC accelerator program last year, where it raised over…
Last week, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) announced the auction of roughly 30,000 bitcoin seized from the Silk Road online marketplace. With a deposit of $200,000 required to bid, the auction was effectively open only to institutional-level buyers. Given the closed-envelope nature of the auction itself, the odds of finding the names of the bidders…
The complex and glacially slow international bankruptcy process for shuttered bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox made significant progress yesterday when Judge Stacey Jernigan have final approval to the company’s Chapter 15 filing. The decision will allow Nobuaki Kobayashi, the court-appointed trustee in the Japanese case, to move forward with his investigation, as well as consider potential bids…
Bitcoin’s mainstream profile is likely to make a major leap forward this December when the NCAA’s St. Petersburg Bowl launches with a new sponsor. Atlanta-based bitcoin payment processor BitPay has purchased the naming rights to the game, which will now be known as the “Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl.” The 2014 game will be broadcast on…
Although the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust is still making its way through the SEC maze, the “Winklevii” do have some good news to share. The duo’s “blended bitcoin price index,” better known as the WinkDex, was added to the official Bloomberg price ticker today. Bloomberg subscribers can view the index under the symbol WINKBTCO. While the…