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BTC Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, is considering whether the country should introduce a purely digital form of government-backed money, perhaps using distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) similar to the blockchain technology underlying Bitcoin. This move is part of a recent trend: around the world, nations are considering cryptocurrencies issued by central banks; and recently, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave a speech hinting at its interest in the concept. A September 2017 report titled “ The Riksbank’s e-krona project ” outlines a proposal for a digital complement to cash, dubbed e-krona, which would be guaranteed by the state. “This is as revolutionary as the paper note 300 years ago,” Cecilia Skingsley, deputy governor at the Riksbank, told the Financial Times  in November 2016. “What does it mean for monetary policy and financial stability? How do we design this: a rechargeable card, an app or another way?” Skingsley added tha...

Bitcoin  Here's what you can do with your BCH now that the first blocks are being mined. Please note: Everything in this article is just advice, based on our best understanding of the current situation. Everything is still very uncertain and subject to change: Be extremely careful! Bitcoin Cash (sometimes referred to as Bcash, and mostly using the tickers BCH or BCC) launched today. Anyone who held bitcoin at 12:20 p.m. UTC should have an equivalent amount of BCH attributed to their Bitcoin private keys. In our  beginner’s guide to surviving the BIP 148 split , which was subsequently updated to also cover the Bitcoin Cash launch, we explained how to secure your private keys so you could be sure to access your BCH. At the time of writing that article, much was still uncertain about how this event would play out. Much is still uncertain, but to the extent that the situation can be understood at present, this article explains how you can claim — and potentially use — your B...

Bitcoin  The way we consume media content has been on a continual overhaul for the past two decades. Every aspect of media distribution has become more streamlined from the razor-thin devices we use to consume media to the manner in which we purchase and store our coveted content. Books, music and movies have all seen their physical bodies and storage locations dissolve, to be replaced with on-demand downloads and digital copies. The digital content revolution has done a lot for increasing access and visibility for artists and authors, but the current publishing giants have failed to adequately adjust to the times in a few crucial areas. While it's true that platforms such as YouTube and Medium have granted publishing access to the greater public and eliminated gatekeeping middlemen like talent agents and PR people, the current digital content sharing platforms have built their empires on the skeletons of the publishing giants’ templates that existed before and, unfortunately, ...

Gold ownership Reflecting gold’s historical repute as a scarce and valued resource, Bitcoin has become known in many investment circles as “digital gold.” With its unprecedented rise, Bitcoin’s worth is now estimated to be about twice that of an ounce of physical gold. On August 7, 2017, the startup  GoldMint was launched with the intent of ushering in a new digital era of gold as a store of value. This project aims to provide a unique set of gold ownership solutions for cryptocurrency investors and enthusiasts worldwide. It is holding an  initial coin offering  (ICO) that starts in less than 12 hours.  The GoldMint project reaffirms the notion that physical gold is a respected method of payment and wealth preservation, all tied to its value and scarcity. Gold ownership, however, requires expensive security, safekeeping and insurance. GoldMint’s innovative approach seeks to address these inherent issues. GoldMint purchases, sells and repurchases their native dig...

Bitcoin While China tightens its grip on its cryptocurrency community, Japan is openly embracing cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, legalizing bitcoin, and encouraging and funding blockchain research. Even Japan’s banks are onboard, working collaboratively to develop a blockchain platform specifically for the financial sector. With its 120 member banks, the  Japanese Bankers Association  (JBA) is creating a Collaborative Blockchain Platform and is actively looking for a company to supply its blockchain technology on an ongoing basis. Experimenting with the Collaborative Blockchain Platform, the JBA will initially determine which financial services best lend themselves to the new platform, likely including settlement/transfer services, know-your-customer (KYC) systems and financial infrastructure such as their Zengin System and Densai Net System. Japanese bitcoin exchange bitFlyer is stepping up to the plate to take on tech giants including Fujitsu, Hitachi and NT...

Bitcoin  Yesterday  a video teaser  from blockchain technology company Blockstream created  waves of excitement  among enthusiasts of both cryptocurrencies and space. Most participants speculated that Blockstream was about to implement the idea, promoted by Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik (among others), of a satellite system that streams the Bitcoin blockchain to the whole planet from space. The speculations were, indeed, correct. Today, the company is announcing  Blockstream Satellite , a new service that broadcasts real-time Bitcoin blockchain data from satellites in space to almost everyone on the planet. Blockstream Satellite covers across two-thirds of the Earth’s land mass and, according to the company, additional coverage areas will soon come online to reach almost every person on the planet by the end of the year. “Bitcoin is a powerful and transformative internet native digital money that has blazed a trail of disruption, with its full potential...

100 Bitcoin The Bitcoin community is not taking kindly to  BitPay  this week.  Influential  developers are accusing the major payment processor of fraud, Bitcoin users on  social media  are calling for boycots, bitcoin.org  is  removing recommendations of the company’s products, and NBitcoin developer Nicolas Dorier has  launched  an initiative to fork some of BitPay’s projects altogether. Here’s why. Bitcore The controversial issue has to do with Bitcore . Bitcore is a type of Bitcoin node developed by BitPay. It is specifically designed to offer a development platform, on top of which it is easy to build all kinds of Bitcoin applications. Anyone can use this open-source tool; some of the better-known applications that utilize it include video-streaming service  Streamium ,  Trezor ’s web interface and BitPay’s own  Copay  wallet. Within the  next a couple of days , most likely on August 23, the long...

Luxurious home for bitcoins The Russian real estate firm Kalinka Group has  announced  that once of its clients is selling his luxurious home for bitcoins. The 4200 square foot country mansion is located in the village of Nikolino, situated in a fashionable neighborhood off the Rublevo-Upenskoe highway. According to the Kalinka Group, this is the first time in the history of the Russian real estate market that a client has offered to sell a property for cryptocurrencies. "Such transactions are still a novelty, even for world real estate markets,” Ekaterina Rumyantseva, the chairman of the board of Kalinka Group, said in a statement. “We are pleased to be pioneers and open new frontiers in business.” She pointed out that Russian legislation has not yet defined the rules for working with bitcoins, and so far there is no legal definition of the cryptocurrency. Also, as there is no regulatory or legal framework governing the sale, the agency's service fees will still be paid i...

Bitcoin In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)  moved in on the "Wild West" world of ICOs , which has sent the blockchain world reeling. Now, the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) has announced its own plans to form a panel to regulate Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). This week, the ISA announced that its chairman, Prof. Shmuel Hauser, has put together a committee to examine the regulation of ICOs. The committee will investigate the applicability of securities regulations on ICOs based on shared ledgers that are being offered to the Israeli public. On July 31, the Israeli Bitcoin Association (IBA) made its own  official public statement on the topic of ICOs. The IBA cautioned potential ICO participants that it’s important to understand the huge risks that exist in investing in ICOs. This new world tends to captivate innocents tempted by the hope of getting rich quick. We implore the public considering investment in ICOs to treat the matter with serious ...

Only Expedia's US site will accept bitcoin during the trial Travel website Expedia has become the latest company to accept bitcoin transactions as a form of payment for hotel bookings. When Expedia's US customers come to pay to reserve their hotel, bitcoins will be offered as a payment method alongside Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, Diners Club and Paypal. To begin with, the company will only accept the virtual currency for hotel bookings, and will restrict the trial to its US site. Expedia boss Michael Gulmann said: "We're continually looking at ways consumers want to pay for their travel; bitcoin is a great example of how Expedia is investing early in an array of payment options to give our customers and partners more choice in the ways they interact with us." Other big businesses such as Virgin Galactic now accept bitcoin, as do a range of  UK companies from Theatre Tickets Direct to the law firm Sheridans.  Video:Shop Holds Bitcoin-Only Trial ...

If you aren’t sure which coins to mine then it can be a difficult process carrying out the required research to find the largest profit margins. Thankfully there are already websites available that simplify the selection process. First you need to establish whether you are mining with a GPU or ASIC’s device. Then head over to  whattomine.com  and then select GPU or ASICS link from the top of the page. You will instantly be presented with the crypto coins with the highest profitability in realtime. Now once you have mined your coins you may want to convert your cash back into a safer currency such as BTC or LTC. Well there are tools for this as well. Check out  Shapeshift  a website that allows you to instantly convert your coins from one coin to another. I for example would generally move some of my profits back into LTC or BTC as I feel more comfortable with the stability of these currencies. As of today the most profitable coins to mine by GPU are as follows ...

The number of countries with banks experimenting with blockchain technology is growing rapidly. The Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG), north of Australia, has joined the movement with its own central Bank of Papua New Guinea running blockchain trials. Central Bank Governor Loi Bakani,  known  as a champion of new technologies as a way to enable financial inclusion, recently hosted a conference to showcase his country’s commitment to blockchain technology, with participants from at home and around the world, including Abt Associates, Paycase, Othera, IDbox, Pacific Markets, UCash, Seso and ADCCA. At the conference, Bakani described the blockchain trials underway at the  Bank of PNG  and introduced the  PNG Digital Commerce and Cryptocurrency Association  for the growing number of Papua New Guinea tech entrepreneurs and businesses interested in blockchain technology. Bakani said, “This will allow PNG to join the Global Blockchai...

Questions about how identity is tied to Bitcoin and its use are understandable. It can be more than a little confusing to parse what aspects of your name and personal information will be tied to the platform. While it carries a reputation for allowing users to operate in the shadows, you may also know that Bitcoin is tied to distributed ledger technology, which records every transaction and traces them back to their origin. So, is Bitcoin anonymous? The short answer is no, not entirely. While anonymity indicates that the identity of an actor is unknown, Bitcoin transactions are linked to a specific address and, thus, an “identity.” However, that address does not necessarily have to be tied to a real-life identity. That is why Bitcoin is often described as “pseudonymous.” If a user’s Bitcoin address is tied to their real identity, then it is possible to trace activity back to them. If not, it is possible only to trace activity back to their Bitcoin pseudonym. Bi...

Using our handy guide, you may have already familiarized yourself with the ins and outs of Bitcoin. But aside from bitcoin, there are hundreds of other digital currencies out there. These are known as “altcoins,” or alternatives to bitcoin; for example, ether, ripple, zcash, monero and dash, to name just a few. Altcoins can differ from Bitcoin in a range of ways. Some have a different economic model or a different coin-distribution method, like altcoins that were given away to all citizens of a country. Others employ different proof-of-work mining algorithms, perhaps to resist specialized mining hardware — or maybe they don’t even rely on proof of work at all. Several altcoins offer a more versatile programming language to build applications on top of, while yet others offer more privacy compared to Bitcoin. And there are also altcoins that serve very specific, non-monetary use cases, like domain name registry or data storage pointers. However, there are also ...

Questions about the value of bitcoins as an investment will likely differ depending on who you ask. Those with a vision of a fully-distributed future in which the lack of a centralized overseer becomes key to an asset’s value will tell you that, yes, bitcoins are poised to become only more valuable in the future. Others who put more value in the traditional trust afforded by banks and government institutions would likely steer you away from bitcoins as an investment. While determining how “good” any investment will be is ultimately a guessing game, there are some tried and true ways to determine an asset’s worth. One of the simplest ways to think about bitcoin as an investment is to consider its rise against the U.S. dollar. Recently, bitcoin prices eclipsed $1,000 and have reached beyond $1,500. If you had invested in the digital currency when its worth was still hovering around $150 just a few years ago, or when it was first introduced in 2009 and worth nothin...

The digital currency Bitcoin has a dedicated following, regularly makes headlines and inspires countless investors to consider making digital currency part of their portfolios. Yet it enjoys the backing of no government or third-party entity like a bank, and it can be hard to understand where its perceived value comes from. So, you may be asking, what makes bitcoin valuable? Fundamentally, bitcoins derive their value just as anything else does: because people want them. Like any other currency, bitcoin follows the basic rules of supply and demand. Currencies have always been useful tools to make trade easier, enabling holders to convert goods into a widely tradable commodity through sale, then use the proceeds of that sale to purchase nearly anything they wish. While fiat currencies derive value from the governments that back them, currencies like gold are valuable in and of themselves. Currently, bitcoin isn’t like other currencies in that it is not universally...

If you are thinking through the process of accruing bitcoins, you may be wondering where to keep them once you’ve done so. After investing time and resources into the digital asset, can you be sure they are locked safely away for when you want to use them? In truth, bitcoins aren’t “stored” anywhere. As a purely digital entity, it is not as if they are held in bank vaults or stuffed under mattresses. They are accessible through Bitcoin addresses, which require a set of digital keys for entry. So, the question of how to securely store bitcoins comes down to the security of these keys. Every Bitcoin address has two keys: a “public key” and a “private key.” Bitcoin addresses are derived from public keys, and these Bitcoin addresses are shared. Think of it like sharing your email address with someone: they can send you an email but can’t get into your inbox to read your mail. Similarly, nobody can get into a wallet and take bitcoins from it with a public key; it can only b...