Lifeboat Foundation

Armstrong and the Winklevoss twins have promising visions in securing Bitcoin exchange.

Bitcoin exchange Coinbase has brought innovation to the next level by opening the first ever licensed US Bitcoin exchange. Backed by $106 million from the New York Stock Exchange, banks, and venture-capital firms, Coinbase’s newly launched US exchange, said to be named Lunar, will provide greater security features; so as not to repeat the mistakes of Mt. Gox and Bitstamp, the former of which declared bankruptcy last year while the latter has sustained hacking attacks and is now back in the game.

Coinbase has already acquired licenses from 50% of the states in the country, which includes New York. The remaining 50% is still in the works and is necessary to complete to be able to provide full nationwide services. Also, Coinbase does not only look at expanding nationwide, it also looks at expanding worldwide in offering their Bitcoin-related services.

Of this plan, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said: “Our goal is to become the world’s largest exchange”.

Continue reading “Coinbase releases first licensed US Bitcoin exchange; Winklevoss twins gear up to do the same” »

Quoted: “Looking at the misinformation, speculation, and confusion about bitcoin and blockchain technology: it’s the same conversation we had 20 years ago with the Internet. In the early 90s, the only way you could check your email was through a command line prompt. Then, web browsers were developed, small websites were created, and…well, as you can see, a lot has changed since. It’s looking as though bitcoin is just the first app to use blockchain technology, just like email was the first app to use the Internet.”

Read the article, and learn about the January 27, 2015, conference, here > http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/01/bitcoin-is-just-the-first-a…ology.html

Quoted: “We’re not there yet, but in less than 10 years, I believe that the technology behind bitcoin will transform the accounting profession entirely. What is this technology? The blockchain. Let me set the scene by going over a few bitcoin related concepts before explaining why I think that the accounting profession will undergo a major disruption in the coming years.”

Read the article here > http://www.techvibes.com/blog/how-technology-behind-bitcoin-…;01-22

From Innovation to Oblivion…

The ups and downs of Bitcoin as an internet currency may be compared to the eventual demise of Google Glass due to its lack of purpose among consumers. While it does not significantly hold true for bitcoins, which apparently have a more supportive and enthusiastic followers, the path that these two have taken and will take may be substantially similar than we like to admit.

For one, Bitcoin’s staggering price decline in the recent days left some people wondering what road it will eventually take in the near future. Is it only taking a detour or is it bound for a dead end?

In the case of Google Glass, it received much attention during its inception a few years ago. It was even named by Time magazine one of the best innovations of 2012. However, despite the ingenuity behind a supposed-to-be groundbreaking invention, Google Glass lacked a tangible sense, its purpose incoherent.

Continue reading “Bitcoins and Google Glass: Are They Heading For the Same Direction?” »

The volatile nature of bitcoins took its toll as recent turn of events saw the value plunging down to $274 as of this writing. CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index reported that while it opened to $314.59 last Saturday, it was followed by a staggering $263.63 the next day.

The remarkable price drop got everyone talking and while it instigated worries among market watchers, some focused on its bright side, deeming it the perfect opportunity for buying. However, the question still lies out in the open unanswered. What caused the steep crash?

Theories suggest that it may have something to do with margin calls, which if accurate, already did something of this nature sometime in August last year. The holiday season is another factor that may have had affected the value of bitcoins inadvertently. This was the season where exchanges were few with all the banks closed, disabling traders from filling up their cryptocurrency accounts.

Continue reading “Bitcoin’s Plummeting Crash and How it Affects Altcoins” »

Quoted: “If you understand the core innovations around the blockchain idea, you’ll realize that the technology concept behind it is similar to that of a database, except that the way you interact with that database is very different.

The blockchain concept represents a paradigm shift in how software engineers will write software applications in the future, and it is one of the key concepts behind the Bitcoin revolution that need to be well understood. In this post, I’d like to explain 5 of these concepts, and how they interrelate to one another in the context of this new computing paradigm that is unravelling in front of us. They are: the blockchain, decentralized consensus, trusted computing, smart contracts and proof of work / stake. This computing paradigm is important, because it is a catalyst for the creation of decentralized applications, a next-step evolution from distributed computing architectural constructs.

Read the article here > http://startupmanagement.org/2014/12/27/the-blockchain-is-th…verything/

Pete Rizzo — Coindesk

A member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines has introduced a bill that would seek to create a government-backed “e-peso” that would serve as an official medium of exchange for domestic online payments.

Introduced as part of the E-Peso Act of 2014, the payments tool would be considered legal tender for debt, taxes and goods and services, according to a report by The Philippine Star.

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Joon Ian Wong — CoinDesk

Bitcoin is now available at 874 self-service payment terminals across Romania, thanks to a partnership between ATM operator Bitcoin Romania and terminal network operator ZebraPay.

The ZebraPay terminals will allow customers to buy bitcoin at a 4% commission on prices taken from the Cointrader exchange. The terminals are one-way, so customers can only trade their Romanian leu for bitcoin.

Continue reading “Over 800 Payment Terminals in Romania Now Sell Bitcoin” »

Andrew Barisser — Assembly Coins, Crytocoins News

Andrew Barisser of Assembly Coins makes strong arguments for building on top of the pure Bitcoin blockchain, rather than creating alternatives.

Recently he wrote an open letter to Reddit, where he argued that Reddit should stick to a pure Bitcoin blockchain approach to building their planned cryptocurrency initiative, rather than going sidewise with alternative approaches. Now, probably prompted from the recent news about the Medici stock exchange that is being developed with Counterparty technology, Barisser wrote a post to criticize Counterparty.

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