Lifeboat Foundation

by Charlie Osborne - c/net

Bitcoin, the best known form of virtual currency, faces numerous obstacles to widespread acceptance and adoption, but a new group called Coin Center has added a voice of support.

The organization is led by Jerry Brito, a law professor and a former research fellow at George Mason’s Mercatus Center. In an announcement made Thursday, Brito said Coin Center is a “new non-profit research and advocacy center focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency technologies.” Bitcoin was the first and still the best known virtual currency or crytocurrency, which means that cryptography is used for its transactions and its creation.

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Hayley Tsukayama — WashingtonPost

United Way Worldwide announced Monday that it will begin taking donations in Bitcoin, the digital currency.

Bitcoin users can now use the currency for donations to the United Way’s Innovation Fund, a part of the United Way dedicated to updating the organization through “technology, relationships and efficiency.” Coinbase, one of the leading Bitcoin payment platforms, is partnering with the charity to let those interested donate directly from their digital Bitcoin wallets to the fund. According to a page on the United Way’s Web site, anyone from around the world can donate to the fund using Bitcoin.

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Caleb Chen — Cryptocoinsnews

The Celebgate incident is still unfolding, and we are already seeing mainstream media report on the connection between the “nude celebrity photos” and Bitcoin. The original leaker of the pictures returned to 4chan recently to respond to the uproar he had caused. An excerpt from his post highlights Bitcoin’s involvement in Celebgate:

People wanted **** for free. Sure, I got $120 with my bitcoin address, but when you consider how much time was put into acquiring this stuff (i’m not the hacker, just a collector), and the money (i paid a lot via Bitcoin as well to get certain sets when this stuff was being privately traded Friday/Saturday) I really didn’t get close to what I was hoping.

Continue reading “Celebgate Could Inspire More Bitcoin Blackmail” »

Stan Higgins | — Coindesk

KnCMiner has unveiled a new cloud-mining service, offering six-month contracts out of its Arctic bitcoin mine.

KnC Cloud, launched on 2nd September, leverages the company’s existing data center space in northern Sweden. The so-called Clear Sky mine boasts more than 7 petahashes per second in estimated mining power.

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Daniel Cawrey (@danielcawrey) — Wired

Given the recent critiques of New York and its proposed framework for bitcoin businesses, many of the law’s opponents are no doubt hoping the state and its regulators will alter the bill during its now extended comment period.

After all, New York’s BitLicense proposal, once approved, could prove influential at shaping wider US bitcoin regulation, a fact recently underscored by New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) superintendent Ben Lawsky in an interview with CoinDesk.

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Stan Higgins — Coindesk

Since opening its doors on 3rd August of last year, major bitcoin mining pool operator GHash.io has generated nearly $250m in bitcoin, according to a new infographic released by the company.

The pool has produced 413,752.01889456 BTC since it first began hashing in 2013, an amount worth $248,251,211.33 according to the CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index.

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• By JP Mangalindan — Fortune

Stripe is diving into digital currency in a big way.

The San Francisco-based startup, whose technology lets businesses accept online payments, helped introduce a new Bitcoin-like currency on Thursday called “stellar,” as well as a payments network that lets users send any kind of traditional and digital currency including U.S. dollars, pesos, euros and Bitcoins. People will be able to send one kind of currency across the globe and have it automatically converted into another — a sort of all-inclusive online money exchange.

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Pete Rizzo — Coindesk

Global payments giant Visa earned the ire of the bitcoin community earlier this year when CEO Charlie Scharf stated that he didn’t see bitcoin and its technology as posing a significant threat to its operations.

Now, however, new comments from Visa senior vice president of digital solutions Sam Shrauger suggest that the company may be reevaluating bitcoin.

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Alex William — Bitcoin Vox

Michael Dell, founder and CEO of the big PC maker Dell, announced via Twitter on Friday that his eponymous company will start accepting bitcoin as a payment option for anything purchased on the company’s website.

For bitcoin, it’s one of the biggest signs yet of mainstream acceptance. With nearly $57 billion in sales in 2013, Dell would be by far the largest company to take bitcoin. Dish Network, which began accepting bitcoin in May, had $13.9 billion in 2013 sales.

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