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Aug 18 - Blocktrail One of Russia’s newly minted technology tycoons has unveiled his first foray into the bitcoin world, a block chain visualiser called BlockTrail, that opened for public access today. Tech magnate Lev Leviev is co-founder of VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network, which has 266 million user accounts and more active daily users than Facebook in the country. He sold his stake in VKontakte last year in a deal that, together with larger chunk of equity from another investor, was valued at more than $1bn. With the proceeds of the sale in hand, Leviev turned his attention to bitcoin, which he discovered last year. He said: “We both got started with bitcoin in 2013 and almost immediately were struck by the potential of this disruptive technology. It was clear that bitcoin needed better tools for its economy to flourish.” He started a “holding company” for bitcoin projects called BlockCorp with Boaz Bechar, a longtime friend and technology entrepreneur based in Amsterdam. Bechar is also BlockTrail’s chief executive. BlockCorp invested €500,000 euros in BlockTrail, its first project. It has other projects in development, including a mobile messaging application that relies on BitMessage, a decentralised and encrypted messaging protocol that uses a general public ledger similar to the bitcoin block chain. A holding firm for bitcoin projects BlockTrail promises to be the average bitcoin user’s ‘dashboard’ for keeping track of transactions. It also has a social component that links wallet addresses to websites that mention them, such as forums like Bitcoin Talk. An example of BlockTrail’s social dimension at work is the page for a wallet used by the US Marshalls Service to hold some of the bitcoin it confiscated from online black market Silk Road. Alongside the wallet’s conducted transactions is a tab for “mentions”. blocktrail wallet The mentions tab reveals a page of links to web pages that have referred to the wallet address. This includes links to pages on Bitcoin Talk, for example. This particular US Marshalls wallet has 61 mentions, according to Blocktrail. The page is also structured with a Reddit-like voting mechanism that allows users to vote for the most salient links. Crowded analytics space BlockTrail is entering the increasingly heated space of bitcoin data and analytics startups, where firms are raising millions in funding to turn block chain data into profits. Last month New York-based startup TradeBlock, for example, raised $2.8m from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and SecondMarket and Bitcoin Investment Trust founder Barry Silbert, among others, announcing its mission to “focus on data” from the block chain. Another firm, Coinalytics, is using its backing from Silicon Valley incubator 500 Startups to try to become a “Bloomberg for bitcoin“, a reference to the financial information giant’s hugely profitable data terminal business. Bechar admits that block chain data firms aren’t exactly an untapped market, but he believes BlockTrail addresses a niche in the market: “It is true that quite a few data providers have emerged, but if you look closer, each one is targeting a different niche: Chain.com is building an API for developers, TradeBlock is focused on economic data for professionals, others are working on ‘institutional-level’ reports for enterprises, banks and government.” Bechar said his firm’s focus is not on the specialised needs of other analytics startups, but on the mass market of bitcoin users. The idea is to offer free visualisation tools to make it easier for the average bitcoiner to make sense of cryptocurrency flows into his or her own wallet, or from major segments of the bitcoin economy like mining pools. This is an area that is currently dominated by Blockchain.info, the wallet provider that also offers a popular free block chain explorer. “Our approach has been far more consumer-oriented, providing a free online site that enables anyone to view and analyse a bitcoin address, transaction, or other data from the network,” he said. Free to use Bechar wouldn’t say how he plans to generate revenue from BlockTrail, although he said he is committed to keeping the service free. Competitors like TradeBlock, for example, have said they plan to charge its users for access. Bechar said he aims for BlockTrail to become the “authoritative” source for information on cryptocurrency networks by the year’s end. For Bechar and Leviev, the long-term promise of bitcoin lies in its technology, not its potential as a currency, Bechar said. That’s what their incubator, BlockCorp, will focus on in the coming months. He added: “We are both excited to build services in this industry. As the African proverb says: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Businessman image via Shutterstock analyticsBlockCorpBlockTrailBoaz BecharLev Leviev
Original author: Joon Ian Wong

The price of bitcoin on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) has declined more than $60 today (by the time of publication), falling to a low of $435.60. However, a more serious decline was observed at one major bitcoin exchange. The development is the latest blow to the price of bitcoin, which had slumped to its lowest level since May late last week. The decline has since been largely attributed to a worsening short-term news outlook, as well as the industry’s margin traders, though alternative theories have been proposed. At press time, at least one notable industry analyst, along with a host of exchange users are suggesting that margin trading may have once again played a factor in today’s decline, as a flash crash observed on popular bitcoin trading platform BTC-e caused the price of bitcoin on its exchange to decline sharply to a low of $309. btc-e That price was observed on BTC-e at roughly 07:36 (UTC), and was followed by similar declines across other major bitcoin trading platforms including Bitstamp, Huobi and OKCoin, market analysis shows. Notably, this is not the first time such a large flash crash has been observed on BTC-e. For example, this February, the price on the exchange declined nearly $500 in just over one minute. Ripple effect Data analysis shows other major exchanges soon responded to declining prices observed on BTC-e, with a sharp drop observed across their order books at roughly 07:37 (UTC). By 07:46, the price of bitcoin on Bitstamp began its decline, landing roughly $20 below its starting point to touch $462.01 and hitting a daily low price of $442 at roughly 08:51. bitstamp Major China-based Huobi and OKCoin also recorded less notable drops during this time. For example, Huobi’s price decline began at 07:37, dropping from ¥2880.1 to ¥2788.1 by 07:45. Likewise, OKCoin saw prices on its exchange fall from ¥2880.4 at 07:36 to ¥2785.3 by 07:45. okcoin At press time, China’s markets were down roughly 6% for the day to reach ¥2,832.27, according to the CoinDesk Chinese yuan BPI. Link to margin trading In a new post on his quantitative analysis blog Matlab Trading, margin trading critic Raffael Danielli was quick to assert that the practice was chiefly behind today’s market movements. BTC-e began offering margin trading to its customers last November. Danielli told CoinDesk: “We have seen crashes like this before and they follow a certain pattern, namely a sharp drop followed by a swift rebound to about a bit less than the previous level.” Danielli has been vocal in his belief that margin trading contributed to last week’s decline, and has been critical of major exchanges, which he claims have remained opaque about the internal safeguards they use to flag suspicious orders that could be influencing price. Still, Danielli was quick to temper his comments by indicating that there is a lack of information available for the market to reach any conclusion, saying: “Just to be clear: the only people who really know what happened are the ones operating the exchange. What we observe here is only the tip of the iceberg and we lack many pieces of information that the exchange has.” Other market observers suggested the overall weak market contributed to the situation on the exchange. Independent investor Tuur Demeester told CoinDesk: “I think BTC-e was the final drop, but the sell off would not have happened if the bidding on markets wasn’t weak either.” Exchanges respond to critics Major bitcoin exchanges have remained in favor of margin trading, suggesting they do their best to inform traders of the risks associated with the offerings and that they have internal safeguards to mitigate wider market damage that could result from the practice. Notably, Bitfinex vice president of business development Josh Rossi took to Reddit on Friday to respond to user questions and give the exchange’s official take on the day’s events. Speaking to CoinDesk, both Bitfinex and OKCoin responded to Danielli’s criticisms, citing competitive interests as the motivating factor behind not being fully transparent about these policies. “If it becomes public knowledge traders can use it to their advantage and find out ways to get around our preventative measures,” said OKCoin’s manager of international operations Zane Tackett. CoinDesk will continue to monitor this developing story. Stock arrow via Shutterstock BitstampBTC-eHuobiOKCoinprices
Original author: Pete Rizzo

Umbrella for protection
Last week’s advisory from the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warning consumers about the risks of virtual currencies such as bitcoin diligently listed several obvious risks, but simultaneously omitted the very consumer protections provided by certain cryptographic monies. Citing malicious hackers, potentially high mark-up fees, exchange-rate volatility, lack of governmental insurance, and risk of private key loss is laudable given that so few market participants conduct proper due diligence before jumping in to a new alternative. The majority of companies involved in the bitcoin ecosystem have been highlighting these risks for years. To be fair, the CFPB charter may not include stressing the particular benefits of some payment methods over others. However, when the words ‘financial protection’ are in your agency’s official name, it appears disingenuous to intentionally omit features from what may be one of the world’s most protective financial instruments ever designed. Who benefits most? Bootstrapping a competing free-market alternative in a field of national currencies with so many pre-existing and unfair legal tender advantages resembles the solving of the great chicken-or-the-egg debate: which came first, the merchant or the consumer? A recent New York Times article on bitcoin merchants sparked an instructive debate about whether bitcoin was mostly a payment method benefiting merchants or if consumers also gained substantial benefits from the digital currency. Merchants need an incentive to accept the new currency before consumers can spend the new currency. And similarly, consumers need reasons to hold the new currency before merchants can accept it. The CFPB advisory warning does little to instill confidence in the latter. Therefore, in order to better assist consumers, I will describe some of bitcoin’s superior attributes in the area of financial protection: 1. Protection from counterfeit bank notes As the most counterfeit-proof currency in existence today, bitcoin protects consumers from the risk of accepting or receiving counterfeit bank notes in commerce, which continues to plague the world’s fiat note issuers. By virtue of the innovative bitcoin block chain, transactions are chronologically recorded in a shared database preventing double-spending and it is computationally impractical to modify once recorded in the chain. 2. Protection from financial surveillance Just as massive digital surveillance of our email correspondence, telephone conversations, instant messaging, and web surfing habits has escalated in the last 20 years, so has surveillance of our income, spending, and financial transactions. Individuals and corporations are under the financial microscope now more than at any time in history – a fact that has significantly eroded any remaining vestiges of financial privacy. As we move from a paper money world to a digital money world, maintaining our analog equivalent rights becomes a necessity. Governments crave this information in the name of preventing money laundering, fighting terrorism, collecting taxes, and fighting the drug, gambling and pornography wars. Bitcoin restores the balance with financial privacy and financial sovereignty by placing responsibility for how transparent we want to be in the hands of the user where it belongs, hence user-defined privacy. This is also permission-less privacy and, if opted for, it includes total balance privacy in addition to transaction date, type, amount, and recipient privacy. 3. Protection from identity theft Bitcoin provides excellent protection from both identity theft and fraudulent charges, primarily because it functions as a push-method rather than a pull-method for personal financial details. Since account details and identity are not transferred to the merchant for payment purposes, the potential for malicious hackers and internal corporate security breaches are reduced to zero. With current payment methodologies, however, identity theft and resulting consequences to the victims are significant negative issues. 4. Protection from physical loss of assets In this sense, bitcoin is virtual, however the comparison is to trusting the safekeeping of your assets to a third party like a financial institution or wallet provider. Of course, when utilizing a third-party, a host of new risks is introduced which government regulation and government deposit insurance seek to address. But, not using bitcoin because it doesn’t come with government assurances is like not flying because you might fall out of the sky. Bitcoin possesses the option of simply not having to trust a third-party intermediary and, in this way, it resembles a digital bearer instrument such as gold or paper cash. However, bitcoin’s unique exceptions include the ability to safely backup your assets multiple times and to transfer them digitally without sacrificing their bearer nature. 5. Protection from cross-border restrictions and excessive fees Some money services businesses and financial institutions charge exorbitant fees just to execute a simple monetary transfer often preying upon those that are most financially vulnerable. Other countries severely restrict the amount and type of national currencies that may enter their borders causing hardship for many American citizens and residents needing to transfer living funds to family members overseas. Without requiring an intermediary, bitcoin insulates individuals and businesses from these detrimental restrictions and fees. 6. Protection from payment blockades Blockades such as these are typically enacted in the name of ‘political correctness’ as witnessed by the aggressive payment blockade against WikiLeaks in 2011. As the US government leaned strongly on payment processors Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal to discontinue donations to the whistle-blowing site, donations in bitcoin continued to provide a valuable method for WikiLeaks to maintain an ongoing financial stream for operations. 7. Protection from government-sponsored inflation As the so-called ‘hidden tax’, inflation represents one of the most insidious methods ever devised by governments to boost their wealth at the expense of the fleeced middle-class. Without significant assets to appreciate and keep pace with government-induced inflation, it is the poor and middle-class that suffer the most during inflation, despite the fact that the decline in purchasing power may only be noticeable over a longer time horizon. Bitcoin, with its fixed and predictable supply, provides a store of value alternative to the currency of nations with printing presses run amok. 8. Protection from confiscation Arbitrary and capricious confiscation of assets has emerged as a new trend among debt-saddled countries in the euro zone. Cyprus and Spain are two examples, but any government with control over its banking system assets has the potential to enact a ‘deposit levy’ or a ‘wealth tax’ if revenues from taxation are insufficient to meet ongoing government obligations. The protections afforded by bitcoin in this area prevent loss of wealth due to random government asset seizures. Let the buyer beware Today, I was reminded that Confucius once said: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” So, let’s not forget the ongoing bitcoin word game played by governments and other wordsmiths. Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” – See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” – See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” – See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” – See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf While we should definitely heed the risks within a digital currency environment, just as we heed the risks inherent with physical money, we should be equally aware of the additional financial protections provided by bitcoin that are so critical for maintaining a free society. Caveat emptor! Follow Jon Matonis on Twitter. Umbrella image via Shutterstock CFPBConsumer Financial Protection Bureau
Original author: Jon Matonis

Donate button
Swedish bitcoin exchange Safello has launched a new service for charities that enables them to easily create free fundraising campaigns. The exchange says the new pages offer a new way of donating money that allows charities to receive 100% of donated funds. All donations show up in real-time in the transaction stream and the funding goal is updated automatically. Safello says the new service will enable small, local charities to create a global fundraising campaign in mere minutes. Free fundraising tool Safello charity page Frank Schuil, co-founder and CEO of Safello said the new donation pages demonstrate the power of bitcoin in a tangible way, as they allow people from all corners of the world to unite and fund various causes at virtually no cost. Schuil explained: “Our goal is to make bitcoin fundraising a fundamental source of income for these and other charities by connecting them to audiences they may otherwise not reach. The variety in campaigns [shows] how widely applicable this is and we hope to spark a wave of pages to introduce a new way of donating to the charities we all care about.” Charity experiment Safello teamed up with three charities for the launch: LiveBuild, Shifo and the Lifeboat Foundation. The Livebuild Ntisaw campaign aims to raise 25 BTC (almost $12,000 at the time of publication) for a local school in Cameroon. It will help the school fix its leaky roof and construct four additional classrooms, a library and new toilets. Koen van Bremen, founder of LiveBuild, said he believes bitcoins will become an important method of payment in Africa in the future. Shifo’s Every Child Counts campaign has a fundraising goal of 20 BTC, which will be used to vaccinate children in Uganda and help improve child health through systematic registration and vaccination follow-up. “100% of funds raised [within the] bitcoin community will go to the cause, and for every bitcoin, Shifo will provide impact reports,” said Shifo co-founder Nargis Rahimi. The Lifeboat Foundation is also trying to raise 20 BTC, which will be used to provide bounties for developers who can come up with fixes for bitcoin-related bugs. Safello said the pages are an “experiment” to see how quickly the funding goals can be reached. The service is currently in beta, but interested parties can sign up for early access. Charity image via Shutterstock charitiesSafello
Original author: Nermin Hajdarbegovic

ninki_logo2 A new Japan-based wallet service called ‘Ninki’ aims to be a social network for payments, where users build trusted groups who may need to transact on a regular basis or for a common cause. Local charity events, crowdfunding campaigns, small- to medium-sized businesses and international freelancers are among the most likely kinds of user groups, said the company’s lead developer, Benjamin Smith. Users can form groups and share details as easily as they can on popular social networks. Smith told CoinDesk the aim is to streamline bitcoin payments between transacting parties. “The idea initially came from seeing how difficult it was for people to exchange and scan QR codes, copy and paste addresses, etc. Even for my tech friends. People get lazy and use the same address all the time.” What makes Ninki stand out from other bitcoin wallets is its Contacts list, where users can categorize their contacts depending on their transaction needs. Ninki, which means ‘popular’ in Japanese, has undergone extensive alpha testing over the past few months and opened in beta to the public last week. Testing the beta: signing up and finding others Registering a new account with Ninki generates quite a few keys and codes, so get ready to take secure notes. The software generates a public user name and a 15-word public phrase. These are for others to identify you within the network and so you can perform a secure out-of-bound validation of the user. At the user dashboard level Ninki’s interface is in plain language and straightforward, with all the encryption and security handled seamlessly in the background. You can search for other users by username and avatar, adding and approving them as desired. For one-off payments, you can also send to a standard bitcoin address. Making connections and payments To start building a trust network, simply share your 15-word public phrase with another user. Upon accepting, the other party will also share its phrase. In the background, Ninki performs an exchange of public PGP (pretty good privacy) keys between the two users. The user dashboard is simple and supplies all information regarding balances, contacts, groups and pending payments. Ninki user dashboardNinki user dashboardUsers can easily send, receive and pay invoices from a Ninki wallet, individually or all at once. Each invoice is marked with a date and order ID number. Users may also reject invoices and check the status and details of payments on the blockchain. A PGP-encrypted messaging feature keeps communications between users private. Smith said security and privacy are priorities at Ninki, especially given the levels of public mistrust in the security and privacy levels of ‘everyday’ social networks. Users can only see lists of members in networks they create themselves. And while it is possible to add an entire group to a trust network, the user will only see the name of the group itself and not its members. Screen Shot 2014-08-16 at 5.28.37 PMTransaction limit settingsIn addition, users can set payment limits by day, per transaction or by number of transactions per day to prevent losses through error. Security and identity features Unlike other social networks, however, Ninki aims to protect users’ private information rather than release or sell it to marketers. Ninki is not just a wallet service. It is designed to be as secure as possible, with hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets as specified in the Bitcoin Improvement Protocol 32 (BIP32). This means that a number of wallets can be generated from one ‘master key pair’ (MKP). Any number of ‘child’ wallets can be created from the MKP and used independently, but the owner of the master key retains control over all of them. Public keys generated on assigned nodes by the public part of the MKP can be shared between members of Ninki. The users exchange Ninki phrases and verify them using an outside method of communication, like email, instant message or a face-to-face exchange. Multi-signature wallets Ninki’s wallets are also integrated with multi-signature technology, two of three possible keys are required for any party to access the funds. Addresses are generated from the master keys for each transaction and never re-used. Ninki holds one key; the user another. A third key is provided for users to keep in a safe place or with a trusted third party. This means funds may still be recovered even if Ninki were to disappear. Smith added that in addition to alpha testing, Ninki would also be audited by 3rd parties including security experts and hackers. He said: “Getting cryptography and security right is difficult.” The greater the number and variety of external checkers, he concluded, the more certainty the security model will be tight. Images via Ninki multi-signaturepaymentssocial walletwallets
Original author: Jon Southurst

investigation
A Tokyo-based bitcoin security consultancy revealed today it has been actively investigating the disappearance of 850,000 BTC from Mt Gox “for the past few months”. Given full access to official records, it says, it could potentially reveal much more of what actually happened at the ill-fated exchange. The company, Wiz Technologies, has been “unofficially and independently” analyzing data using a partially complete database of all Mt Gox’s historical trading data that it reconstructed from various public and other available sources. Wiz’s founder and ‘chief hacking officer’ J. Maurice told CoinDesk that his team wished to present its preliminary findings to Mt Gox bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, in the hope of being assigned an official role in the investigation. He said: “We’re the only exclusively-bitcoin security consultancy working in Tokyo, so we’re the only ones really qualified to investigate this sort of case. We’re in the right place, with the right people and the right skills.” More information needed for full analysis Although Wiz has spent months analyzing the “ticker tape of Mt Gox trades” in its unofficial database, it still needs access to the complete, official database that is currently only accessible to Kobayashi’s team and the Tokyo Metropolitan police. That database would include personally identifiable customer information and bitcoin addresses, allowing Wiz to reconcile their existing knowledge with the actual bitcoin block chain, and likely reveal more information about the missing 850,000 BTC that led to Mt Gox’s abrupt shutdown in February. Wiz’s unofficial trading database was built from sources including trading data leaked after the shutdown, real name and account ID information leaked from an earlier Gox hack in 2011, lesser-known third-party sites that logged trading data, plus other, assorted pieces of data the team gleaned from sources via Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Maurice added: “There’s a lot of huge stuff that’s going to come out, and this is just the beginning.” The bitcoin security consultants Maurice rose to prominence last May, when he played an essential role in defending Roger Ver against the infamous ‘ransom’ hack attack. The Wiz Technologies team also includes lead engineer Kim Nilsson, who heads the technical investigation in this case, and attorney Daniel Kelman, who takes care of legal matters and has been at the forefront of the Gox case on behalf of its creditors. Although Tokyo detectives posses the official database and have been conducting their own investigation into the case, their more limited knowledge of and experience with bitcoin’s inner workings could slow their progress, Maurice said. Wiz has formed several theories about what happened at Mt Gox and how bitcoin’s largest ever heist was executed, but all its findings remain unconfirmed until it can access all records. Maurice stressed that Wiz would not charge a fee to Mt Gox creditors and would find external sponsors to finance any official investigation. The return of Willy and Markus, the Gox trading bots The most thorough records of Mt Gox’s trading history were obtained when Japanese hacker ‘nanashi’ (Japanese for ‘anonymous’) posted trading data up to November 2013 on the homepage of CEO Mark Karpeles. From this data, another anonymous researcher wrote the now-famous Willy Report. This report identifies the bizarre trading activity of two specific Mt Gox accounts, dubbed ‘Markus’ and ‘Willy’. Beginning Valentines Day 2013, Markus traded erratically at seemingly bizarre prices until September, when the account shut down. Seven hours later, the ‘Willy’ account was created. Willy exhibited less attention-grabbing behavior, but was systematic and appeared to be a bot, or trading algorithm, always trading at market prices in random amounts within set limits. It would trade at regular intervals of a few minutes before going dormant. The truth is already out there Maurice said the information about the Mt Gox theft that this report reveals has been out in public for some time, but its complex and technical nature mean few have actually read the Willy Report completely or understood its true implications. Both unusual accounts, he said, were likely created by someone associated with the disappearance of the 850,000 BTC. The hacker had access to Gox’s inner workings and was able to compromise its database by creating new accounts and setting fake balances “with money that didn’t exist”. Between them, the Markus and Willy accounts are shown to have ‘bought’ hundreds of thousands in bitcoin before November 2013, when the leaked data ends. Wiz would have to see the full records to determine what happened to those bitcoins once Markus and Willy were finished. Whether it was later withdrawn, and where it might have gone, is yet to be ascertained. The first step of any official investigation would be to uncover those basic facts. “We can see every trade that happened within the Mt Gox system, but once it left we can’t see where it went,” Maurice concluded. Image via cosma / Shutterstock   AsiaJapanMark KarpelesMt. GoxTokyo
Original author: Jon Southurst

BTCChinalogo
Exchange BTC China has relaunched the iOS version of its mobile exchange app, called simply ‘BTC China’, internationally on Apple’s App Store. Furthermore, an iOS version of the company’s wallet and person-to-person bitcoin trading app ‘Picasso’ is also awaiting approval by Apple, and will feature lowered sending fees. The new iOS exchange app  is largely aimed at traders and has all the features currently present in BTC China’s cross-platform HTML5-based offering, which was released in late July. These include live candlestick, market depth and trade history charts, and user interface improvements including a redesigned trading interface and a dark, more eye-friendly theme. The app supports three currency trading pairs: BTC/CNY, LTC/CNY, and LTC/BTC. BTC China app MAIN Wallet app awaits approval While the newer Picasso app awaits approval, the BTC China exchange app includes a link to the current version. Picasso is the exchange’s wallet app with a focus on regular spending. It also features an integrated ‘sell for cash’ feature that allows everyday people, business owners and shopkeepers to fulfil similar functions to bitcoin ATMs without requiring additional hardware. BTC China Picasso The apps users have access to live price charts and can set their own trading commissions to sell bitcoins for cash. It can take up to three weeks for a mobile app to be accepted for inclusion in the iOS App Store, with Apple also deciding in which countries’ stores it may be sold. Reduced fees and confirmation times To coincide with the release of Picasso for iOS, BTC China has reduced transaction fees. Starting 11th August, the fee for sending bitcoin to an external address from a user’s Picasso wallet has been lowered to 0.0001 BTC (about 5 US cents at time of publication) per transaction – down from 0.0005 BTC per transaction. Sending bitcoin to other Picasso accounts remains free, with the funds being transferred instantly. Additionally, to speed up the user experience, only two confirmations are needed for bitcoins to be sent to a user’s Picasso address from an external address. Previously, the app required five confirmations. AsiaChinaiOS
Original author: Jon Southurst

hostedwalletfeat
In bitcoin’s early days, there were not many options for storing coins: users had to download the Bitcoin-QT client to keep the cryptocurrency. That way, the platform storing the wallet provided as much security as the user required, with the option of keeping the client offline and encrypted – away from prying eyes searching for private keys. In the past few years, though, bitcoin has moved off the PC desktop onto web services and mobile wallets. And many of these hosted wallets, as they are called, are managed by a third party. Users relying on hosted wallets are, in essence, depending on third-party trust to safeguard their coins. However, hosted wallets are not created equal. So users must ask the question: can I trust a particular provider to properly store my bitcoin? Will O’Brien, CEO of wallet technology provider BitGo, told CoinDesk: “Ultimately, as bitcoin gains adoption, consumers will trust a wallet provider to be a custodian of their funds. But that trust should not be blind faith.” Shattered expectations One of the reasons there is a healthy dose of skepticism in the bitcoin community towards hosted wallets is because of past breakdowns in trust from some providers. Mt. Gox is an obvious case in point, where its slow decline eventually meant users could not withdraw bitcoin from their wallets, followed by the exchange’s total collapse in February 2014 and the loss of those trapped funds. In another example, last year, wallet service Inputs.io suffered an attack where hackers stole $1.2m from users. Kent Liu, co-founder of Purse.io, said: “I’ve heard users say, ‘Hey, I rather trust – insert company – than to trust myself with securing my BTC’. After all, that’s exactly what banks do with our dollars, and no one complains about that.” However, he believes that cases like Mt. Gox provide good reason for users to take care when placing trust in hosted wallets. “If a user chooses a hosted wallet, he [or she] essentially transfers the security liability to the service provider,” he said. “The two major vulnerabilities are hacking – since centralized wallets are more desirable to hack ­– and theft/negligence of the wallet service.” To the next level The good news is that there are companies pushing bitcoin wallet technologies to the next level, fostering a rethink about what a wallet really is. “With multi-signature, the wallet keys can be distributed across multiple institutions so you don’t have one single point of failure,” said O’Brien. BitGo, in particular, recently raised $12m from investors to develop multi-signature technology for wallets. This improves both key control and security – something that bitcoin users in the future might demand from hosted wallet providers. The business model for BitGo is to focus on providing enhanced wallet security and provisioning options, selling that technology as a product to other companies looking for powerful and secure wallets.  Growing choice Today, there’s an array of wallet options to choose from. The Bitcoin.org website, for example, offers recommendations for different platforms. People are no longer tied to the original QT desktop client by any measure. While that is liberating and enabling, though, it also brings important decisions that a user must make. One thing people should consider when choosing a wallet is whether or not they want control of their bitcoin address’s private keys. This decision could also depend on what specific use the wallet is destined for: is it for regular spending, or primarily for saving? “We use a system similar to Coinbase: small hosted wallet, large cold wallet – Purse is considered a ‘fast’ spending wallet,” said Purse.io co-founder Liu. His startup allows people to purchase bitcoin through Amazon buyers, and simultaneously allows its users to spend BTC on the e-commerce giant at a discount. Liu added that an online, or ‘hot’, wallet is ideal for situations where transactions are constantly moving around. Many companies use this internally to ensure enough freely available bitcoin for quick transactions, while keeping the majority of their funds stored in a safer ‘cold’, or offline, wallet. Cold wallets could be considered similar to a traditional bank’s fiat savings account, while hot wallets are the checking (or current) account. Private keys are key Going forward, control of the private keys might be most important users’ wallet security – no matter if it is hosted or not. “Every user can protect their coins using public key cryptography and initiate transactions by signing with private keys only they control,” say Johann Barbie, a co-founder of SMS-based wallet provider 37Coins. In fact, it may a slight distortion to call 37Coins a wallet company – at least when Barbie explains exactly what the company does: “We provide a service that secures wallet transactions through multi-signature and second-factor verification. One key is kept with the partner, one key with 37coins and a third one with a legal entity for backup.” That sounds like an ideal wallet situation, one many experienced bitcoin users might appreciate. Problem is, most new bitcoiners are not  fully up to speed on bitcoin wallet technology. In those cases, users won’t care if they don’t have control over their keys, or if transactions are being done on- or off-block chain, which is in and of itself a contentious subject for some. Blockchain.info is one company that does not store private keys – and now has over 2m wallet users.Blockchain is one company that does not store private keys – and now has over 2 million wallet users.Jaron Lukasiewicz, CEO of New York-based bitcoin exchange Coinsetter, says that his company has built in-house wallet tech for cold storage and manual withdrawal reviews, among other security measures. He believes in the importance of users finding the wallet solution that best suits them. Consumer-facing solutions might just be good enough to get started, for example. But those trying to protect larger amounts of bitcoin need to do their research, or at least find someone to investigate the right option for them. “Every wallet provider is different, and the best way to understand which is suitable for one’s needs is to read documentation released by the provider and to understand the technology behind it,” Lukasiewicz said. He added that, ultimately: “Trust is created when the wallet’s technology is matched by the people running it.” Bitcoin technology image via Shutterstock wallets
Original author: Daniel Cawrey
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