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coinjar, app
Australia-based bitcoin wallet and exchange provider CoinJar has announced that its iOS app is now available for iPhone users in the UK and Australia.The news follows the Cupertino, California, company’s surprise App Store policy update issued 2nd June, which indicated that apps could facilitate the transmission of “approved” virtual currencies provided they did so in accordance with state and federal laws.Despite the widespread enthusiasm that followed the announcement, it remains unclear to many in the bitcoin community as to what exactly the policy change means for bitcoin and other digital currencies, which are still fighting to define their regulatory status around the globe.Nonetheless, the reintroduction of CoinJar’s app to the marketplace is a potentially positive one given that Apple had previously banned the company’s app from its store.Company CEO Asher Tan took to Twitter to broadcast the news, though he didn’t offer many details as to how CoinJar was able to receive approval:(Re)-Introducing CoinJar for iPhone in Australia & the UK. https://t.co/MSYAWeRkzI— Asher Tan (@ashertn) June 3, 2014Community reactionThough the full ramifications of the news are uncertain, reaction in the bitcoin reddit community was overwhelmingly positive regarding the news.CoinJar co-founder Ryan Zhou took to reddit to offer some additional news, suggesting that his company’s approved iOS app would soon be more widely available.Zhou said:“[The] CoinJar app will be available in the following countries in 24 hours: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland [and the] UK.”At press time, users were reporting success with the app’s bitcoin sending functionality.Optimism beginsBlockchain CEO Nic Cary told newsBTC that his company would be looking to resubmit its app to Apple for review and that he was cautiously optimistic about the possibility of his company’s app being approved.Apple’s anti-bitcoin policies have been one of the biggest threats to the proliferation of bitcoin, given the company’s large market share in the US.Still, until such time as those apps are reviewed it will remain unclear as to the full ramifications of Apple’s news. At press time, CoinJar had not responded to press inquiries.Image via CoinJarAppleCoinJariOS
Original author: Pete Rizzo

KnCMiner readies ASIC customer list
KnCMiner has announced that it has almost finalised the design for its upcoming Titan scrypt ASIC, although it did not provide further details as to when the tape-out would take place.Most notably, KnCMiner also announced a product update, saying the Titan will deliver up to 400 MH/s – a sizable increase over the original output estimate.When it was first announced back in March, KnCMiner said the Titan would deliver 100 MH/s, but, just days later it revised the spec and said the scrypt miner would churn out 250 MH/s.With the latest revision, the Titan should deliver a fourfold performance boost over the original spec.New versions unveiledKnCMiner also previewed two new versions of the Titan miner as part of its second batch, which are available for pre-order from the company’s web store starting today. The new rigs are expected to be ready for delivery about a month after the first batch is released.KnCMiner says the latest revision will not have a significant impact on power consumption and thermals:“In this run, we’ve been able to upgrade the Batch Two ‘Mini’ Titan to 200 MH/s, and the ‘standard’ Titan to 400 MH/s, while still keeping power consumption and thermal disturbance as low as possible. We’ve also made great strides in noise reduction and packaging, aiming for a sturdier product altogether.”The team has also unveiled new chip art. This little KnC logo, measuring 0.16mm across, will be embedded in every single Titan die.knc-die-artKeeping up with competitionKnCMiner’s announcement follows Alpha Technology’s revision of its Viper scrypt miner spec, which will now deliver up to 250 MH/s of power. When Alpha made the news, KnCMiner was promising 250 MH/s from its flagship Titan miner.Less than a month ago, KnCMiner said it would initiate tape-out of Titan ASICs within a few weeks, saying shipments will commence in the second or third quarter of 2014. With Q2 drawing to a close and no tape-out announcement yet, Q3 is starting to look like a more reasonable timeframe, though the process could be accelerated.Image via KnCMinerKnC Titankncminermining
Original author: Nermin Hajdarbegovic

Pedestrian warning
When Claus, a computer technician in the UK, came across a new exchange based in Hong Kong, his interest was piqued. He was looking to make a return on his litecoin and Hong Kong exchange HKCex offered a higher litecoin to bitcoin rate than others.Claus deposited 1,000 LTC to HKCex on 15th May and was pleasantly surprised when his HKCex account balance showed an extra 88.8 LTC. It turned out that the new exchange was offering a promotional bonus on deposits. Claus hadn’t even noticed the sweetener.“I thought their prices were inflated due to the abundance of USD deposit methods and low market depth as they were a new exchange,” he said.Articles announcing HKCex’s $27m worth of investment and chatter on forums like BTC-e allayed some of Claus’ doubts about depositing funds with a new exchange. He had used less well-known platforms without a problem in the past.“I felt [HKCex] were trustworthy,” he said.But when Claus flipped his 1,000 LTC for 26 BTC and wanted to withdraw the balance, his pleasant experience soon turned sour. He noticed his withdrawal’s status was changed from ‘processing’ to ‘rejected’. He was then told to send a notarised copy of his passport to HKCex in Hong Kong because his account had been flagged for money laundering. Claus still hasn’t received his funds today.Claus is a pseudonym for a HKCex user who wants to remain anonymous. He shared screenshots of his HKCex account with CoinDesk. He was also a Mt. Gox customer and  suffered a $9,200 loss on his account there.HKCex, which claims to have raised millions in funding, now faces allegations of fraud valued at more than $120,000 from customers who can’t withdraw their funds, according to a crowdsourced spreadsheet.CoinDesk has found that one of the exchange’s alleged investors has denied any involvement with the company. Furthermore, public records in Hong Kong also throw up inconsistencies with the exchange’s claims.HKCex investor denies involvementIn mid-May, HKCex announced it had raised an audacious amount of new funding: $27m. This would have put it ahead of Circle, one of the best funded startups in the bitcoin economy, in terms of investment raised. (CoinDesk reported on HKCex’s first claimed funding round, for $2m, in January)When CoinDesk asked for more information about the investors, HKCex named one of them as Hang Seng Bank, Hong Kong’s second-largest bank. Lavin Lam, who signed off as the exchange’s marketing and public relations executive in emails, said the bank had put in $9m in the latest round.“I’m sorry, we can’t disclose information about our investors except one public bank – Hang Seng Bank. They will invest about $9m in crypto-currency trading,” Lam wrote.However, a check with Hang Seng Bank revealed that the claimed millions in funding for HKCex isn’t there. When contacted with details about the investment, a spokesperson for the bank said:“Hang Seng Bank has no connections or banking relationships with Hong Kong Crypto Exchange (HKCEx).”Missing bitcoin ATMsAnother bold claim made by HKCex – that it would install 30 bitcoin ATMs in Hong Kong by the year’s end – couldn’t be corroborated. When CoinDesk asked the exchange who would manufacture the machines, Lavin Lam replied that they would be made by manufacturing giant Foxconn.As the world’s largest contract manufacturer of electronics, an entry into the bitcoin ATM market by Foxconn would be significant. Foxconn usually follows a “strict policy” of not commenting on products it makes for clients, according to its public relations firm, Burson Marsteller.However, when Foxconn was presented with details of the alleged HKCex bitcoin ATMs, its spokesperson returned with a negative response after an internal check.“No business group has acknowledged [a contract with HKCex for bitcoin ATMs],” spokesperson Simon Hsing said.When Hang Seng Bank and Foxconn’s denials were put to HKCex in an email to Lavin Lam, there was no response.One piece of information listed on the HKCex website did check out. The exchange claims that its servers are located in the SunnyVision Data Centre, among the “most reliable” server housing environments in Hong Kong. SunnyVision confirmed that the HKCex IP address is in its portfolio and is in use by a client.HKCex also claimed in a press release that it was in talks with AIA to insure customer deposits. CoinDesk has contacted AIA in Hong Kong to verify this claim.Worldcoin Alliance distances itselfHKCex has also alienated some potential allies. The Worldcoin Alliance, a group that promotes that particular altcoin, announced a partnership with the Hong Kong exchange on 18th May.The partnership would have created new ways to buy worldcoin through bank transfer and credit card payments, and allow the altcoin to be traded with fiat currency. Three days later, though, the group announced the partnership was off.“We identified some red flags that warrants the worldcoin community be more cautious. We therefore chose to suspend this cooperation until we are fully convinced that HKCex.net is in fact a legitimate exchange service,” a Worldcoin press release said.A Worldcoin Alliance spokesperson told CoinDesk the organization had concerns over the following issues: worldcoin users who were still waiting for their fund withdrawals, a period of time when the HKCex website appeared to have gone offline and the lack of SSL encryption on the website.Potential breach of licenceWhen CoinDesk checked HKCex’s details against public records held by Hong Kong’s Companies Registry, inconsistencies were exposed.According to HKCex’s website, the exchange is operated by a company called MG Foreign Exchange Limited. According to the registry, the firm was incorporated on 11th October last year. It has only one director, a man named Wong Kin Lung.However, Wong’s name doesn’t appear anywhere in HKCex’s management team page. In fact, two men named Pheng Cheah and Long Liang are listed as co-founders. The firm’s registry records also show that its paid-up capital is HK$1. Ian Barlow, a Hong Kong-based security consultant, noted: ”The single director does appear unusual, particularly in a money-handling business.”Furthermore, the exchange could face a run-in with the authorities because of inconsistent addresses, according to Barlow. HKCex lists MG Foreign Exchange’s Money Service Operators (MSO) licence on its website. However, an issue arises because the company isn’t operating at the address on the licence. Barlow, who is also a director of the Hong Kong chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, pointed out: “The terms of the MSO licence are quite specific … If [HKCex] isn’t operating at the registered address, that would be a breach of its licence terms.”HKCex lists its operating address as 57 Belcher’s Street on Hong Kong island. Its licenced address, however, is an office building called MG Tower across Victoria Harbour in Kowloon. According to MSO licence guidelines, the registered address must match the premises where the money changing or remittance service takes place.The Commissioner of Customs and Excise, which oversees the MSO licence, could publicly reprimand and impose a penalty of up to HK$1m on a licence holder that is found to have contravened its terms.Link to MG Group?A further check with public records showed that Wong is a director of 52 companies in Hong Kong. These include firms with names like World Toilet Research Centre Limited, and also a clutch of financial firms with ‘Marigold’ or ‘MG’ in their names.These firms are referred to as the MG Group in the company literature of a Belize-registered broker called Marigold Global Markets. The group resides in MG Tower in Kowloon, which is where HKCex’s claimed parent company is also located.Two MG Group companies that CoinDesk looked at have significant paid-up capital. A gold bullion dealer called Marigold International Bullion Dealers was incorporated in June 2007 with a paid-up capital of HK$13m ($1.7m). It is also a member of the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society, where Wong sits on the executive and supervisory committee.A futures broker called Marigold International Securities was started in 2009 with a paid-up capital of HK$23m ($3m). The firm has also gained trading rights in derivatives markets in Singapore and London in recent months.However, besides the potential MSO licence breach and the confusion over HKCex’s investors and ATMs, none of the facts discovered suggest any actual wrongdoing on the part of MG Foreign Exchange or its director, Wong. Indeed, it’s possible that MG Foreign Exchange doesn’t actually operate the bitcoin exchange. So far, HKCex’s claim is the only link between it and Wong’s company.CoinDesk contacted Wong for comment via his gold bullion dealing company, but has not received a response.The trust deficitEven as Mt. Gox’s slow implosion in February remains fresh in the memory of cryptocurrency traders, new exchanges are launching all the time to capitalise on the growing number of bitcoin and altcoin users. In response, some exchanges have submitted to basic audit-like checks that they have enough funds to cover customers’ account balances.Still, if an exchange can entice deposits worth hundreds of thousands with nothing more than a website and loud claims about funding and partnerships, then it’s clear that the fundamental problem of trust between customer and exchange remains unsolved. That’s a problem for the wider bitcoin economy to consider.Street lights image via ShutterstockAsiaexchangesHKCexHong Kong
Original author: Joon Ian Wong

cheers
The concept of using digital currencies as a means of tipping has entered a new phase with Cheers, a bitcoin-powered service that could create additional revenue streams for performing artists.Cheers pairs a mobile platform that enables bitcoin tips to be sent to musicians with a social network structure that allows users to share information, send messages to friends and search for new artists to support.The company’s co-founder Justin Womersley told CoinDesk that he believes Cheers could reinvigorate an industry that has seen falling revenues for performing artists.Cheers, he says, offers a way for music-lovers to connect with artists in a way that is becoming more difficult in the era of digitized relationships.Womersley explained:“The streaming model, while great for the consumer, is not that great for the artist. And in addition, for the consumer, there’s a lack of an emotional connection between [them] and the artists they’re enjoying. From that side, we wanted to create a tool that really connected people in the digital age.”Beyond music, the platform may one day see use as a way to reward and generate income for all kinds of artists, from filmmakers to bloggers to graphic designers.Behind the conceptCheers allows you to send money to musicians whether you’re watching them play at a local bar or you happened to catch one of their tracks on Facebook. Currently, the company is working on an iOS app that is expected to be available sometime in the next few weeks, Womersley said.One of the most intriguing aspects of the Cheers app is its ability to “listen” and recognize live music as it is being placed. According to Womersley, Cheers leverages The Echo Nest, a music database that boasts more than 35 million known songs and artists and counts services like Spotify and the BBC among its customers.After the app recognizes the song and identifies the artist, the user then has the chance to write a personalized message and donate bitcoin to the artist. Once complete, the user sends the “cheer” and broadcasts this action to his or her network of friends.Womersley added that Cheers will leverage the power of community to enhance the service. Artists who aren’t already included in the system can be crowdsourced by the Cheers community, who he said will act as information-gatherers for new and exciting artists.Notably, the service doesn’t require an artist to sign up to receive any bitcoin tips that come their way. Cheers handles the outreach process, and by doing so aims to create an organic network of musicians brought together by grassroots efforts.Womersley said:“We really want to use the community and let everyone contribute to what they want Cheers to be. Obviously we have a vision for what we want to build, but really, it’s the community that will help direct where we’ll go.”Womersley added that “more than one high-profile band” has got in touch with Cheers. While he couldn’t share which bands have contacted the company, Womersley reported that the level of enthusiasm surrounding the project is on the rise.Rewarding creatorsUltimately, Cheers is designed to eventually become a platform for people to tip all kinds of artists.“Online there’s lots of creators. For a lot of the time, it’s difficult to monetize and grow your fans. So, what we really wanted to build was a way to easily reward people who make things that you love.”Cheers opted to focus on music because of the strength of grassroots music communities throughout the world. Eventually, however, the goal is to cover all creators, “whether it’s a song or a blog post or a painting or a picture on Instagram, anything,” Womersley said.He added that while development is focused on the Cheers app, integration with other services and platforms is also possible. He suggested that social networks like Facebook and Twitter could be leveraged to send cheers, as well as physical means to broadcast cheers during performances, showings and other artistic events.Currently, the Cheers development team is not actively seeking funding. Womersley said that the focus is on delivering a consumer-ready product rather than finding investors.A community of trustWomersley acknowledged the concerns among some consumers about the risks of transacting in bitcoin. He stated that Cheers is placing a high priority on ensuring users that their money is being delivered to artists, saying:“What’s really important is building trust with our customers. So, we’re really committed to keeping open and transparent about where your money is, what stage it is, if it’s gotten to the artist or not. We don’t want people to have any concern about tipping.”He added that after two months, if a tip is unable to be delivered, Cheers will refund those tips to users at no cost. The platform doesn’t charge any transaction fees outside of the normal operating costs of the bitcoin network.With its musical focus and creative use of social media capabilities, Cheers stands to impact the way that both consumers and artists engage with one another while potentially tackling a serious problem plauging a once highly profitable industry.Image via CheersCheerslifestyletipping
Original author: Stan Higgins

blockcypher
Everything is moving to the cloud these days, and for good reason — cloud-based services offer reliability, scalability and support to a degree that is unattainable for a company without an experienced IT team.In short, the cloud lets companies focus their efforts on their products, and leave the hosting to professionals.In the digital currency space, many application developers have experience in IT, but for mainstream development, it makes sense for block chains to move to the cloud. Enter BlockCypher, which offers cloud-based solutions for on-block chain applications.Founded by a team of software veterans, BlockCypher’s goal is to be the infrastructure for the next-generation of block chain applications, providing users the ability to host multiple block chains on a single infrastructure that gives users a consistent interface across multiple coins.With the recent addition of litecoin to BlockCypher’s platform, for example, Love Will Inc, the creator of the Pheeva wallet, is already working on a new wallet, potentially opening up Gyft card purchases to litecoin users.Potential applicationsBuilding and managing a high-volume, data-driven application can be challenging. Introducing one or more block chains into the application then adds a whole new array of complications: each block chain requires its own dedicated infrastructure for processing, storage and peer-to-peer protocols.BlockCypher says it can collapse all of that into a single intuitive interface that is both reliable and scalable across multiple block chains.What sort of applications require multiple block chains running simultaneously? Take an exchange, for instance, which must maintain a full node for each coin they offer trading for and they must support a wide range of capabilities, from the latest price to algorithmic trading.A service such as BlockCypher’s gives the ability for their developers to focus on the exchange business without the additional burden of running the back-end for multiple block chains.Another example is a gaming casino application with a web front-end leveraging the bitcoin and litecoin block chains. As users place their bets, communication must occur between the game’s back-end and the block chains. To achieve this, developers must host full nodes to get block chain data and broadcast new transactions.For both the exchange and gaming examples, they have to decide whether they want to host multiple full-node block chain infrastructures themselves or use web APIs.Need for APIsClearly there is growing market demand for APIs that can process and store block chain data in convenient forms and broadcast transactions on a user’s behalf, as the bitcoin ecosystem has seen a number of API companies emerge recently.APIs offer major benefits for application developers because they greatly simplify having to build out the necessary infrastructure. However, APIs raise concerns for reliability and privacy. If everyone uses the same API and it goes down, the whole ecosystem takes a serious blow. Also, if all your requests travel through a single company’s servers, that company can maintain a lot of behavioral data. That being said, those concerns have been largely addressed by cloud solution providers in other industries.While a low-volume app can get away with free APIs that may or may not work consistently, more serious applications cannot afford to bet their business on such services. Both reliability and performance are required for high transaction applications and are complicated to achieve.In the case of BlockCypher, Catheryne Nicholson, CEO and founder, says their primary focus is scalability and performance:“We run in multiple data centers with redundant servers for low-latency and failover prevention. This means that requests are fast and that there is no single point of failure in our architecture […] We could literally lose more than one-third of our servers with no outage. We can easily handle several 100,000 requests/hr and it doesn’t matter if you make 100,000 requests on one block chain or 1,000 requests on 100 different block chains.”Challenges and opportunitiesBlockCypher’s founders, Catheryne Nicholson and Matthieu Riou, are software veterans with a long history of building platforms in finance, defense, CRM, energy and education.In rebuilding the Bitcoin client, they generalized it across multiple digital coins and block chains to isolate the different roles outlined in the original Satoshi white paper. Their architecture has modular and separated components which allows them to scale linearly, distribute their software onto multiple sites and support many use cases.Nicholson explained:“We can build APIs that range from the basics (e.g. balance and unspents for an address, basic transaction WebHooks) to advanced capabilities (e.g hosting your own custom coin – we incur no overhead by hosting an additional block chain) to very advanced capabilities (e.g. multi-sig transactions) to future capabilities (e.g. transactional cross-chain transfers with pegs).”Their infrastructure also takes into account the accelerating size of the Bitcoin block chain (it’s nearly 18Gb, growing over 2.5 times in the last year):“We use multiple instances of a distributed database, so the block chain can grow to whatever size, and we can support it.  If you want to visualize the entire block chain or run analytics on it, we can help you do that.”BlockCypher’s initial targeted users are wallets and exchanges, but its service could be useful for any application that leverages the block chain.BlockCypher will offer a tiered pricing system, based on usage and data volume, which will include a free tier for low-volume users and an extended free plan for early adopters. It will also offer custom solutions and specially purposed APIs that can be licensed to businesses to accelerate and support those applications.Future plans will permit integration of their software into enterprise architectures.This article was co-authored by Ethan Buchman 
Original author: Victoria van Eyk

Prague bitcoin centre
While bitcoin is a purely digital currency, there has been a growing movement by the community to provide interested newcomers with a real-world introduction to its merits.Bitcoin Center NYC and La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, for example, serve as physical destinations where novices can ask questions, while ardent enthusiasts network, take classes or otherwise consider the larger implications of the innovation.Opened 28th May in Prague, The Client Center WBTCB.CZ joins this list with the aim of fostering bitcoin awareness and enthusiasm in the Czech Republic’s capital and largest city.Located more specifically in Prague’s Smíchov district – a popular shopping destination – the project is one of the first big moves from Czech bitcoin startup world BTC business (wBTCb), which aims to make its mark providing local cryptocurrency trading services.The design processMartin Stránský, CEO of wBTCb, explained that the company’s Client Center has been in production for half a year – a necessary amount of time given the work needed to prepare and design the center itself:“The choice of materials, design of individual components – that all took some time. Moreover, the whole historical building went through complete reconstruction.”Stránský indicates great care was taken to ensure that the Client Center would provide an attractive backdrop to its client services, and that it could be easily replicated.If successful, wBTCb hopes to explore franchise opportunities with global members of the bitcoin community looking to bring similar projects to their home country.A look insideIn total, wBTCb’s Client Center provides 125 square meters of bitcoin-centric space divided over two floors.The first floor, the company says, provides a contact zone for clients, as well as a bi-directional Robocoin bitcoin ATM that allows for a maximum withdrawal of 25,000 Kč, or roughly $1,200.Stránský went on to further explain the potential of this space, saying:“The lower floor is now like an open office for my team, which can be easily converted into a space where events and lectures will be organized with topics such as virtual currencies, business plans in this area, startups and more.”If the first floor is more business-focused, the second floor will emphasize bitcoin’s more creative side, said Stránský, indicating that the floor will house an art gallery where wBTCb will organize exhibitions for artists who accept payments in bitcoin for their work.Developing serviceswBTCb is launching with just a few services, though the company says it already has plans to expand the center. For example, while general bitcoin ATM users are limited to a 25,000 Kč limit, higher amounts are available to clients who register formally with the center.Stránský explained that verification is necessary for transactions over this amount, as it must report this activity to comply with Czech law. However, he hinted that this could be the first step in identifying and providing more advanced trading services to local bitcoin users, saying:“We want to allow clients trading with virtual currencies, and bring additional services which we will inform about soon. The connection of clients across the world is the vision.”Raising awarenessCompared to other European nations, the Czech Republic has been relatively quiet on matters relating to alternative digital currencies. To date, the Czech Republic has issued only guidance on bitcoin related to anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, according to BitLegal and the US Law Library of Congress.However, Stránský is optimistic that his company’s work will, in part, generate more enthusiasm for the technology in the country:“We are at the beginning, but there is certain level of awareness about bitcoins in the Czech Republic. [...] Our aim is to open the world of virtual currencies to the group of people that now have a lack of information.”wBTCb indicated a full virtual tour will be available on its website soon.Images via wBTCbbitcoin centerCzech RepublicEuropewBTCb
Original author: Pete Rizzo

 Arhem Bitcoincity event ATMArnhem’s Bitcoincity event took place on Wednesday 28th May, with the organisers hailing the one-off Dutch bitcoin extravaganza as “a great evening, where the atmosphere got even better after more bitcoins were traded for beers and wines”.Inspired by The Hague’s ‘Bitcoin Boulevard‘ – two canal side streets that took the decision to adopt bitcoin on an ongoing basis, the event was planned to encourage wider acceptance of the digital currency in the Dutch city.According to the organisers, around 15 cafes, bars and restaurants took part in the event, accepting 96 bitcoin payments and receiving around 4.749769 BTC (1,977 euros) through the course of the evening.“Although not everyone was able to stay that long, I do believe everyone who showed up had a fantastic time,” said Patrick van der Meijde, one of the organisers.To ensure people had enough bitcoin to pay for a merry evening, a euro-accepting Lamassu ATM was also installed at Café De Koopman on Korenmarkt.While the majority of the 70 or so people that took part were Dutch, a few foreigners also grabbed the chance to spend some bitcoin in the real world. Even a few local bank employees showed up to find out more about bitcoin and how it works, the organisers said.To encourage a little extra enthusiasm, the event also hosted a competition with a €150 prize for the person who managed to make most bitcoin transactions over the evening. In the end, Dutch bitcoiner Wouterwalked off with the voucher for food-delivery website Thuisbezorgd.nl after making bitcoin payments at eight different establishments. Going forward, at least 10 of the restaurants and cafés plan to keep accepting bitcoin as a payment method following the event’s success. Furthermore, the organisers said, other establishments – which did not accept bitcoins at the event – have indicated some interest in starting to accept bitcoin.This may mean that, in one fell swoop, Arnhem has overtaken Bitcoin Boulevard to become the Dutch city with the greatest number of bitcoin-accepting restaurants and bars.The organisers indicated that they hope more such initiatives will take off so that “we will be able to pay with bitcoins everywhere we go” and offered their support for other cities interested in organising their own bitcoin event.Images via Arnhem BitcoinstadArnhemBitcoincityeventsmerchantspaymentsthe Netherlands
Original author: Dan Palmer

elliptic
The relationship between Lloyd’s of London and bitcoin storage service Elliptic Vault broke down just weeks after Elliptic’s launch in January, it has emerged.Elliptic Vault was the first insured bitcoin storage service in the world and was widely hailed as a milestone for the industry.The exact details of how the relationship between Lloyd’s and Elliptic broke down are unclear, with Elliptic COO Tom Robinson saying his impression was that Lloyd’s pulled out “due to the high level of publicity” around the deal.In turn, a Lloyd’s spokesperson claimed Elliptic never actually finalised the deal with the insurer to begin with, telling CoinDesk: “Enquiries were made about a policy, but the policy was not taken out.”When shown a copy of a certificate between Lloyd’s and Elliptic, the spokesperson attempted to retract their previous comments, instead issuing the statement:“Elliptic are not insured by Lloyd’s. We will not comment on speculation from Elliptic regarding other matters.”Elliptic has strongly rejected suggestions it was not fully insured, telling CoinDesk: “Elliptic has insurance in place and always has done since we first began offering the Elliptic Vault service.”“We did have insurance from Lloyd’s, absolutely,” Robinson stressed.A milestone for bitcoin businessesElliptic Vault’s launch in January 2014 was seen as a sign of maturity for bitcoin. The association with Lloyd’s of London gave the service credibility and coming soon after the widely-reported story of one bitcoiner losing millions in a discarded hard drive, it seemed to answer the question of whether bitcoin could be held securely.Elliptic’s press release on 9th January proudly declared that Elliptic Vault had “insurance underwritten by Lloyd’s of London”. But by early February, the relationship was dead.The Internet Archive shows that by 15th February references to Lloyd’s of London had been removed from Elliptic’s website.ellipticSince then, Elliptic has made no announcement that its relationship with Lloyd’s had ended, or that by 3rd February it had engaged new insurers.CBC Insurance, who brokered Elliptic’s new insurance coverage, confirmed the new arrangement. Elliptic COO Tom Robinson said there was no gap between the two coverages.In blogposts on 13th March and 1st May, the company refers to its insurance offering, noting that it pays out in bitcoin as well as sterling, and boasting that Elliptic “uses a large, multinational insurance company with extremely strong financial backing and a diverse risk portfolio”, but neglecting to mention that the company was no longer linked with Lloyd’s.Robinson said his company “made the switch clear to those enquiring about our insurance, including in media interviews”.Underwriters and insurersA key part of this story is the difference between an underwriter and an insurer. An underwriter determines the risks around insuring a company, for example, and could be said to be doing the ‘legwork’ on an insurance offering. That offering is then presented to an insurer, who actually takes on the risk and provides the insurance.Insurance companies may do underwriting themselves, or they may hire underwriters operating within the Lloyd’s of London marketplace, for example.The phrase “insured by Lloyd’s of London” is sometimes used as shorthand, but it’s not the most accurate way to describe deals done through the Lloyd’s of London marketplace.The progression of bitcoin insuranceSince Elliptic Vault launched in January, other bitcoin companies have also insured customer deposits, notably Circle and Xapo. More recently, the Great American Insurance Group announced it would begin offering coverage for bitcoin.Robinson says the problems Elliptic has faced were partly “a symptom of the young nature of the bitcoin ecosystem”.“This is something that a lot of bitcoin businesses are experiencing, they launch bitcoin services in partnership with big brands and then those big brands have second thoughts when they receive a lot of publicity around it and then aren’t so keen.”Robinson’s colleague, Elliptic CEO James Smith, said the company is “enjoying fast-growing interest from financial institutions and other businesses both in the US and Europe”.“We are currently completing a funding round which will enable us to rapidly scale our team and customer base over the next couple of years, and look forward to helping many more companies engage with the digital currency ecosystem,” he added.EllipticInsuranceUK
Original author: Kadhim Shubber
  1. Missouri Secretary of State Halts Mining Business Over ‘Deceptive Tactics’
  2. Poland Gets First Bitcoin ATM with 30 More Planned
  3. Apple’s Virtual Currency Policy Update: Good or Bad for Bitcoin?
  4. North America’s Bitcoin Roadshow Offers Free Car as Grand Prize

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