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Dan Wells
Another effort aims to win hearts and minds for digital currencies through motor sports, with a crowdfunding campaign to sponsor Hong Kong-based British Formula Masters driver Dan Wells.This follows the bitcoin/Diamond Circle branding of Isle of Man TT superbike rider David Johnson in last week’s event, and the recent dogecoin NASCAR sponsorship that proved the concept could be successful.If all goes well this time, the bitcoin logo on Wells’ livery will debut at his race on 18th July race in South Korea.Wells, 23, has been adept at using technology and social media to build his career and keep fans updated, with an active blog and Facebook page as well as over 16,500 posts on his @danwellsracing Twitter account.He has also launched previous successful crowdfunding campaigns on GoFundMe in the past, raising over €14,000 from over 150 supporters. This is his first foray into bitcoin.Screen Shot 2014-06-01 at 8.53.05 PMPassion for racing and economicsWells said bitcoin holds promise for up and coming sportspeople to find sponsorship and connect with fans:“This partnership is exciting and innovative and I am delighted to add bitcoin as another method for sponsors and investors to invest and support my career in motorsport … Before my racing career, one of my passions was economics so this has always been an interest and it is great to be involved in such an innovative project … Both my race car and bitcoin are technology based and therefore I welcome the opportunity provided by David Shin of CryptoMex to be associated with the bitcoin community”.CryptoMex.ioBitcoin crowdfunding platform CryptoMex is managing the new Formula Masters initiative in cooperation with Wells’ own company Dan Wells Investors.CryptoMex, also based in Hong Kong, allows companies seeking financing to raise bitcoin through an offering process.In addition, the company wants to be the gateway that bridges the large pool of backers – the ‘crowd’ – and entrepreneurs from East and West, particularly in strategic locations like Europe, the US and China.David Shin, CryptoMex founder, added:“I am delighted that Dan Wells will be promoting bitcoin and www.CryptoMex.io. He is a testament to the innovation, hard work, and ingenuity that provides new opportunities in this world, and we look forward to working together in the motorsport and business community to develop this platform to greater heights … I am sure it will be a winning season for Dan Wells and his backers both on track and off.”Crowdfunding for companiesAs well as crowdfunding, CryptoMex has its own kind of share market, where backers can receive ‘Profit Units’ in companies or projects they support, that pay rewards in bitcoin depending on success and can be traded.Since Wells’ fundraiser is donation-based rather than a profit-seeking business, however, CryptoMex is disabling the profit unit trading function this time.The new bitcoin-based campaign contributors can choose to buy ‘units’ on CryptoMex or simply donate to a bitcoin address, should they not wish to register an account with the platform.Wells will also include the address on his own homepage.Images via danwellsracing.comAsiaHong KongMotor RacingSport
Original author: Jon Southurst

Multibit wallet
MultiBit is one of the unsung heroes of the bitcoin world. The desktop bitcoin wallet software, launched three years ago, recently surpassed 1.5 million downloads and, in fact, Gary Rowe, one of two core developers on the project, puts the estimate at more like 1.8 million as of this month.Now, he and development partner Jim Burton are about to start charging tiny fees for using it.One of the things that must have helped MultiBit a lot was being listed on bitcoin.org. The wallet is one of five desktop wallets listed on that site, and is outpacing at least some of them.CoinDesk reached out to the bitcoin core development team to ask how many people have downloaded BitcoinQT, the reference implementation of the bitcoin client, but received no response. The person behind Electrum, one of the other five wallets, also failed to respond.What we do know is that Blockchain, the downloadable mobile wallet that also has an online counterpart, has just over 1.6 million users. This chart shows the market increase in downloads since December, after the price of bitcoin spiked.Blockchain walletsCoinbase‘s online wallet has also garnered 1.2 million users as of April, according to data from the company and isn’t the only wallet to see a recent jump in downloads.Another veteran wallet, Armory, has had about 200,000 downloads in total since its first alpha release in early 2012, according to its core developer, Alan Reiner. The download rate has increased substantially of late, with half of that figure coming in the last six months, giving around 17,000 downloads each month on average since November.“We get 70-85% of our downloads from bitcoin.org, by being featured on the ‘Choose your wallet’ page,” said Reiner.Mac-based wallet Hive is doing very well, with 125,000 downloads thus far (most of which come from this site, according to the founder, Wendell Davis).While Hive came out of beta in February, it was first launched for download in November. At that rate, it received around 21,000 downloads per month on average since its beta launch – around 40% of Multibit’s average, if we also average MultiBit download numbers over its entire existence.“We expect mobile numbers to eclipse fairly quickly once we get rolling,” said Davis, whose firm bought Android app Bridgewalker last November.Dealing with growthHowever, with 1.8 million downloads to date, the MultiBit project could be described as a victim of its own success. The more users that download a project, the more support calls start coming in.“Back in October and November, we were getting 20,000 downloads a day, when the price was going bananas,” Rowe said. “What we found there was that lots of people were asking us questions, but it was the same thing, over and over again.”The duo updated the website with support articles that had previously languished within the issues database. It also includes a basic HTML browser in the product itself, so that they can serve up help files.“We had to introduce a few little hurdles that people would go through. If we introduced a ‘help’ email at the top of the support page, we’d be inundated,” he says. Those hurdles include setting up github accounts.“Every single little hurdle that they go through stops them just that little bit, so that either they give up, or the issue is so strong, that it has to be dealt with.”User complaintsThen, there’s the occasional bug that blows up. That happened last month, when a firestorm erupted on reddit, after a user alleged that the firm’s wallet had eaten one of his private keys, depriving him of his coins.That user – who has since stopped answering messages from CoinDesk, and hasn’t appeared on reddit since – caused a flurry of criticism on other boards, with users accusing the developers of scamming users.The answer to that technical problem on the forum, from Burton, where he talked about problems getting his lights working seemed to inflame users even more. The post showed an underlying frustration common to developers on any free software project: they are resource-constrained.Eventually, the two developers just threw out the code responsible for that complaint, rather than trying to fix it. Mike Hearn, the developer of bitcoinj, the software library underpinning MultiBit, came on board to help and the team removed a feature that enabled users to import private key data from Blockchain.“We just thought it’s better that we take it out entirely even though it is possible to fix it, because that introduces more stability, because there are fewer things to go wrong,” said Rowe, who added that, because of this issue, the pair lost around two weeks of development time on the next version of the wallet.MultiBit HDHopefully, cases of lost private keys won’t occur when that next version appears. The software will use Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) technology, meaning the wallet uses a data structure that lets you produce large numbers of private keys from a tree of data.The whole tree can be encoded in human readable form, simply by entering a passphrase. That tree, along with all of its addresses, can later be reproduced with the words, even without connecting to the Internet.“Let’s say that disaster strikes and your laptop drops in a canal,” said Rowe. “So, you reach into the firesafe, pull out the paper, download MultiBit onto your new laptop, type in the 12 words, and off you go.”The company will also include strong encryption technology into the HD version of the MultiBit wallet, enabling users to back it up to the cloud if they want to.Other features in the pipeline include integration with the recently introduced bitcoin payment protocol, which has already been adopted by BitPay and Coinbase. And MultiBit is working with the creators of the Trezor hardware wallet to integrate with them too. This would put secure signing capabilities in a piece of hardware.“At present bitcoinj isn’t 100% Trezor compatible,” Rowe said. “To get it fully integrated will take a bit of time.”Constrained resourcesTime is the problem. Redditors may grumble occasionally about problems with the wallet, but the issue is that these two are working on the project pretty much single-handed.“That’s such a speck of dust that the vast majority won’t even notice it.”Rowe has a day job doing IT contract work, and while he has been able to take several months off to work on MultiBit, he has to spend some of the summer back in normal contract development, meaning that his work will be restricted to evenings and weekends.Jim Burton, the other developer working full-time on the project, will also have a hiatus this summer.Part of the problem is that there aren’t many people working on the wallet. The github page shows just eight contributors. And that’s by design.“Never before have we had an open-source library that anyone can download, that enables anyone to send money anywhere in the world,” Rowe explained. “That has to be protected.”“The code that depends on it has to be robust and the transitive dependency chain has to be robust as well. All the code we rely on in the open-source world, we have to know that it doesn’t contain wallet-stealing code.”This means that the team is very conservative about giving anyone commit access.This approach causes a bottleneck, though. MultiBit has been taking donations, but has received around 50 bitcoins since the start of 2012. That’s 1.8 bitcoins a month. Enough to keep Rowe and Burton in pizza and beer for coding sessions, certainly, but hardly a coder’s salary.A new way of chargingThey’ve been hoping for a large donor to come along and drop $200,000 in their lap, but as this doesn’t seem likely, they’ve decided to take another approach, which they’re calling the Burton-Rowe Income Technique (BRIT).The wallet will in future charge 1,000 satoshis per spend. That’s about half a cent at today’s price. Put another way, said Rowe, 800 bitcoin transactions made through MultiBit will earn the developers a latte.If MultiBit becomes popular, and they get excess funds from the charges, the grand plan is to push some of that money on to other code libraries on which it relies. What isn’t yet clear is what would constitute an excess, or how that money would be allocated.Will users baulk at the idea? Rowe said he hopes not.“That’s such a speck of dust that the vast majority won’t even notice it,” he said. Indeed, this is below the official dust threshold, meaning that the wallet has to wait for a user to make several transactions before it can bundle them up and send the developers an amount. “But to us, because we’re able to aggregate that tiny fee, that gives us enough money to sustain development.”So, MultiBit will charge 0.5 cents per transaction at today’s prices. It would seem harsh for users to complain. After all, they’re getting a free, long-established wallet, created by two developers, for the love of the project. It’s an interesting experiment. The question is, will you download it?Wallet image via Shutterstockbitcoin walletMultiBittransaction fees
Original author: Danny Bradbury

d is for dogecoin
It goes without saying that the dogecoin community is a diverse collection of Internet denizens, mining geeks and pretty much everyone in between.The altcoin, inspired by the love-it-or-hate-it internet meme, has gone on to form the basis for a variety of digital artworks, including a series of energetic and, at times, strange videos.But you might be asking yourself, which video is the best? There’s only one way to find out: watching some of the best-known videos and seeing which one stands among the rest. CoinDesk has taken the liberty of reviewing five of YouTube’s best dogecoin videos, so sit back and enjoy the ride (to the moon, perhaps).Ð is for ÐogecoinWinner of the Dogecoin Hype Video Competition, held in Februray of this year, “Ð is for Ðogecoin” sports a snazzy soundtrack and eye-catching visuals that speak to the video’s impressive production quality.The video netted its creator more than 370,000 DOGE, winning by a significant margin at the time, and featured the song “To The Moon” by artist Dunderpatrullen.The video opens with the internet’s beloved shiba inu watching several news reports as it works on the coding for dogecoin. Once complete, the shiba launches – literally, on a rocket – into the cryptocurrency ecosystem with a kaleidoscopic ride through the coin’s rise to prominence.Notable scenes include several miner’s cap-wearing shibas using GPUs to mine dogecoins before the aforementioned rocket takes off into orbit. Right before the video ends, we see the reddit alien waving as the doge-rocket ascends toward the moon.Number of YouTube views: 344,422dogecoin.aviThe unabashedly named “dogecoin.avi” scored second place in the Dogecoin Hype Video Competition, and like that contest’s first-place winner, promotes dogecoin’s early history while looking ahead to its hoped-for ascension to “the moon”.“dogecoin.avi” opens by addressing some of the criticisms levied against dogecoin since its inception. The maker of the video chose the theme song for the Japanese anime “Gurren Lagann”, the strangely titled “Row Row Fight The Power”.As can be expected, this doge-focused video includes plenty of moon launch imagery. Superimposed over images of rockets flying are rising price charts. US President Barack Obama makes an appearance, shown saluting the dogecoin rocket as it makes its way to the moon.The video, which scored the maker just under 125,000 DOGE in the video contest, closes with a reenactment of the Apollo 11 moon landing (by using footage from the film Transformers: Dark of the Moon) and a general call for donations in the dogecoin community.Number of YouTube views: 201,829Dogecoin KissIf there’s one thing that shibes love to do, it’s expressing their love for dogecoin. “Dogecoin Kiss: An original song about the world’s friendliest Cryptocurrency”, by singer-songwriter Katie Pham, celebrates the fun-loving nature of the dogecoin community.As the lyrics say:“What does it mean to be a shibe
Just listen up and I’ll show you soon
We’re little pups and we’re big believers
In a voyage straight to the moon.”The song’s catchy melody speaks to the easy-go nature of your average shibe, whether they’re a casual owner or a full-time miner.At the end of the song, she touches on the way that dogecoin has become a means of expressing thanks and appreciation, singing:“Community
Yeah its a place to be
If I can’t send a hug through this
I’ll blow a little dogecoin kiss.”“Dogecoin Kiss” won third place in the Doge Hype Video Competition, earning Pham roughly 65,000 DOGE.Number of YouTube views: 4,226Tyrone explains dogecoinIt’s a virtual fact that members of the dogecoin community are passionate about what they love. For one fan, the alternative digital currencies embodies the spirit of community itself.In the video, a man named Tyrone explains simply:“What is dogecoin? It is internet money that can spread love and fly to the moon. It is currency that empowers people, not banks. Doge is love, doge is life.”He goes on to suggest that dogecoin will one day become “digital currency number one.” Tyrone also offers a simple explanation of the mining process, as well as clarifying the correct pronunciation of dogecoin.The speaker, who goes by the handle Greatgigsguy3 on online low-cost marketplace Fiverr, charged $5 for his statement.Tyrone predicts that a single dogecoin will be worth US$1 by August, or six months after the video was released. At press time, one DOGE was worth approximately US$0.0004.Number of YouTube views: 20,215Doge-Powered Airport Invasion Party!Have you ever wondered what it would look like if a rowdy crowd of dogecoin-loving party-goers decided to descend on an international airport? With this video, your prayers are answered.Organizers Tom and Gary, according to the video, led a diverse crowd for an “decentralized dance party” at Vancouver International Airport on New Year’s Eve 2013. In addition to fun, balloons, music and dancing, the organizers made it possible for people to transmit bitcoin donations between party-goers through the use of wearable QR codes.According to the video, the party had to shift locations several times due to security. At one point, the crowd used trains in Vancouver to keep moving and stay ahead of any possible disruption.As far as parties go (and DOGE parties, for that matter), this New Year’s Eve set the tone for doge-themed celebrations.Number of YouTube views: 20,215dogecoinYouTube
Original author: Stan Higgins

dish
On the heels of the recent Dish Network announcement to begin accepting bitcoin payments, we saw the same clueless chorus of naysayers and payment newbies come out claiming that Dish doesn’t really accept bitcoin because they actually end up with US dollars.It would be just as ridiculous to say that a hotel in Barbados doesn’t accept US dollars because, after the VISA credit card transaction, the hotel ends up with Barbados dollars.Dish Network selected bitcoin payment processor Coinbase to manage the foreign exchange conversion risk in the same way that other international merchants select credit card processors. It matters not what the merchant’s native currency is, but what they permit consumers to use when purchasing.As with Overstock’s decision to begin accepting bitcoin payments, the Dish announcement is significant because it adds yet another payment outlet for holders of bitcoin and it brings another large merchant into the ecosystem of processing bitcoin transactions.Dish’s executive vice president and chief operating officer Bernie Han said that Dish sees its new payment option as a way to boost customer service:“We always want to deliver choice and convenience for our customers and that includes the method they use to pay their bills.”One cannot overlook the fact that something as mundane as a payment option is also being strategically deployed as a competitive wedge in a branding and messaging campaign. However, this residual bonus has a diminishing impact as more companies announce their intention to embrace bitcoin and we move past its early adopter phase.The monetary transition processWhile some analysts observe that new merchant acceptance has the effect of creating downward price pressure for bitcoin, since processors immediately convert into national currency for their clients, I maintain that the entire process is simply part of bootstrapping a new currency.And yes, selling pressure from new merchants converting out of bitcoin may not always be replaced by new buying. Bitcoin is barely in the early stages of this monetary transition process.That process includes price discovery on liquid exchanges, creation of closed-loop systems to both receive and spend bitcoin, and finally, pricing of goods and services in the new numéraire.The trend towards global participationIn an important but somewhat pessimistic paper, “Cryptocurrencies, Network Effects, and Switching Costs,” William Luther observes that there is a systemic bias against monetary transition. His research concludes that despite the inferiority of the prevailing currency and due to both network effects and switching costs, “cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are unlikely to generate widespread acceptance in the absence of either significant monetary instability or government support”.As an economist, I disagree with this thesis because it fails to consider global usage and the potential for bypassing capital controls. Luther’s cited monetary instability or government support are both conditions relevant only within the restricted political borders of a monetary regime. They may serve as great litmus tests in a confined jurisdiction, but they are utterly useless in considering cross-border transactions.The trend towards global merchants participating in a global economy will only serve to strengthen this dynamic. We are witnessing it today with at least 60 countries blocked out of the current prevailing payment systems, and hence unaware of the switching costs and network effects of Luther’s incumbent monies.Quoting bitcoin pricesBeyond the network effect of incumbents, I do agree that the holy grail for bitcoin is having prices quoted and displayed in bitcoin rather than mentally going through a conversion process. This step completes the process for monetary transition and it is difficult to predict how that specific step occurs.In “The Origin, Classification and Utility of Bitcoin,” Peter Šurda correctly states:“Even though not money, bitcoin is a medium of exchange … While it is true that economic calculation is beneficial, this is merely one of the relevant aspects of media of exchange. Economic calculation depends on the unit of account, and while bitcoin is not used as a unit of account to any apparent degree, it may happen in the future, and its utility would increase even more in such a case.”Redditor ISkiAtAlta makes an interesting observation on why it’s not easier or more beneficial to (re)obtain bitcoin than it is to obtain or use fiat, claiming that we’re not there yet because the barrier to obtaining bitcoin is too high and the perceived benefits have not yet been internalized – particularly for new users.That above rationale addresses the issue of monetary switching costs, but I think it applies equally to the establishment of a numéraire, or favored unit of account.Framing it as an issue of timing, ISkiAtAlta offers three items that must be present for motivating consumers to go through the trouble of transacting in bitcoin: (1) it has to become easier to obtain bitcoin, (2) people must see the value of holding their savings in bitcoin, and (3) merchants must offer discounts for bitcoin transactions.I would add that consumers must have more user-friendly applications and that merchants must also see the value of holding balances in bitcoin which becomes reinforced by expenses and liabilities – expressed in bitcoin through supply chain vendor demand or employee demand. It becomes infinitely easier to maintain bitcoin balances if a merchant or company knows that risk can be reasonably hedged and that others will also accept settlement in bitcoin.Bootstrapping a new currency is always a chicken-and-egg dilemma, but when it comes to volatility, original perspective can be helpful too. Perhaps it’s not bitcoin that is volatile against the US dollar, but it’s the US dollar that is volatile against the future store-of-value bitcoin.dishmerchantsOverstockpaymentstransaction fees
Original author: Jon Matonis

mark williams
Last December, Boston University School of Management professor Mark T. Williams issued a prediction that drew rapt attention from the mainstream media, as well as the united ire of the bitcoin industry, when he boldly projected that the price of bitcoin would lose 99% of its value and fall below $10 by the end of June 2014.However, at press time, the price of bitcoin on CoinDesk’s USD Bitcoin Price Index remains well above this figure, rising 34% in May to pass the US$600 mark. But, if Williams was hoping the community would forget his prediction, he was proven false this week when a number of leaders in the bitcoin space began to call for Williams to comment on what they feel is the inaccuracy of his prior remarks.For example, Bitcoin Magazine published an extensive piece dedicated to analyzing Williams’ past statements on bitcoin, while VC investor Erik Voorhees took to Twitter to question whether Williams would face his critics now that his projections haven’t come to fruition.Mark T. Williams, professor of finance at Boston, was wrong about Bitcoin. I wonder if he’ll acknowledge his error? http://t.co/JONvVmMFye— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) May 30, 2014Williams remains definantIn a new interview with CoinDesk, Williams opened up about his famous prediction, offering a defiant analysis of why he is still convinced the current high price of bitcoin won’t remain for long.Williams told CoinDesk:“I continue to stick to my 2013 prediction that bitcoin is grossly overpriced and the price will eventually adjust dramatically downward as the priced-for-perfection expectations set by bitcoin promoters cannot be met.”Williams suggested that while “asset bubbles cannot be easily timed”, the dramatic swings in price displayed by bitcoin provide evidence that consumers should be weary of making digital currency investments.He added: “Will this bubble be completely deflated in the next six months to a year? Time will tell. In January 2013 it was worth only $13. If the question is, ‘Do I still see bitcoin dropping to these much lower levels in the future?’ The answer is yes.”History will decideResponding to the veracity of his prediction, Williams stated that he believes his projection, that bitcoin would decline in value by as much as 99%, has perhaps been more accurate than those in the digital currency community concede.For example, he cited the February flash crash that drove prices down at major bitcoin exchange BTC-e to as low as $102, a drop, he says, of more than 90% from bitcoin’s market peak of roughly $1,200.Williams reiterated that, long-term, his prediction will be more correct than those issued by the industry’s thought leaders, in part because of the demonstrated instability in the market:“In contrast to the Winkelvoss twins that prognosticated that Bitcoin would rise to a mind boggling price of $40,000, I am confident that the true value of Bitcoin is closer to my estimate than theirs.”Ecosystem improvements aren’t enoughWhen asked whether the bitcoin community has done enough to address and improve the safety of the ecosystem in the wake of Mt. Gox, Williams was equally critical.In particular, Williams took aim at the industry’s major trade organisation, the Bitcoin Foundation, stating that this group has been especially slow to address the technology’s central issues or to raise awareness of these potential faults to the general public, stating:“The bitcoin ecosystem still remains shaky as measured by the drama that continues to unfold at the Bitcoin Foundation. This organization continues to lack strong corporate governance and does not send out a positive message to the market.”Williams also laid the blame on regulators, who he criticized as not going far enough to protect consumers, despite the wide range of warnings issued by central banks and government bodies internationally:“For bitcoin to be successful regulation needs to be coordinated on an international basis. [...] Recent stern warnings to consumers by the SEC and FINRA about the high risks of bitcoin do not address the critical issue of which agency or group of agencies should regulate and have oversight and enforcement control.”Bitcoin bubble remainsWilliams indicated that despite bitcoin’s recent price resilience, he still feels that it remains “grossly over-inflated” due to what he views as its “concentrated ownership, artificially limited supply and overhyped demand”.The capital markets professor suggested that rather than looking at bitcoin’s comparative recent price stability, the ecosystem should remember the losses that consumers incurred in the wake of the insolvency and bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, stating:“The important story which seems to be missed is that there are many investors that bought at the top of the market at $1,200 only six or so months ago and are now sitting on sizable market losses.”Williams also suggested that he is not alone in this prediction, saying that more academics are likely to begin taking his viewpoint publicly. Specifically, he mentioned Yale University professor Robert Shiller, who has previously come forward to denounce bitcoin as an asset bubble.Williams concluded: “I am not alone in the view that bitcoin is in a hyper bubble that will eventually pop.”investorslifestylemark t. williams
Original author: Pete Rizzo

Source: Organ of Corti
Bitcoin’s breakthrough from a rather stagnant price has certainly made miners happy as of late.It might even entice the masses to splurge on a mining unit or two. Such an occurrence would certainly help the network as a whole.The recent meeting of minds between Chinese mining hardware suppliers brings back to the fore just how centralized mining continues to be.And while closed-door events like this are happening, the public must contend with the possibility that personal computers can be afflicted with mining malware – that’s not positive for the cryptocurrency industry.With that in mind, here is what has been going on in the mining sector since our last roundup.Cloud contracts for altcoins Source: Genesis MiningSource: Genesis MiningA number of companies see the futility of the miner hardware game and are moving into hosted mining, or cloud mining. The problem is it’s really hard to differentiate most of the services. There isn’t much to offer customers other than straight-up hashing power for some money-making transaction confirmations in the cloud.Except for one thing: altcoins. While for the time being most hosted mining contracts only allow users bitcoin mining, Genesis Mining also offers a number of scrypt-based options.The company provides mining power for bitcoin, litecoin, feathercoin, dogecoin, auroracoin, lottcoin and megacoin.CoinDesk was given a free account with 1 MH/s and mined $0.13 of litecoin in a 24-hour period. That’s not much, but if anything, Genesis-Mining can be a supplement or a temperature gauge for buying scrypt-based mining hardware – or both.Walmart selling bitcoin minerswalmartlogoPerhaps trying to stay true to its slogan allowing people to ‘save money, live better’, Walmart is now selling bitcoin miners. In what appears to be a partnership with TigerDirect, the mega-retailer’s customers can now shop online for a little piece of the bitcoin network to call their own.Currently in stock is the Butterfly Labs Jalapeno. “Get effective bitcoining with the Butterfly Labs Bitcoin Miner,” the item description states. The Jalapeno model, which was released last summer, is 10GH/s and sells for $299 plus $5.70 shipping.That’s actually $50 more than what Butterfly Labs charges for the same model on its website.10GH/s of SHA-256 mining power isn’t what it used to be anyway. In fact, someone buying one of these units will probably never make that purchase price back in subsequent rewards.BFGMiner software updateA popular client used with bitcoin mining hardware, BFGMiner updated its software to version 4.0. Some of the new features include hotplugging, proxies and scrypt support.The client has also been updated with support for newer hardware from Gridseed, Butterfly Labs and Hex Fury. BFGMiner is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, making it versatile for whatever client equipment a miner decides to use.The underlying software has been around for some time, dating back to the days when FPGAs were good enough to crank out block rewards.According to the official release of the new version, its developers plan to build features into future releases promising alternative proof-of-work, decentralization and concurrent mining capabilities.GridcoingridcoinlogoIt’s entirely possible that future bitcoin mining rigs will only be able to run if provided with arbitrage opportunities in electrical costs. That means powering these miners might become a major issue for the security of the bitcoin network as more hashing comes online.A cryptocurrency launched last year called gridcoin exists to solve this problem. The coin rewards miners who participate in projects that help the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) initiative.According to its website, BOINC’s grid computing projects are scientific research for curing disease, global warming issues and solving mathematical problems.Anyone can download the software to help contribute to BOINC projects. However, hashing power provided through the gridcoin incentive could prove to be much more efficient than simply solving SHA-256 proof-of-work someday.Hydro-only hosted mining Source: data.s-info.seSource: data.s-info.seA UK-based company called MegaMine sells hosted mining contracts in the 10GH/s to 10TH/s range. Many other enterprising folks with datacenter access sell mining contracts, but MegaMine might offer a strategic advantage over others.The company only sources power from water, or hydro, based sources, so it is able to pass the savings from lower electricity bills onto customers.With increased network power, more electricity will be needed to power the next generation of miners. Even though smaller nodes means less consumption, the sheer scale of some datacenters necessitates competitive advantage.European electricity is expensive, especially in countries like Germany, France and Spain. Miners there may find that MegaMine offers an alternative source of cheap hosting and energy.Tracking hashrate getting harder Source: Organ of CortiSource: Organ of CortiIt appears as though increased centralization for bitcoin mining translates into less transparency. The Neighbourhood Pool Watch blog has a post exploring this. Some of the biggest mining pools do not provide hashrate per miner data. This makes it difficult to know just how many miners are hashing away.There could be a number of reasons for this. For one, some of these pools may not want rivals to know what kind of equipment they use.It’s entirely possible that custom-made rigs with numerous ASICs on one board are used now, as opposed to a huge number of single miners.What’s evident is there will be consolidation in the industry – both in the number of mining units and companies. The merging of Cloud Hashing and HighBitcoin to form Peernova, as well as BitFury’s $20m funding round led credence to one of many problematic issues for BTC: further centralization of confirmations on the bitcoin network.Got a cryptocurrency mining tip for future roundups? Contact us.Disclaimer: This article should not be viewed as an endorsement of any of the companies mentioned. Please do your own extensive research before considering investing any funds in these products.BFGMInerBitfuryGenesis MiningGridcoinMegaMinePeerNovaWalmart
Original author: Daniel Cawrey

HERO Bitcoin
Hero Subs in Melbourne, Australia has become the city’s first fast food outlet to accept bitcoin, offering an enticing 50% discount to bitcoin customers until 15th June.It also plans to introduce an exclusive ‘Bitcoin Sub’ – available only to customers paying with bitcoin at all four of the company’s  Melbourne locations.Hero has teamed up with not just one, but two local payment systems to support its new network. The first is Melbourne’s best-known bitcoin startup CoinJar; the other is fellow digital currency pioneer DC POS.DCPOSDC POS, which charges 0.5% commission to receive and store payments, provides an online terminal interface for mobile and desktop devices, and allows merchants to choose one of four preferred wallets or bitcoin-to-fiat processors. Merchants can also elect to keep their funds in bitcoin.As well as CoinJar, DC POS also interfaces with BitPay, Coinbase and Blockchain.Reaction to the bitcoin announcement has been positive.@HeroSubsAU That’s really kind guys, but I’m actually super stoked to spend bitcoin with you, so no voucher needed. See you Monday! @uwenna
– Andrew Powell (@andyjpowell) 30th May 2014Hero Subs promotes itself as “Spreading Love, the Brooklyn Way” with New York-style gourmet baguette sandwiches. Voting for the official Bitcoin Sub’s fillings and name is already under way on the sandwich shop’s homepage.HEAUSPR0043_POS_v2Suggested fillings include caribbean jerk chicken, soft shell crab, toasted almonds and smashed avocado. Hero Subs will announce the winner and launch its new sandwich on Wednesday 18th June.Melbourne has been leading the way for bitcoin startups and merchant acceptance in Australia. As well as being home to both CoinJar and DC POS, the country’s second city also has a whopping 44 bitcoin and litecoin-accepting businesses listed on Coinmap.org – the highest in the country and neighboring region.CoinJar is also known for its bitcoin advocacy around its native country. The company publishes a blog called ‘CoinJar Stories‘, with profiles of bitcoin-accepting businesses from Australia and abroad, and the paths they took on their way to enlightenment. AustraliaCoinJarmerchantspayments
Original author: Jon Southurst

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“Can we pretend February never happened?” asked Gavin Andresen at Bitcoin2014, in an oblique reference to the collapse of Mt Gox.It’s easy to sympathise with the sentiment. Mt Gox’s demise shone a spotlight on the bitcoin community’s ability to weed out bad actors and found it lacking.While the legal disputes around Mt Gox continue to trundle on in the background, one issue has risen to prominence as a result of the affair: transparency.However, with each third-party ‘audit’ of bitcoin exchanges and other businesses, the question of who should be performing these checks, and what they should involve, is of increasing importance.Trust is not enoughMajor bitcoin exchanges and wallet providers moved quickly to reassure customers following Mt Gox’s collapse, issuing a joint statement that called for “appropriate security safeguards that are independently audited and tested on a regular basis”.To date, those independent tests have largely been carried out by trusted individuals within the bitcoin community, who have avoided calling their admittedly narrow checks ‘audits’.Andreas Antonopoulos vouched for Coinbase back in February, Stefan Thomas examined Kraken in March and most recently, Mike Hearn tested Bitstamp, assuring its customers “that at this time Bitstamp holds sufficient bitcoins to cover their customer deposits.”The system so far has been largely ad-hoc, with exchanges promising to submit to regular checks and selecting different developers each time (which is preferential to the same individual auditing an exchange repeatedly).In the long-term, though, said George Quigley, a partner at accountancy firm BDO, the community needs an institution-based approach that looks at much more than just how much bitcoin is held:“Am I going to rely on a person who goes in and says, ‘it’s okay, all the bitcoin are there,’ or are you going to rely on a provider who says, ‘here’s a management statement, here’s how they control the environment’?”Bitcoin auditors neededOf course, one would expect an auditing company to make that argument, but it’s an issue that the community has recognized too. Kraken CEO Jesse Powell has previously told CoinDesk of the need for a bitcoin auditing firm, saying:“The firm would need to independently have a strong grasp of bitcoin, crypto, the ability to review code or write their own, be aware of opportunities for either party to compromise the audit and have the ability to prevent those compromises.”However, he also added some scepticism about whether established firms could fulfil this role: “Traditionally, this skill set is not what accounting firms are known for.”One company that has used established firms is Netagio, which boasts that “all funds are audited to an ISAE standard” (ISAE standing for ‘International Standards for Assurance Engagements’).The company is one of a handful that deal in bitcoin and gold. And though its website is full of information about the company, including an address and phone number, like all players in the bitcoin space, said Netagio’s Managing Director Simon Hamblin, Mt Gox has cast a shadow over their business:“That trust and transparency issue has damaged the [whole] bitcoin world.”Despite engaging BDO, a known name in the auditing industry, to provide assurance that the company is properly run, though, Hamblin said Netagio still faces the same problems as other bitcoin businesses:“You struggle to get a banking relationship, you struggle to do the most basic things. That applies to insurance, for example. Particularly since the collapse of Mt Gox. The insurance market has closed up. It’s moving forward, but it’s a very slow process.”A gap in the marketBuilding trust in the bitcoin economy will help to move things forward faster, and proper checks and audits will undoubtedly be a large part of that.Mike Hearn thinks it’s too early to build a standardised approach to auditing bitcoin businesses, telling CoinDesk earlier this week:“There’s still a lot of variance in techniques and technologies being used, with new R&D still being done. Once things settle down some more, a standard way to audit exchanges would be useful indeed.”What’s clear is that the demand for transparency has left a gap in the market, not only for established accountancy firms like BDO, but also for new bitcoin-specific accountancy firms. What they’ll look like is still up in the air.Magnifying glass image via Shutterstockaccountingauditsexchangespublic transparency
Original author: Kadhim Shubber
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