Original author: Nermin Hajdarbegovic
Coin News
Logo form of B⃦, a common symbol used for bitcoin. Source: Bitcoin WikiHaving a symbol in Unicode form means it would work in different fonts and formats and would help to better convey the cryptocurrency to the masses in various forms of media.There has been community discussion to get B⃦ used in conjunction with the Unicode Consortium, with a Bitcoin Wiki resource devoted to it.However, since the Unicode Consortium already accepts Ƀ, it could be an easier path to adoption since there are no standardization roadblocks in the way.Differing viewpointsCoinDesk asked several people in the bitcoin industry their views on the Ƀ symbol – and reactions were mixed. Sean Neville is the chief technology officer of Circle, a company focused on consumer adoption of bitcoin. Neville said:“I’m not a huge fan of that actual symbol, but I think it’s a pretty neat idea.”Adam Draper, founder of startup accelerator Boost VC, said that there’s nothing wrong with the bitcoin symbol used today: ”What’s wrong with the double dashed B?”John Light, who organizes cryptocurrency meetups in the San Francisco Bay Area, sees the marketing potential for using something already accepted by the Unicode Consortium:“I think it’s a good branding move – open source, no currency symbol conflicts, available as a font.”Community consensusThe community that has developed around bitcoin is what has helped it grow and any decision-making on what bitcoin’s official symbol should be will require its direction.The abbreviation BTC has been adopted as a simple, yet unofficial acronym for bitcoin. And the ISO 4217 standard has taken steps towards making XBT an official currency code, even though many, like the IRS, still don’t consider bitcoin a currency.Setting standards for bitcoin are important to maintaining its legitimacy, but a consensus on this particular subject of bitcoin’s Unicode symbol has not been made yet.So, what’s the right choice - B⃦ or Ƀ? Share your views in the comments below.LamassuTip4CommitUnicodeZeroBlockOriginal author: Daniel Cawrey
The second and final day of the Inside Bitcoins NYC conference took place on 8th April at the Javits Center in Manhattan, and built further on themes discussed in the conference’s informative first day.Though the topics that were discussed ranged from decentralized autonomous corporations (DACs) to merchant adoption of digital currencies, the conversation frequently returned to the issue of regulation, and a particular focus was given to Wall Street’s involvement with bitcoin through institutional investments.
Wall Street debates the fair value of bitcoinThe opening keynote for day two of Inside Bitcoins NYC featured a panel of speakers who work on Wall Street. Panelists like SecondMarket Founder and CEO Barry Silbert and Wedbush Securities’ Managing Director Gil Luria provided insight on how bitcoin is viewed by the big players in New York’s financial district.“@Wedbush has decided to embrace bitcoin [...] and we plan to continue being involved.” – @gilluria at bitcoinconf — CoinDesk (@coindesk) April 8, 2014Throughout the morning, Bloomberg’s World Stock Index was cited as an influencing factor regarding institutions on Wall Street ultimately investing in bitcoin.Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, weighed in on the subject during a panel entitled “Birth of a New Asset Class: The Institutional Investor View on Bitcoin”:“The reality is that there’s a lot of people on Wall Street who won’t trade in something that’s not on Bloomberg. It may be arbitrary, but it’s the truth.”This stance seemed to be echoed by panel members during the opening keynote; Luria also referenced Bloomberg’s stock index and shared some news that received an audibly warm response from the room:“I called my Bloomberg rep to ask when they’d start quoting bitcoin. The answer was soon.” – @gilluria of @Wedbush#bitcoinconf — CoinDesk (@coindesk) April 8, 2014After telling the audience that in the world of Wall Street, “if it’s on Bloomberg, then it’s real”, Luria continued to postulate the fair market value of bitcoin, concluding with a prediction that received a mixed response from panelists and attendees.Said Luria:“I think that if a lot things happen right, the price could reach $500,000 to $1m per bitcoin.”Among the factors that need to “happen right” for this valuation to be realized: regulation.The topic of governmental regulation pervaded the discussion about Wall Street’s involvement with bitcoin, and even became the primary focus of a seemingly less-related panel titled “Creating and Funding the Next 100 Great Bitcoin Companies.”Regulation steals the show
While there was a vocal minority of attendees in opposition of the regulation of digital currencies, it was evident that most people in attendance have warmed up to the notion that some level of governmental regulation is inevitable for bitcoin to be sustainable long term.Texas Congressman Steve Stockman took the microphone and was immediately met with applause from the room.Rep. Stockman surprised the crowd with an announcement regarding the IRS’ recent classification of bitcoin as property, which was a hotly debated topic throughout the conference:BREAKING: Texas Congressman Steve Stockman will introduce a bill that will “take bitcoin out of the IRS’ hands, reclassify it as currency” — CoinDesk (@coindesk) April 8, 2014Rep. Stockman continued to say that he values the feedback of the bitcoin community, and reassured the crowded room that his office works to serve the public – including the bitcoin community – and not the other way around.A “learning curve” for regulatorsOne of the more poignant talks of the day was delivered by John G. Collins, who serves as a professional staff member on the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.Collins works as an advisor to US Senator Tom Carper, and he opened his lecture with a refreshing level of transparency, telling attendees that he hopes to learn more from the bitcoin community so that “when [members of Congress] do make decisions, they’re thoughtful and informed.”“[It’s not realistic] to expect an entire financial institution [like bitcoin] to avoid any type of regulation.”Referring to the technical and financial complexities that underlie bitcoin and other digital currencies, Collins admitted that public policy in the US can often move at a slow pace, and said that it’s natural for there “to be a learning curve in the government, and for there to be a lot of questions”.Collins explained the fundamental challenge that the US government faces in dealing with bitcoin: the government is concerned about consumer protection and doesn’t want to “chase [their] tails on the law enforcement side”, but regulators also want to avoid stifling innovation and driving jobs and capital overseas.An emphasis was placed on fostering collaboration between the bitcoin community and regulators. Collins conceded that “regulators only know as much as [the community is] willing to educate them about”, but asserted that the bitcoin community needs to acknowledge the politcal, legal and consumer protection issues that cause concern for regulators.Moving forwardThe general tolerance of regulation among attendees of Inside Bitcoins NYC signals what many consider to be the next phase in bitcoin’s penetration into mainstream adoption.With institutional investors from Wall Street showing interest in bitcoin, a higher caliber of entrepreneurs entering the scene and a general warming up to regulators, Inside Bitcoins NYC made it clear that the digital currency industry is quickly maturing, and as such, it demands to be taken seriously.Images via Tom SharkeyBarry SilbertconferencesInside Bitcoins
Wall Street debates the fair value of bitcoinThe opening keynote for day two of Inside Bitcoins NYC featured a panel of speakers who work on Wall Street. Panelists like SecondMarket Founder and CEO Barry Silbert and Wedbush Securities’ Managing Director Gil Luria provided insight on how bitcoin is viewed by the big players in New York’s financial district.“@Wedbush has decided to embrace bitcoin [...] and we plan to continue being involved.” – @gilluria at bitcoinconf — CoinDesk (@coindesk) April 8, 2014Throughout the morning, Bloomberg’s World Stock Index was cited as an influencing factor regarding institutions on Wall Street ultimately investing in bitcoin.Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, weighed in on the subject during a panel entitled “Birth of a New Asset Class: The Institutional Investor View on Bitcoin”:“The reality is that there’s a lot of people on Wall Street who won’t trade in something that’s not on Bloomberg. It may be arbitrary, but it’s the truth.”This stance seemed to be echoed by panel members during the opening keynote; Luria also referenced Bloomberg’s stock index and shared some news that received an audibly warm response from the room:“I called my Bloomberg rep to ask when they’d start quoting bitcoin. The answer was soon.” – @gilluria of @Wedbush#bitcoinconf — CoinDesk (@coindesk) April 8, 2014After telling the audience that in the world of Wall Street, “if it’s on Bloomberg, then it’s real”, Luria continued to postulate the fair market value of bitcoin, concluding with a prediction that received a mixed response from panelists and attendees.Said Luria:“I think that if a lot things happen right, the price could reach $500,000 to $1m per bitcoin.”Among the factors that need to “happen right” for this valuation to be realized: regulation.The topic of governmental regulation pervaded the discussion about Wall Street’s involvement with bitcoin, and even became the primary focus of a seemingly less-related panel titled “Creating and Funding the Next 100 Great Bitcoin Companies.”Regulation steals the showWhile there was a vocal minority of attendees in opposition of the regulation of digital currencies, it was evident that most people in attendance have warmed up to the notion that some level of governmental regulation is inevitable for bitcoin to be sustainable long term.Texas Congressman Steve Stockman took the microphone and was immediately met with applause from the room.Rep. Stockman surprised the crowd with an announcement regarding the IRS’ recent classification of bitcoin as property, which was a hotly debated topic throughout the conference:BREAKING: Texas Congressman Steve Stockman will introduce a bill that will “take bitcoin out of the IRS’ hands, reclassify it as currency” — CoinDesk (@coindesk) April 8, 2014Rep. Stockman continued to say that he values the feedback of the bitcoin community, and reassured the crowded room that his office works to serve the public – including the bitcoin community – and not the other way around.A “learning curve” for regulatorsOne of the more poignant talks of the day was delivered by John G. Collins, who serves as a professional staff member on the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.Collins works as an advisor to US Senator Tom Carper, and he opened his lecture with a refreshing level of transparency, telling attendees that he hopes to learn more from the bitcoin community so that “when [members of Congress] do make decisions, they’re thoughtful and informed.”“[It’s not realistic] to expect an entire financial institution [like bitcoin] to avoid any type of regulation.”Referring to the technical and financial complexities that underlie bitcoin and other digital currencies, Collins admitted that public policy in the US can often move at a slow pace, and said that it’s natural for there “to be a learning curve in the government, and for there to be a lot of questions”.Collins explained the fundamental challenge that the US government faces in dealing with bitcoin: the government is concerned about consumer protection and doesn’t want to “chase [their] tails on the law enforcement side”, but regulators also want to avoid stifling innovation and driving jobs and capital overseas.An emphasis was placed on fostering collaboration between the bitcoin community and regulators. Collins conceded that “regulators only know as much as [the community is] willing to educate them about”, but asserted that the bitcoin community needs to acknowledge the politcal, legal and consumer protection issues that cause concern for regulators.Moving forwardThe general tolerance of regulation among attendees of Inside Bitcoins NYC signals what many consider to be the next phase in bitcoin’s penetration into mainstream adoption.With institutional investors from Wall Street showing interest in bitcoin, a higher caliber of entrepreneurs entering the scene and a general warming up to regulators, Inside Bitcoins NYC made it clear that the digital currency industry is quickly maturing, and as such, it demands to be taken seriously.Images via Tom SharkeyBarry SilbertconferencesInside BitcoinsOriginal author: Tom Sharkey
Original author: Stan Higgins
Original author: Stan Higgins
Litecoin’s hashing power over the past three months. Source: LiteshackThe reality is that scrypt miners point their mining rigs to the coin that they think has the highest potential for profit.Mining is an important distributed method for confirming transactions, but it ultimately costs money to do so in equipment, electricity and time.As miners have become interested in dogecoin instead of litecoin, this has meant that there is less hashing power growth in LTC. However, at 174,000 total MH/s for LTC versus 71,000MH/s for doge, litecoin is still a much more powerful network.Merged miningIn the past, dogecoin had been retargeting only every four hours. This meant opportunistic miners could move to other scrypt-based coins and cause difficulty to be misrepresented as a test of that network’s hashing power.In order to prevent this, the difficulty retargeting now happens during doge’s block generation, which is roughly every minute. This has helped to better secure dogecoin’s hashing power and made it less volatile. 
Dogecoin’s hashing power over the past three months. Source: LiteshackThe idea of merged mining two independently successful coins is a colorful concept.“Merge mining only affects mining and nothing else,” Lee says in his post. In addition, he tries to allay the fears that litecoin and dogecoin could become tangled with one another rather confusingly.It is a problem that could affect the technical and mainstream communities around both.However, Lee continued:“[It] doesn’t merge the blockchains, the clients, economics of the coins, the dev team, or the communities. All it does is make it so that you mine both coins at the same time, and secure both coins at the same time.”Hard forkLee’s idea is to hard fork dogecoin in order to allow for merged mining. At least one of the coins would need to do so for the idea to work.And the ideal coin to fork is dogecoin, according to Lee:“This [merged mining] can be accomplished by a hard fork in either coin. You’ve likely seen my take on why hard forking litecoin is too dangerous today. Not so for dogecoin.”Dogecoin was hard forked in March, as users were required to update to the 1.6 version of the client that added features like a four-hour maturing period for mined coins.Jackson Palmer, one of the co-founders of dogecoin, believes that litecoin’s size could make a fork quite difficult:“As for the fork, they have a larger market cap and hash rate and are hence more scared about getting 51% of their users to update to a new version.” 
LTC/USD chart over the past three months. Source: LTC-ChartsSpeculative assetsCryptocurrencies exist in a unique predicament, as most aren’t used for anything other than speculation. However, unlike litecoin, dogecoin is actually used for something other than mining or trading for profit.It is a transactional currency for tipping on reddit, something Palmer ideally wants to continue focusing on:“Essentially, I don’t think merged mining is the answer for dogecoin right now. It’s less than five months old and to say that anything needs to be done right now comes down to pure speculation.”Would merged mining help to maintain both litecoin and dogecoin? Probably, but the two currencies are in such different stages that it might be better to let each thrive in its own way.“Brashly changing [proof-of-work] algorithms, merged mining and all other solutions I’ve been presented with are simply band-aids to the fact that a currency requires active use and demand to succeed,” Palmer added.Dogecoin litecoin image via ShutterstockCharlie LeedogecoinJackson Palmerlitecoinmerged miningOriginal author: Daniel Cawrey
Original author: Nermin Hajdarbegovic
Age seems to be a factor too: older Americans were more likely to be opposed to bitcoin than young Americans. Only 22% of respondents over the age of 65 were OK with other people using bitcoin. Among 18-24 year olds, 59% said it should be allowed.The results match up with a previous survey by Harris Interactive, which found a similar reduction in support among older people, and another survey by GfK, which found that 57% of 18-25 year olds thought bitcoin benefits the global economy.Generally, bitcoin supporters were likely to be young and politically independent, with people identifying as Democrats or Republicans less likely to say that bitcoin should be permitted than people identifying as independent.“This is part of a larger trend we’re observing with this generation: socially liberal with undecided economic views, but cares deeply about personalization and individual autonomy,” said Ekins.
As might be expected, a majority of people identified by Reason-Rupe as libertarians supported the use of bitcoin.Surprisingly, though, 39% of libertarians said they would not allow the use of bitcoin – a result that may arise from the fact that Reason-Rupe grouped people under political labels based on questions about the “appropriate scope and power of government,” instead of asking people to self-identify, which may have included people who don’t necessarily consider themselves libertarian.The survey also found that people who identified as gamers were more likely to support bitcoin. Good for you, gaming community.If you are a merchant accepting bitcoin, CoinDesk wants to find out more about your experiences. Please fill out our survey.regulationsurveyOriginal author: Kadhim Shubber