We go over Amazon’s new smart phone, and discuss if they’ve missed the mark.

Then the Feds screw up the Silkroad Bitcoin sale, and T-Mobile decided some bits are more privileged than others – and why they might just fool you into liking it.

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— Headlines —

Amazon announces the Fire Phone, $199 with 2-year contract for 32GB

• A quad-core 2.2GHz SoC
• Adreno 330 GPU
• 2GB of RAM
• 802.11ac Wi-Fi
• Fire OS 3.5.0
• 13MP camera with optical image stabilization.
• A dedicated shutter button.

Fire Phone exclusively available July 25 on AT&T: $199 for 32GB, $299 for 64GB, $649 and $749 off-contract

Equipped with Firefly, its standout feature, the Fire Phone will be able to scan and identify more than 100 million items, enabling users to perform instantaneous price checks alongside a contextual database search of everything from music and street signs to the handwritten contents of notes and letters.

Firefly, when rolled into Amazon’s network of services anchored by Prime, is meant to be the linchpin of the Fire Phone. With a device that customers can take with them to every physical store and location and scan their surroundings, Amazon is adding a powerful new avenue to reroute users back to its platform and marketplace.

At closing, Amazon stock was up 2.69 percent, or 8.76 points, at $334.28 per share

List of Possible Silk Road Bitcoin Bidders Leaked by US Marshals

A list of individuals interested in the auction of the 30,000 bitcoins confiscated from the now-defunct Silk Road black marketplace has been leaked via email by the US Marshals Service (USMS), the US government agency confirmed.

In a statement to CoinDesk, Lynzey Donahue, a US Marshals spokeswoman, indicated that the emailer had intended to send all the recipients an attached informational document and to blind copy all those it intended to contact. The US Marshals service is the federal agency that has been charged with carrying out the auction of the bitcoins, originally seized by the FBI.

T-Mobile’s ‘Music Freedom’ is a great feature — and a huge problem | The Verge

T-Mobile has decided, arbitrarily, that some of the data traveling over its pipes should count against a cap, while other data should not. What’s to stop it from using data cap exemptions as a punitive measure against content providers that aren’t on good terms with T-Mobile (or its parent company Deutsche Telekom)?

Japan’s ruling party says won’t regulate bitcoin for now

Japan’s leading Liberal Democratic Party said it decided against regulating bitcoin for the time being, after the collapse of Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox prompted them to consider more scrutiny of the virtual currency.

SnappyTV is joining the flock | Twitter Blogs

One of the best ways to follow events as they unfold is through real-time videos on Twitter. As we continue to invest in video, it’s important for us to provide tools that make it easy for TV broadcasters, businesses, and event producers to share high-quality videos. To that end, we’ve agreed to acquire SnappyTV.

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The post The Cost of Free | Tech Talk Today 12 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The guys discuss what the heck is going on with the price of Bitcoin, and what you can expect. The cost of running the bitcoin network is coming up against the price of the coin, we’ll discuss how these two elements are coming to a head.

Plus: The big theme from the Bitcoin London conference, the ridiculous anti-Crypto currency rhetoric from the G8 summit, your questions, and more!

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• Difficulty, Altcoins, Mining, etc

• Bitcoin in Germany

• BFL Selling ASIC chips in bulk

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— Discussion —

• Bitcoin at the G8 Summit (pg 60)

Written by “John Lyons, chief executive, International Cyber Security Protection Alliance”

As world leaders gather at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland this year, they will be considering and debating some of the most pressing global issues of our time. Those that specialise in the cyberspace arena hope that they will also have time to address the deeply worrying trends that threaten the economic and social benefits that the internet can deliver to humankind.

As highlighted by the latest initiative of the United States to arrest some of the suspects that were involved in Liberty Reserve (a group indicted for money laundering that ran a $6 billion worldwide operation out of Costa Rica), alternative payment mechanisms, such as Bitcoin and a host of others, can enable criminal and terrorist groups to launder money and fund their operations.
Governments around the world could take two measures that would have a significant
and long-lasting effect on the ability of online criminals to secure their ill-gotten gains: 1. Outlaw alternative payment mechanisms for trading currencies online; and 2. Introduce legislation to confiscate the proceeds of online crime.

If treasuries and financial institutions around the world were to block those transactions and permit only legitimate currencies to be used on the internet through regulated payment service providers and cards (such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express), then the flow of many billions of dollars to criminal groups would be stemmed. Furthermore, if those same countries introduced, if necessary, additional legislation to confiscate the proceeds of such online crime, these funds could be either returned to those who had been defrauded or used to fund international projects that could bring about a more safe and secure internet environment for all citizens.

If the leaders of the European Union and United States could be convinced to take a lead on these initiatives, that would be a huge contribution to making the internet a safe place for financial transactions. At the same time, it would also strike a blow against those who would try to destroy the fabric of our the world’s well-being.

• We\’re FUNDED on Kickstarter! Here are the Stretch Goals

It\’s hard to believe, but in less than two weeks, our Kickstarter campaign was funded. We planned this out so we can do a quality documentary, but an increased production budget means a much better film. With our stretch goals, we can span the country and even the globe to talk with the world\’s experts on bitcoin, crypto currency, and currency in general.

Bitcoin London Happening Now:

• Twitter / btclondon: @vessenes 1200 attendees @ …

@vessenes 1200 attendees @ San Jose, 60% members of @BTCFoundation outside US. #metrics for #Bitcoin #btclondon

• Regulation Means The Bitcoin Gold Rush Will Not Happen In The US, Say Experts | TechCrunch

Europe is better positioned as a better place to create Bitcoin-based startups than the US. That was the message coming out of Bitcoin London today, the first major conference in London to cover startups, investors and business models. Covering the broad sweep of businesses, technologists and institutions involved in the Bitcoin space, the conference heard that the US may have made a fatal strategic mistake in classifying Bitcoin as if it were money so early on in its development.

What has emerged is that Bitcoin is being treated in many different ways: as money, as an asset class, as the first highly secure P2P global information exchange, as a technology platform and even as a if it were a startup entity in its own right

• Winklevoss twins work to make Bitcoin more legit with SEC filing | Internet & Media – CNET News

The \”Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust\” aims to give commodity buyers more exposure to Bitcoins. According to Business Insider, the trust will apparently operate like an exchange-traded fund, which is an investment fund that can be traded like a stock.

\”The investment objective of the Trust is for the Shares to reflect the performance of the Blended Bitcoin Price of Bitcoins, less the expenses of the Trust\’s operations,\” the filing reads. \”The Shares are designed for investors seeking a cost-effective and convenient means to gain exposure to Bitcoins with minimal credit risk.\”

• BBC News – Winklevoss twins plan $20m Bitcoin trust fund

The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust will initially sell $20m (£13m) worth of shares to investors, according to a filing with the US regulators.

• Winklevoss Twins Make Best Case Against Bitcoin Fund – Bloomberg

Their company, Math-Based Asset Services LLC, filed forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.

OMG THE PRICE!!one!!

• Bitcoin Hash Rate
• Bitcoin Mining Operating Margin

• BTC Guild Selling Block Erupter USBs

Litecoin Update:

• Trading in BTC for LTC?

• Receive a notification when Litecoin starts trading on Mt. Gox

Forget about constantly checking news about Litecoin and Mt. Gox. Instead, register your Email and receive a notification when Litecoin starts being traded in Mt. Gox.

• WikiLeaks now has a Litecoin specific section on their donation page

Bitcoin Pick

• Bitcoinium

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The post Blame it on Mt. Gox | Plan B 13 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Getting money into Bitcoin has come under attack this week, we’ll run down the stories that paint a troubling picture for Bitcoin, but as of yet seem to have left the decentralized currency unscathed.

Plus we’ll chat with Donncha O\’Cearbhaill, who worked with Coinbase on disclosing multiple vulnerabilities, and ask what his experience was working with their bug bounty program.

And your emails, the good news for Litecoin, and more!

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If you enjoyed this episode, found value or information from it, please consider contributing using Bitcoin. Each episode gets its own unique Bitcoin address so by tipping you\’re not only making our continued efforts possible but telling us what you liked. Our episode specific address is listed at the bottom of the show notes.

— Feedback —

• Mining to Live

• USB ASIC Mining

• I think that bitcoin crashes are a good thing

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— Discussion —

• Coinbase – Owning a Bitcoin Exchange Bug Bounty Program

• Bitcoin network recovering from DDoS attack

Last week, the Bitcoin network suffered from a denial-of-service attack that forced the core development team to patch the core reference design.

• Bitcoin-Qt / bitcoind version 0.8.3 released

• Why we have been slow and taking longer than usual to process orders. Hint, banks don\’t like Bitcoins.

• Elizabeth Warren Wants HSBC Bankers Jailed for Money Laundering

• Report: HSBC allowed money laundering that likely funded terror, drugs

• Citibank will no longer process any transfers to Mt Gox due to association with Liberty

They laundered $680 Billion of Cartel Money.

\”Between 2006 and 2009, according to DOJ, HSBC failed to monitor $670 billion in wire transfers and $9.4 billion in cash transactions from its Mexico bank operations.\”

• HSBC to pay $1.92 billion in money-laundering settlement – Dec. 10, 2012

• Mt.Gox – Temporary Hiatus on U.S. Dollar Withdrawals

Over the past weeks Mt. Gox has experienced rising volumes of deposits and withdrawals from established and upcoming markets interested in Bitcoin. This increased volume has made it difficult for our bank to process the transactions smoothly and within a timely manner, which has created unnecessary delays for our global customers. This is especially so for those in the United States who are requesting wire transfer withdrawals from their accounts.

• BitPay Exchange Rate Temporarily not Determined by Mt. Gox Price

Exchanges Worth Checking Out:

• Bitstamp – buy and sell bitcoins
• CampBX Bitcoin Trading Platform

Watching the Price on the Go:

• Bitcoin Exchange Rate Mining
• Bitcoin Alert

• Bitcoin 24/7

• Bitcoin Foundation Receives Cease And Desist Order From California – Forbes

Directly following last month\’s Bitcoin 2013 conference event in San Jose, CA that brought decent revenue into the state, California\’s Department of Financial Institutions decided to issue a cease and desist warning to conference organizer Bitcoin Foundation for allegedly engaging in the business of money transmission without a license or proper authorization.

Recently, the State of Illinois also issued a cease and desist letter to mobile payments processor Square for failing to have the proper licensing in accordance with the state’s Transmitters of Money Act. Prepaid card provider NetSpend and six other payments companies also received Illinois cease and desist orders. If this practice grows among states, it could have a potentially significant “chilling effect” on financial services innovation, especially upon lawful businesses that are designing infrastructure to support and grow the Bitcoin technology.

• Donate to GPGTools with Bitcoin

Litecoin Update:

• Litecoin-0.6.9.2 FINAL

• Mt. Gox Shines Light on Litecoin

In the update, Mt. Gox mentioned that the exchange\’s new trading engine is \”finished, smokin\’ fast, and is currently undergoing bench tests.\” As part of the engine\’s upgrade, Mt. Gox announced that it will be supporting Litecoin (LTC) in July:

As risky as it is to invoke the name of Litecoin (LTC???), we must apologize for not keeping everyone up to date. The fact is that the current situation means a continued delay, but for good reasons. We\’re looking at July right now, though that depends on a few things. Mainly, we want to do things correctly from the beginning.

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• Donate to the network with your worthless fiat or your fancy bitcoins!

The post Bitcoin vs The Banks | Plan B 12 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The best of Bitcoin podcasting join forces to discuss how Bitcoin could potentially disrupt the big media monopolies and fund a new generation of independent honest content, controlled by its audience.

Plus more challenges facing Mt. Gox, fixing Bitcoin’s infrastructure problem, and the quiet little Litecoin hack no one is talking about.

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— Show Notes: —

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• Gox\’s Ploy?

• Mining in a VM

• If Bitcoin were the de facto

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— Discussion —

• Fixing Bitcoin\’s shaky exchange infrastructure

That means bitcoin exchanges like Tradehill would have to register as a money transmitter with the federal government. That is the easy part, says Kenna, requiring little more than a single page form. The hard part is getting the relevant licence in each US state. They all have different rules, and some (sources single out New York and California) are particularly difficult.

Time (at least a little of it) is on Tradehill\’s side, however. Even though the FinCEN guidance came into immediate effect, it only applies to businesses 180 days after they begin trading in bitcoin. This gives it until mid-September to get its paperwork in order.

• Don\’t trust anonymous e-currencies like Bitcoin

In the real world, if you lose your credit card, checkbook, or even bank account log-on password, your money isn\’t gone. In fact there are lots of services and laws to protect you and your money. Not so in the e-currency world — check out a statement posted on a Bitcoin Wiki Faq regarding the potential loss of Bitcoins: \”Consider it a donation to all other bitcoin users.\”

Ultimately, most e-currencies possess the security of whatever your email address and password is. If hackers break into your computer, learn your password — or even break in and steal all your money at the bank — it will be replaced fairly quickly. This is absolutely not true of e-currency sites.

I\’m not saying that e-currency schemes are evil. And I\’m not saying fiat money is perfectly trusted or protected — the runaway inflation that led to wheelbarrows of money being exchanged in Weimar Germany come to mind. I\’m just saying that by comparison, over the long run, there is no comparison. The trust equation isn\’t even close.

• Bitcoin – the next global reserve currency?

“That committee has chosen to grow its balance sheet by $85 billion per month, to well above $3 trillion in total, by monetizing US Treasury and Agency debt. Accordingly, the long term outlook for the value of the USD will be subject not only to the supply of new money, but also bubbles caused by synthetic support for state-favored asset classes, and record high national debt.”

“In a world of increasing global communication and trade, a nation-agnostic currency would solve many of the problems we’ve seen repeated throughout history and potentially ease the associated international tensions. An asset for which the value is determined solely by international demand, immune to influence from central planners, is a necessary step forward towards a free market.”

• Litecoin Pool Exploit

“Suspected fake miners were clocking at up to150MH/s for 3-4 days. We suspect more cheaters were involved over the past 3-4 days which could have been at least partially to blame for the pools bad luck.”

“During deployment of the fix, we logged changes in valid hash rates. The biggest detected confirmed cheater was Cryptopower who went from 30MH/s to 1MH/s”

• Another Gox funding option eliminated

“After some deliberation and discussion with Technocash, an Australian service for Mt. Gox customer account funding and withdrawals, it has been decided that our customers in Australia will no longer be able to deposit and withdraw funds in AUD using Technocash starting June 15th, 2013.”

• — Adam B. Levine —

• Adam B. Levine (GamerAndy) on Twitter

Writer & Speaker with a passion for explaining complicated topics in understandable terms.

• Let\’s Talk Bitcoin! • Adam B. Levine – Editor-in-Chief – Bio

He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Let\’s Talk Bitcoin!

• YouTube is Broken by Adam B Levine

Happy Cakeday bitcointip bot

• Bitcointip

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The post Bitcoin Will Disrupt Big Media | Plan B 9 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The funding methods around Bitcoin are under attack, and we chat with TheGenesisBlock.com’s managing editor about what this means for the future of Bitcoin, and more.

Plus picking the right wallet for offline cold storage, a look at BitAngels the distributed Bitcoin angel fund, our concerns with Ripple, your emails, and much more!

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• Why Bitcoin over other crypto-currencies?

• Cold storage

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— Discussion —

• OKPAY takes Bitcoin hiatus

Although OKPAY themselves provided no rationale for their decision, OKPAY’s trust in the viability of bitcoin in their system may have been shaken after an OKPAY user reported on bitcointalk.org that they had successfully double-spent over 211 BTC to OKPAY and a seperate address controlled by the user during the block chain fork of 12 March 2013. The same user also reported that an approximately 65 BTC he had sent separately to OKPAY was not successfully credited to the appropriate account. Somewhat of a standoff ensued, but was resolved with OKPAY refunding the 65 BTC only after the customer returned the double-spent 211 BTC. OKPAY support staff confirmed the situation on a bitcointalk.org forum thread started by the double-spender.

• Canada becomes bitcoin-friendly

We now have our first answer from FinTRAC. Generally, it views bitcoin exchanges as entities that do not have to register, identify clients, and report under the money services business rules.

• Next Generation Bitcoins with Ripple – YouTube

Primer Interest Producer Bob English and Perianne traveled to the Bitcoin conference in San Jose, California over the weekend. They got a chance to speak to many of the movers and shakers in the up and coming crypto-currency realm. Bob interviewed Chris Larsen, CEO and co-founder of OpenCoin, which is developing Ripple.

• 60+ Investors Band Together To Form BitAngels, The First Multi-City Angel Network & Incubator For Bitcoin Startups | TechCrunch

BitAngels is launching (what it believes to be) the first multi-city angel network and incubator created to invest exclusively in cryptocurrency startups. Fittingly, in the spirit of Bitcoin, it\’s a distributed network of angels and entrepreneurs and one that was hacked together in a few days after the Bitcoin 2013 Conference.

BitAngels brings together a posse of angel investors who are looking to help entrepreneurs turn their Bitcoin side projects into full-time jobs. To do that, the angel network pooled together about $6.7 million in Bitcoin, which it will invest in approximately $20K chunks.

BitAngels is not a formal fund, so the Bitcoins are soft-circled, not in escrow, but all 60 angels that have joined thus far (the number of angels has almost doubled in the past week) are all accredited investors with extensive experience investing and, naturally, have a lot of Bitcoin.

• Why Bitcoin Won’t Probably be a Reserve Currency in our Lifetime

Trace Mayer on Prime Interest May 24, 2013.

— Greg Managing Editor of The Genesis Block.COM —

• DHS Inquiry Leads to Lowest USD/Bitcoin Trading Volume In Months
  > Bitcoin trading volume has plummeted since news broke that the Department of Homeland Security issued a seizure warrant that stopped all activity between Dwolla and the Mt. Gox exchange. As of today, the 5-Day moving average of USD trading volume is at the lowest level in at least a year and a half (the data is a bit spotty beyond that), other than the last week in December 2012.

In addition to total market volume declining, Mt. Gox is losing footing as the dominant player in the space. As of May 17, Gox was doing roughly 81% of total USD bitcoin volume. Today they did just 59%.

• Bitcoin Trading: Are We Primed For A Major Move Higher? – The Genesis Block

Yesterday we wrote about the low volatility after Mt. Gox\’s accounts were seized. The following graph from that article illustrates how we haven\’t seen volatility this low on Mt. Gox since December of 2012.

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The post Then They Fight You | Plan B 8 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We chat with Amir Taaki about Libbitcoin, and how it could enable a new generation of Bitcoin powered applications and services. And what he see’s as the biggest threat facing Bitcoin, his work with Electrum and more.

Then Ben Morse from the Port Forward Podcast joins us to wrap up the best of this weekend’s #Bitcoin2013 Future of Payments conference.

Plus a big batch of your questions, the news of the week, and more!

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• voicemail from may 15

• Thoughts on Lost Coins

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— Discussion —

Bitcoin 2013: The Future of Payments Wrap Up

• Bitcoin 2013 in review – CoinDesk

More than 1,000 Bitcoin enthusiasts who converged on San Jose were an impassioned bunch — some fired with the excitement of getting in on something big the ground floor, others lit up by a more ideological passion for freedom from government or from the existing financial system.

• Great interview with BitInstant founder on RT

Producer Bob English and Perianne flew out to San Jose over the weekend and reached out to the 1100 attendees and sponsors of the first major Bitcoin conference. Today, we feature the CEO of BitInstant, Charlie Shrem, who will explain how easy it is to buy Bitcoins.

• The Top 3 Things I Learned at the Bitcoin Conference – Reason.com

This past weekend I attended the Bitcoin 2013 conference in San
Jose, where over one thousand enthusiasts, developers,
entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and, yes, lawyers gathered to
chart the future of the virtual currency. Here are the top three
things I learned at the conference.

• With $1.5M Led By Winklevoss Capital, BitInstant Aims To Be The Go-To Site To Buy And Sell Bitcoins

BitInstant, a New York City based startup that operates an online platform for buying and selling Bitcoins, has raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round led by Winklevoss Capital with the participation of other strategic investors including money services veteran David Azar. The investment was closed this past fall, but the Winklevosses are just now publicly announcing it in the lead-up to the Bitcoin Foundation\’s 2013 Conference being held in Silicon Valley this weekend.

BitInstant, which has a full-time staff of 16 led by CEO Charlie Shrem, has emerged as a key player in the nascent Bitcoin market: The company already processes approximately 30 percent of the money going into and out of Bitcoin, and last month alone facilitated 30,000 transactions, the Winklevosses said in a phone call this week. The funding is meant to allow the company to further scale up its staff and product as it angles to become the go-to site for Bitcoin transfers.

• Bitcoin2013 – Imgur

• Ben demos Bitcoin ATM – YouTube

• Feds Seize Assets From Mt. Gox’s Dwolla Acount, Accuse It Of Violating Money Transfer Regulations

In order to accept funds in dollars, Mt. Gox opened a Wells Fargo business account for Mutum Sigillum LLC (Mt. Gox\’s American subsidiary). The company had to complete a document that states whether it provides money services or not. The warrant reads: \”That document was completed on May 20, 2011, and identified Mutum Sigillum LLC as a business not engaged in money services.\”

In particular, Karpeles answered no to two important questions: “Do you deal in or exchange currency for your customer?” and “Does your business accept funds from customers and send the funds based on customers’ instructions (Money Transmitter)?”

— Amir Taaki —

• Amir Taaki – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Amir Taaki is a British video game and computer software developer. Taaki is best known as a Bitcoin project developer and for pioneering many open source projects

• libbitcoin – Bitcoin library
• The libbitcoin Tutorial — libbitcoin 1 documentation

libbitcoin is a bitcoin library targeted towards high end use. The library places a heavy focus around asynchronicity. This enables a big scope for future scalability as each component has its own thread pool. By increasing the number of threads for that component the library is able to scale outwards across CPU cores. This will be vital in the future as the demands of the bitcoin network grow.

Another core design principle is libbitcoin is not a framework, but a toolkit. Frameworks hinder development during the latter stages of a development cycle, enforce one style of coding and do not work well with other frameworks. By contrast, we have gone to great pains to make libbitcoin function as an independent set of mutual components with no dependencies between them.

• subvertx command line utilities (proof of concept using libbitcoin)

• Async Programming by Amir Taaki – YouTube

Amir Taaki giving a talk about Async Programming at Brmlab hackerspace

• genjix/query-layer · GitHub

• Bitcoin 2013: unSYSTEM Vienna, 1-3 Nov 2013

Bitcoin 2013: unSYSTEM is the biggest event in the world covering
Bitcoin and social change. The event will be held in Austria\’s largest venue,
a building normally used by the United Nations.

— Extended Q&A —

• https://slexy.org/view/s20xeTs4sY
• https://slexy.org/view/s20Ke1PzyU
• https://slexy.org/view/s2lPFSSuFD
• https://slexy.org/view/s2140K6HTC

— Over Time —

• Max Keiser – Bitcoin, Bernanke & Buffett | London Real – YouTube

Max Keiser of Russia Today drops by to explain the genesis and implications of the digital currency Bitcoin, why The Federal Reserve and the banking system should apologise to the people for manipulating interest rates, how Warren Buffett is complicit in the Mexican drug trade by purchasing Wells Fargo, and Max\’s crazy times in the 1980s as a New York City stockbroker by day and punk-rock party animal by night.

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The post Amir Taaki & #Bitcoin 2013 | Plan B 7 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Is Bitcoin an environmental disaster? Recent reports claim Bitcoin mining draws as much power as 31k American homes. We bust the FUD.

It seems obvious to us, but lets face it, people just don’t get it. It’s early days for bitcoin, calling the last weeks events “the end of bitcoin” is just straight up FUD and we’ll break it down.

Plus why those of you worried about deflation just aren’t seeing the big picture, the important new bitcoin loving merchants, and Litecoin could save us all.

All that and so much more!

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• First Reactions

• Plan B on the JB Calendar?

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— Discussion —

• OKCupid starts accepting Bitcoin using Coinbase!

We’re proud to announce you can now find true love with Bitcoin by using OKCupid! This is one more step forward for bringing Bitcoin to the masses – one date at a time.

• Virtual Bitcoin Mining Is a Real-World Environmental Disaster

• What Bitcoin teaches us about the Internet’s energy use

Blockchain.info, a site that tracks data on Bitcoin mining, estimates that in just the last 24 hours, miners used about $147,000 of electricity just to run their hardware, assuming an average price of 15 cents per kilowatt hour … That’s enough to power roughly 31,000 U.S. homes, or about half a Large Hadron Collider.

• Myths -Bitcoin mining is a waste of energy and harmful for ecology

No more so than the wastefulness of mining gold out of the ground, melting it down and shaping it into bars, and then putting it back underground again. Not to mention the building of big fancy buildings, the waste of energy printing and minting all the various fiat currencies, the transportation thereof in armored cars by no less than two security guards for each who could probably be doing something more productive, etc.

As far as mediums of exchange go, Bitcoin is actually quite economical of resources, compared to others.

• Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin Architect: Meet The Man Bringing You Bitcoin (And Getting Paid In It)

New bitcoins are generated, or \”mined,\” when computers succeed at solving increasingly complex equations. Bloomberg recently described this mining process as an \”environmental disaster\” because of the energy required to power the machines working on the problems.

The bitcoin mining process incentivizes people to be as efficient as possible and use as little power as possible to create bitcoins and to validate the transactions. The more efficient you are, less you spend on electricity and the more profitable you\’ll be. In the future, I expect to see bitcoin mining in places where electricity is free or cheap. You could put solar array in the Arizona desert attached to bitcoin miners and instead of trying to ship that electricity all over world, you could ship Bitcoin all over the world. The output of bitcoin mining is heat. You\’ll see bitcoin mining happening in places where people need heat anyway. I could imagine bitcoin heaters that, in addition to generating heat, generate bitcoin.

• 21 million coins isn\’t enough; doesn\’t scale

There are just over 2 quadrillion maximum possible atomic units in the bitcoin design.
Comparing 1 BTC to 1 Dollar is a bit disingenuous. We subconsciously make this connection in our minds when watching markets and a BTC’s price relative to the dollar, but in terms of money supply, ~21 million total bitcoins isn’t quite what it seems. 1 BTC = 100,000,000 Satoshis (A Satoshi is the smallest unit of measurement within bitcoin).
In the future, with further adoption, we (potentially) won’t be thinking of exchanging in whole bitcoins, but in tiny fractions of bitcoins (bitcents, millibitcoins, microbitcoins). In normal inflationary currencies, the number of currency units in existence consistently increases, supposedly to match the demand for these units and prevent the value from increasing. Bitcoin scales by dividing bitcoins into tiny fractions, not by increasing the total supply. Other mainstream currencies don’t have the capacity to divide to this degree, nor would there be any need to since the smaller units would consistently lose purchasing power.

• Do other Crypto currencies like LTC and PPs act as a new type of inflation to bitcoin? IE, while there are a set number of bitcoins, they are going to be numerous general purpose crypto-monies.

• [Gimp-developer] Added Bitcoin donation option

There has been demand for a Bitcoin donation option for some time already. We had delayed that option because we couldn\’t really use Bitcoins per se – I still do not know about any place where plane tickets are for sale, and these are our biggest expenses overall.

But there are finally some reliable exchanges popping up, which are located in countries where the responsible treasuries regulate them like any other exchange (i.e. not the Cayman Isles
More recently I chose to delay adding the address due to the current Bitcoin hype, with prices well over USD 200 – I didn\’t want GIMP to appear like an opportunist who\’s just after quick money.

• Bitcoinary

Bitcoinary a peer to peer exchange and reputation system. Trade Bitcoins with trusted people.

— Litecoin —

Mattias Writes:

Hi Chris and Drew!

I just started mining bitcoin and litecoin, both on CPU, and
I have found that you can mine bitcoin and the system will
run just as smooth as if you did not mine, while litecoin will
make you system very jaggedy. Therefore I\’m mining litecoin
when I am not using my computer and bitcoin when I am
using my computer.

• Mt Gox to Start LTC Trading Soon

• Why Litecoin is Set to Skyrocket

• Litecoin JB Mining Pool?

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