This October, a new kind of blockchain conference will debut in Florida. BitFiniti aims to take blockchain from “behind the veil” and…
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This October, a new kind of blockchain conference will debut in Florida. BitFiniti aims to take blockchain from “behind the veil” and…
The post BitFiniti: Industry Meets Blockchain in Miami appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
Japan recently made headlines by announcing that its government was considering defining Bitcoin and other digital currencies as currency…
The post Japan Debates Regulating Bitcoin as Currency; Banks Eager to Study Blockchain appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
Bitcoin use in Venezuela and Brazil is increasing, but the populations use the currency in different ways.
According to Rodrigo Souza, core developer at Blinktrade, the exchanges in both countries have more than 10,000 registered users.
At a glance: Brazil
The Brazilian exchange is FoxBit. FoxBit is a result of partnership between FoxBit Serviços Digitais and BlinkTrade Inc, a technology provider for Bitcoin exchanges around the world.
According to Blinktrade, the majority of bitcoin users in Brazil are either using bitcoin to invest in the technology, to trade for profit, or to purchase bitcoin in order to trade them for U.S. dollars, often because they have a bill to pay in American dollars or plan to travel).
In Brazil, there are four other bitcoin exchanges leading Bitcoin use in the country. The people of Brazil are generally more skeptical and curious about Bitcoin than those in Venezuela, according to Souza..
“As of now,” says Souza,”Brazilian regulators said that they won’t regulate Bitcoin because regulating also means that the government is placing a stamp of approval; they also believe the technology is currently in its early stages and doesn’t represent a risk to the financial system.”
The central bank of Brazil in the past has said that bitcoin currency is too volatile and not backed by any government. Additionally, the Brazilian tax authorities have stated that traders should declare their bitcoin and should report any capital gains.
Of the five largest Brazilian banks, three of them haven’t announced their position on bitcoin. The two other banks are very against bitcoin, and have shut down or blocked bank accounts for trading bitcoin.
At a glance: Venezuela
The Venezuelan exchange SurBitcoin is a result of partnership between VK Inversiones/Vipples and BlinkTrade.
“Venezuelans on the other hand, are a completely different story. In order to understand Venezuela we have to understand that our numbers only reflect 10 percent of what is going on in Venezuela,” says Souza.
Venezuela is home to a vibrant bitcoin community, where people often trade goods and services for bitcoin. “Bitcoin is generally viewed by Venezuelans as a positive innovation,” adds Souza.
“Venezuela has much bigger problems to solve in their country than their Brazilian counterpart,” Souza said.
Venezuelan government officials have never communicated their stance on the technology, but Venezuelan law is very clear on its definition of money, and bitcoin doesn’t fit in that definition. Bitcoin is considered property rather than money in Venezuelan law.
SurBitcoin was approached by Venezuelan authorities under the allegation of illegal money exchange.
“Since Bitcoin is not considered money under Venezuelan law, we were fine,” says Souza, “They did not take further action.”
Since the creation of SurBitcoin Exchange in August of 2014, SurBitcoin has given new users 100 bolivares worth of BTC upon opening an account in order for them to learn how the technology works. In 2014, the 100 bolivars represented close $1.30. Today,15 months later, SurBitcoin still provides users with 100 bolivares, but that amount is now worth $0.11. The average salary at that time was close to $250 per month. The average salary in Venezuela is close to $20 per month. Even ATMs in Venezuela limit withdrawals to 20,000 bolivars, or about $22 USD at time of publication.
“But since the Venezuelan economy contains such strong price controls,” says Souza, “this also means they pay the cheapest electricity bill in the planet. We know a mining farm operator who has close to 1 petahash of power and his electricity bill is close to $20 per month. The average electric bill for 320kw consumption is close to 6 cents. This means that a person mining bitcoins with old equipment at home makes more money than an engineer working 160 hours a month.”
This makes it a fruitful environment for mining bitcoin. Most bitcoin sold in Venezuela are either mined in Venezuela or sent by Venezuelans living abroad to help their families.
“I would say that 10 percent of our 10,000 users are de-facto bitcoin miners. Additionally, a lot of people buying bitcoins in large quantities on SurBitcoin are buying because it is the only way for them to import new miners,” says Souza.
Additionally, many of SurBitcoins’ users are people turning their savings into bitcoin. Many of their users buy bitcoin in very small portions consistently in order to save money. Since the only way to get U.S. dollars in Venezuela is through the black market, there are many scammers who take advantage of the situation to rob people.
“If authorities find out people are doing this, they will not stop the operations, but rather ask for a bribe to pretend they never saw it…. purchasing bitcoins turns to be the only safe, legal investment in Venezuela where people can safely buy using their bank account,” Souza said.
The post Bitcoin in South America: Why Venezuela Has an Active Bitcoin Mining Community appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
In 2014, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi outlined a vision for a “Digital India,” a place in which all citizens in all parts of the country are connected, informed and part of a global economy.
Other hallmarks of this new India would be a transparent government with strong ties to its citizens where government services could be accessed from mobile devices.
EPaisa, a free point-of-sale app, has become India’s first mobile point-of-sale provider to integrate bitcoin as a payment option, becoming a part of this new, Digital India.
“To digitize India, you need to digitize the point of sale,” says ePaisa’s CEO and co-founder Siddharth Arora. EPaisa was founded in 2012.
“Bitcoin is currently becoming more and more popular in India because there is no need to provide any payment information,” says Arora. “However, the issue of accepting it has become a timely question for Indian merchants.”
The ePaisa app comes with a credit-card sized card reader to securely accept chip-and-PIN card payments and has now integrated Bitcoin, prepaid wallet and invoice payments for businesses. Merchants can request a bitcoin payment by letting their customers scan a QR code and receive the funds in their bank account the next day, free of charge. EPaisa works on any smartphone or tablet in India.
In 2013, ePaisa was awarded TechCrunch’s “Most Disruptive Company” and made it to the 2014 Global Red Herring Top 100 as well as Asia’s Top 100 awards.
The app works in 32 languages, it is free and works on all smartphones and tablets running on Android and iOS. They plan on introducing Apple Pay, Android Pay and other forms of payments for the Indian business owner.
With options like contactless payments, Apple Pay and bitcoin,” says Arora, “customers expect to pay however they want. Given this trend towards cashless shopping, not able to accept these modes of payments means lost sales for Indian merchants. We do not want that. We want to empower them to conduct any form of transaction and give the buyers a satisfying experience of making a purchase. With this new feature, we hope to offer our merchants more ways to accept payments and stand true to our commitment of enabling commerce.”
EPaisa expects that the user experience will be no different for the sellers. It works as follows:
At the point of sale, when the customer wants to pay for a product with bitcoin, the ePaisa merchant taps the bitcoin icon in the ePaisa POS application. As a result, a QR code pops up with the due amount, and the customer will scan that code using his or her bitcoin wallet app.
Prime Minister Modi’s vision for a seamless digital economy is materializing because of companies like ePaisa, which continues driving bitcoin adoption in the East.
“India has had huge success with prepaid wallets for online transactions,” Arora said. “We are enabling businesses to accept these wallets even for offline in store sales. Walk into an ePaisa-enabled store and you can make a payment with one of the top 10 wallets in India. We hope to power 25,000 businesses across all major metro cities in India by end of this year.”
The post ePaisa Brings Bitcoin Payments to Merchants Across India appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
According to BitcoinRichList.com there are over $750 million worth of bitcoin sitting idle. Magnr, a company dedicated to providing Cryptocurrency Financial Services, is trying to change this by allowing the first-ever blockchain-based “savings accounts.” Magnr currently operates across two verticals: trading and saving. “Magnr allows users to independently verify the safety of their deposit on the blockchain’s public ledger,” says CEO Joe Lee. “Additionally, the interest payout is calculated from blockchain data. This lets users verify they are being paid the correct amounts. This is the first time that savings accounts have received a fintech makeover.” Magnr was created from the founding team of BTC.sx. It is a new, rebranded version of the BTC.sx trading platform. BTC.sx Bitcoin Trading Platform […]
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On February 4, 2015, a young man named Ross Ulbricht was convicted of seven charges laid in a U.S. Federal Court in Manhattan. On May 29, 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. He was accused of being the owner and operator of the Silk Road website, the most popular online drug marketplace. The indictment charged Ulbricht in seven counts, including narcotics trafficking, narcotics trafficking by means of the Internet, conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit or aid and abet computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in fraudulent identification documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering. Filmmaker Alex Winter has written, directed, and produced a film outlining the story […]
The post Deep Web Documentary Shines Light on the Rise and Fall of the Silk Road appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
Let’s ask a tough question: Will Hillary Clinton become president of the United States in 2016? If you had people “bet” on the topic, and monetarily rewarded the ones who guessed correctly, you can actually get a good idea whether Hillary Clinton will become the head of state. A better idea, in fact, than virtually any alleged “expert” could give you. It would work as follows: A market would be opened in which possible answers to the question (yes or no) are “stocks” that cost anywhere from 1 cent to $1. Automatically, the market price of the “yes” and “no” would reflect the possibility of Clinton’s election. So if a share of “yes, Clinton will be elected” costs 63 cents, then […]
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