15 Apr
0
European Parliament hosts a conference on Bitcoin
The European Parliament will host a conference on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
The four days event aims at educating MEPs about new technologies related to finance and economy.
To do so, the event has been organized together with the European Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Forum (EDCAB), a new Bruxelles platform related to Bitcoin and the Blockchain.
The conference will start next week and will see the partecipation of World Bank, IMF, OECD, Nasdaq, Blockchain.info, Bank for International Settlements, United Nations and Europol, among the others.
Syed Kamall, the event host, explained:
“I am pleased to be hosting the exhibition on blockchain and virtual currencies in the European Parliament. Legislators internationally are now looking at this area and how to protect the consumer while stimulating innovation.”
Unfortunately the conference will not be public, but it could represent a great opportunity and an important turn around for the cryptocurrencies ecosystem.
Also, this means that the most insightful companies and banks from all around the world are starting to understand the revolution that Bitcoin and the blockchain represents for our daily life.
About EDCAB
EDCAB aims at helping shape a sound regulatory and policy agenda for virtual currencies and distributed ledger technology in the European Union. We engage with EU policymakers, legislators and key stakeholders on live and upcoming issues, addressing both challenges and opportunities.
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14 Apr
0
5 podcasts on Blockchain and Bitcoin You May Need Right Now
Several leading minds in the Bitcoin world share their knowledge on the cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology.
That is why we have list the top 5 poadcasts related to the crypto sector.
Listen to these selected 5 podcasts to learn everything you need to know about Bitcoin and the Blockchain. Click on the images to listen to the podcasts.
1. Khan Academy teachs Bitcoin
Khan Academy is a non-profit organization that aims at educating people about several topics, including Bitcoin.
Some years ago, in fact, Zulfikar Ramzan, expert in computer security and cryptography, created nine videos in which he explained everything about bitcoin.
2. Andreas Antonopoulos talks about Bitcoin
Everyone knows who Andreas Antonopoulos is,and during this poadcast he talks about “The Other 6 Billion” or the 6 billion people who do not have access to financial services.
3. Token Talks by Wing Venture Capital
The show is an interview series with founders of emerging blockchain tech startups.
It’s for people that want to stay ahead of the curve of what’s happening in crypto.
4. Let’s talk about Bitcoin
Let’s talk about Bitcoin is a website where you can find all the most interesting and insightful poadcasts about the crypto world.
And, among their permanent host there is Andreas Antonopolous himself.
5. Anthony Pompliano on Off The Chain
Anthony Pompliano talks about bitcoin, explaining the origins of this cryptocurrency, how new currency was born and its future.
Multicurrency Wallet
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12 Apr
0
Ethereum Used for Paid Energy
An American resident used the Ethereum blockchain to sell energy to his neighbors.
The two men did the transaction through the LO3, a startup that aims at changing the energy industry.
Lawrence Orsini, founder at LO3, explained that his startup wants to show how people can use the blockchain daily to facilitate their peer-to-peer exchange.
During an intereview with Coindesk, Orsini commented:
“All the projects that we’re working on are squarely focused on the emerging distributed economy, peer to peer concepts. They’re all squarely focused on distributing and decentralizing assets into communities, into people’s hands, the new economy of the future.”
Thanks to LO3 and ConsenSys, the American resident Eric Frumin had the chance to sell renewable energy directly to Bob Sauchelli, the former program manager at EnergyStar.
The energy created by Frumin’s solar panel is tracked on the blockchain.
Sauchelli commented:
“With this arrangement, I’m going to pay him the whole premium, it won’t cost me anymore. I’m going to pay him what I’d pay the power company, but he’s going to get the whole premium, not just the wholesale rate”.
Bitcoin for Electricity
It’s not the first time we hear about electricity sold for cryptocurrencies and tracked through the blockchain.
In fact, during the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge it was presented a new startup called Usizo, a crowdfunding company who is trying to improve energy payments between users and schools in the African country.
Read more about Usizo here.
Multicurrencies Wallet
Do you like cryptocurrencies? Open a new wallet here for FREE!
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
11 Apr
0
How to pre-order a new Tesla with Bitcoin
Pre-ordering a Tesla
A few days ago a guy called Mason Borda described on Medium his experience in pre-ordering a Tesla Model 3 with Bitcoin.
“Today there are many applications coming online that enable consumers to buy everyday goods for Bitcoin. So I decided to perform the momentous act of preordering my Tesla Model 3 with Bitcoin”, wrote Borda in the blog post.
Borda used Shakepay, an application which allows to upload a one-time-use credit card for Bitcoin.
The full process took him just one minute, once his card was loaded.
“There was no credit check involved, or a waiting period for the credit card to arrive in the mail”, explained Borda.
Other cars sold for Bitcoin
But this is actually not news, because on January 2016 the Auto Outlet Helsinki Oy sold a Tesla Model S P85+ for an amount in bitcoin equivalent to €140.000.
Previously in December another Tesla Model S was bought using bitcoins in California.
Also, nowadays there are several places where you can buy a car in bitcoin.
One of the most important examples is Beepi, a marketplace where you can sell or buy used cars for bitcoin.
Another example is BitPremiere that aims at providing luxury items including cars to bitcoin users.
Multicurrencies Wallet
Do you like cryptocurrencies? Open a new wallet here for FREE!
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
8 Apr
0
Bitcoin can win the competition with Fiat currency
Some days ago the researchers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released a new whitepaper in which they explained that bitcoin and digital currencies can win the competition with Fiat currency, or the government money.
On April 3rd, in fact, Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde of the University of Pennsylviania and Daniel Sanches of the Bank of Philadelphia published an interesting paper that answers the question: “can competition among privately issued fiat currencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum work?”.
Bitcoin vs Fiat
In this whitepaper Villaverde and Sanches try to explain how private and digital forms of money can interact (and could win the competition) with government-issued money.
To comment about this topic, the authors talked about the rise of the Internet, thanks to it, in fact, digital currencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum can stand out in the competition with Fiat.
This is a comment of the whitepaper’s authors:
“Our model highlights how the issuing of a private currency is logically separated from banking. Both tasks were historically linked for logistical reasons: banks had a central location in the network of payments that made it easy for them to introduce currency in circulation”.
Downloadable whitepaper
Multicurrencies Wallet
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4 Apr
0
How to study with Bitcoin payments
Bitcoin at University
From now on students from all around the world can pay with bitcoin for their university – if they decide to move in Prague.
In fact, the CEVRO Institute University in Prague has announced that it will accept bitcoin among their allowed methods of payment.
Recently the Greek University of Nicosia, Draper University of California, the University of Cumbria and King’s College in the UK started to accept the cryptocurrency.
Why in Prague
The University rector Josef Šíma explained to Cointelegraph:
“As a first school in the Czech Republic we have opened unique Oxford style PPE (Philosophy, Politics, Economics) taught by a team of Czech and foreign professors in English and accepted many foreign students from US and Canada to India and China. One of them asked about the possibility to pay his tuition in bitcoin. And because we have hosted in past several lectures and conferences about this exciting new phenomenon and as a part of the PPE, and we will have courses dealing with alternative monetary schemes, free banking and cryptocurrencies, it was a really easy decision.”
The Prague University, in fact, was the first university to create the PPE class to allow its students to study the connections between Bitcoin and politics, philosophy and economy.
Fees in bitcoin will be calculated based on the current bitcoin price.
Bitcoin worldwide recognition
The acceptance of bitcoin by public institutions could be an important step for the recognition and the increase in popularity of Bitcoin.
“We do not want merely to teach about the beauty of markets, modern technologies and innovation, we want to be innovators ourselves! We want to actively use most modern technologies and offer our students new opportunities which technologies made available” Šíma explained.
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1 Apr
0
Excel will support Bitcoin Format
The Bitcoin popularity is increasing every day and recently Microsoft Company announced that the company is accepting this cryptocurrency on its online store.
And now it’s the time of Excel, one of the most popular and used spreedsheets, that will support the Bitcoin format.
The Microsoft Office suite, in fact, will include the support for the currency format of Bitcoin within Excel.
This statement was revealed in the Office 365 roadmap that includes all the updates that Microsoft is considering for the Office 365 suite, as well as the new features that will be in the 2016 version of the Office package.
Actually the project is still in a development phase, as you can read below.
Bitcoin Currency Format Support
So, soon you will be able to use Excel to track, calculate and analyze Bitcoin data using native options. This feature will be probably added to Excel 2016, Excel Online, Excel Mobile for Windows and Android.
Also, it may be possible that the feature will include a native recognition of bitcoin with BTC, introduce the eighth decimal and maybe the Bitcoin logo that will be part of the Unicode Standard, as Unicode Consortium accepted the Bitcoin symbol in November 2015.
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1 Apr
0
HolyTransaction Bitcoin Roundup March 2016
Welcome to HolyTransaction’s third monthly recap for the new year of 2016. This past month of March has been marked by continued interest in blockchain from everywhere; during that time, the bitcoin price rose from a high of $435.23 on March 1st to a low of $414.66 on March 31st, according to Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp.
It’s time to Blockchain-ize things like sneakers with Chronicled
A new blockchain startup, Chronicled, is planning to blockchain-ize the growing multi billion dollar industry that is sneakers. The company has raised $3.4 million on Crunchbase for its mission. The phenomenon of thousand dollar shoes for the male market has somewhat been predicted by similar economic pressures in shoes for females. Chronicled will use the blockchain to bring accountability and cleaner profits to this and other similarly affected industries.
Even Disney wants a piece of the blockchain action
The most recent surprise blockchain job opening is from Disney. While the corporate giant has many diversified products, this is a prime example of blockchain technology’s ability to help any company save in the middle and back office. Disney also probably has an interest in forever securing their rights via multiple blockchains.
VISA is planning its own blockchain for internal use. They are hiring an engineer/developer to help them and are also working with Chain.com. VISA believes that this area will have a critical impact on the future of the industry and wants to get ahead of the curve. Other companies from around the world that are creating blockchain labs and teams include Hitachi, Phillips, and even Walt Disney.
Ethereum’s newest version, Homestead, has officially launched. The price of ether was very volatile around the release of this software as new users rushed in. Homestead replaces Frontier, and allows users to begin using the smart contract technology. Already, companies are being built around the Ethereum blockchain.
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30 Mar
0
Dutch Central Bank to develop its DNBCoin Blockchain
According to a recent press release, the Dutch Central Bank planned to develop a new blockchain called “DNBCoin”.
On March 16th, De Nederlandsche Bank published the 2015 annual report where they explained this blockchain project.
For DNB the blockchain technology will be able to improve its business, but the report doesn’t give details on the project, not even a release date or the goals, yet.
DNB only describes the projects as a “prototype coin based on blockchain technology” that “aims for 2016”.
On the report the blockchain is described as a possible cost-saver in the financial industry, even if the DNB commented that it’s early to say what possible applications it could have in the future.
The report explains:
“Blockchain technologies can affect the revenue models of banking systems, they can also benefit with new ways to generate revenue and reduce costs.”
Payments and banking consultant Simon Lelieveldt commented:
“So when we now see central banks moving forward in the electronic cash domain (now conveniently labelled: blockchain/FinTech) it might be to no longer spin it off to the market, but to create a permanent digital replacement of cash. Therefore, this time it might be different.”
Banks and blockchain: love or hate?
Recently lots of central banks from all around the world are suggesting that the blockchain can be useful to release more centralized digital currencies, even if central banks declared that it is impossible to predict the development of cryptocurrencies without a proper legalization and regulation.
You can read more about central banks and blockchain by clicking on the titles below.
Also, here you can read the ISITC Survey Results about the the financial services progress which gives also a specific forecast on how the industry will be during the current year.
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29 Mar
0
HolyTransaction add-on for cryptocurrencies exchange rates
Recently we at HolyTransaction created a new add-on for the Firefox browser only to see the exchange rates for cryptocurrency pairs.
This add-on allows you to see the exchange rates between the most popular currencies using only a couple of clicks.
Exchange rates are available between dollar, euro, bitcoin, litecoin, peercoin, dogecoin, dash, blackcoin and gridcoin.
The add-on’s simplicity provides you an easy way to have all the information you need before selling or buying your favorite cryptocurrencies.
The price is shown on your browser, according to your specific preferences. You can change the displayed number of decimal places in the user settings.
How to dowload the add-on
To download this HolyTransaction add-on, you just have to follow this step-by step guide:
- Click on the Firefox Menu at the top right of the toolbar;
- Click on “Add-on”;
- Write “HolyTransaction” in the search at the top right of the page;
- Click on “Add-on” on the left menu;
- Click the “Download” button next to the HolyTransaction add-on.
- You will find the exchage rates window at the top right of your toolbar.
You just need to click on the HT logo of HolyTransaction.
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