The recent run-up in bitcoin exchange rates and related volatility have created a number of tradable scenarios for thoughtful market participants. One less obvious effect of the dramatic price movement is the tightening of the cross-exchange price differential between Mt. Gox and Bitstamp, the leading USD bitcoin exchanges by volume. As we first pointed out in June, exchange rates at Mt. Gox and Bitstamp have diverged after Mt. Gox stopped servicing fiat withdrawals for many of its customers. For more background on the causes of this, see our previous research on the matter. More important for market participants at the …
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The third quarter of 2013 proved to be one of significant transition for bitcoin. After the remarkable increase in bitcoin’s price and public notoriety earlier this year, the last three months have provided a much-needed regrouping period. New information about issues at existing exchanges became available and dozens more have or will soon come online. Security of the bitcoin network grew dramatically as ASICs increased the network speed exponentially, while a host of new entrepreneurs and investors continue to support the market with ever-increasing infrastructure. The result will be a more structurally sound ecosystem as bitcoin enters its next wave …
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Oct 3, 2013
Posted
Bitcoin 201, Businesses, Economics, Featured, General, Mining, News, Regulatory, Security, Trading, Wallets
Tagged network speed, price, protocol, TGB, trading, trends
BTC Trading Corp (BTC-TC) announced that it will close all trading by October 7, two weeks from today. BTC-TC is one of the largest bitcoin securities exchanges, responsible for 101,000 BTC ($12M) in deposited securities and 2,900 BTC ($350K) in daily volume. The company’s notice cited “recent changes in the virtual currency regulatory environment” as the reason for shuttering operations. Also closing is LTC-Global, a litecoin-denominated securities exchange also run by Ethan Burnside, the same operator as BTC-TC. Closing Process All trading was temporarily halted and order books were cleared after the announcement was made at 5am EST. After trade …
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Sep 23, 2013
Posted
Businesses, Featured, News, Trading
Tagged Active Mining, GLBSE, LTC, Regulatory Pressure, SEC, trading, volume
Comments 9
Financial markets, like many interactions in the world, are often self-exciting. Said differently, events within a dataset can actually serve as the impetus for more of the same events to a calculable extent. Statistical models to analyze self-excitability are used to understand both the independence and causal dependence of observations in such fields as seismology (study of earthquakes), criminology (study of crime) and more recently by algorithmic traders to understand financial markets. With the bitcoin markets having grown enough to offer ample data, self-excitability and its implication on bitcoin prices can now be observed as well. Excitability in Bitcoin Trading …
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Sep 19, 2013
Posted
Bitcoin 201, Economics, Featured, News, Trading
Tagged analysis, Bitcoin Trading, Hawkes Process, Jonathan Heusser, London, price, trading
Comments 2
Bitcoin price volatility has declined considerably since early July and recently reached lows not seen since early January. Trading volume on exchanges has similarly declined over the same period. The stability may be attributable to a number of factors, ranging from uncertainty around the withdrawal delays from Mt. Gox to quiet summer trading typical of many financial markets. What may be more interesting are the recent events that have not affected stability. In particular, bitcoin prices have withstood recent news about significant impacts to confidence in the security of Tor – the only way to access the infamous Silk Road …
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Considering a bitcoin mining hardware purchase? Make a more informed decision with TGB’s Bitcoin Mining Dashboard. After almost a full year of development and one month of delays, BitFury’s ASIC bitcoin mining prototype has begun hashing at 400 GH/s. Application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) are customized chips that perform bitcoin mining calculations. While there have been a couple companies releasing ASIC miners (Avalon, ASICMiner, Butterfly Labs), there is significant room for improvement within the technology itself. With hundreds of units expected to land in Europe and the Americas this month, Bitfury products represent the most advanced chips to hit mass …
Read More →After months of customer difficulty at Mt. Gox, bitcoin’s leading exchange by volume, price differentials between exchanges have risen to the same levels seen during the mid-April bubble. The last time the differential was higher was when BTC was trading at $4.90 in March 2012. Since early May, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox has encountered a number of issues affecting the capital flow in and out of their exchange. After falling victim to a series of denial of service attacks in April, the Department of Homeland Security seized the U.S. bank account Mt. Gox used for at least one of their major …
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Since the beginning of this year, China has played an increasingly important role in the digital currency universe. After state-run CCTV ran a documentary about bitcoin in May, Chinese adoption grew dramatically. At the time it was unknown whether the interest spike would be a mere blip in bitcoin’s history or a trend that would continue into the future. Since beginning the year at just over one percent of total bitcoin trading volume, CNY trading has recently ballooned to 10% of the total market, claiming the title of second largest bitcoin trading volume for 13 out of 23 days so …
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This coverage is coming to you live from Bitcoin London. You can follow us on Twitter for updates or check out the other article posted today: Bitcoin London – Venture Capital Panel Review Bitcoin Regulation Discussion Legal compliance remains one of the central concerns of the virtual currency markets, as well as one of the highest barriers to entry for many new entrepreneurs. Bitcoin London gathered a number of experts to shed light on this topic, including: Patrick Murck – General Counsel, Bitcoin Foundation Constance Choi – General Counsel, Payward Danny Friedberg – Attorney, Graham Dunn Stuart Hoegner – General Counsel, Gaming Counsel …
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Jul 2, 2013
Posted
News
Tagged Bitcoin Foundation, Bitcoin London, Bitcoin Regulation Discussion, Constance Choi, Europe, trading, United States
Comments 0
Considering a bitcoin mining hardware purchase? Make a more informed decision with our Bitcoin Mining Dashboard. On May 4th, Friedcat, CEO of ASICMiner, announced the worlds first ASIC USB miner: operating at 300 MH/s for 1.99 BTC. As he refined the hardware, he was able to increase performance to 336 MH/s before shipping in early June. ASICMiner has listened to customer concerns on the forum, requesting smaller minimum order quantities and lower prices. They have lowered the price for each USB miner to 0.89 BTC on cumulative orders over 1,000 (this total includes any previous USB orders), or the option to buy …
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