About the author ⁄ The Genesis Block

The Reverse Merger as a Shortcut to a Publicly-Traded Bitcoin Vehicle

Attempts to build an asset offering financial exposure to bitcoin for the average investor has interested global entrepreneurs for years, yet an SEC-registered product that can be traded easily from a standard portfolio remains to be seen. Given the regulatory scrutiny such an instrument would be subject to, the most efficient way to access public markets with a bitcoin asset may be a known subversion of the standard issuance process: the reverse merger. In July 2013, Winklevoss Capital brought significant attention to this topic when they filed the S-1 for an ETF to track the price of bitcoin. The fund …

Feb 3, 2014 Posted by The Genesis Block In Businesses, Economics, Featured, Regulatory, Trading Tagged Dan Matuszewski, ETF, investment, SEC, US

ASICMiner Share Price Doubles Ahead of Gen 3 Tapeout Announcement

ASICMiner, one of the first companies to successfully deploy bitcoin ASIC mining hardware in 2013, has seen its share price double over the last month. The gains come ahead of the expected Jan 20 tapeout date for ASICMiner’s 3rd generation hardware indicated by the companies CEO in a December announcement. As multiple consumer ASIC companies prepare to ship inventory and private mining operations increase in scale, often with equal or superior hardware, meeting schedule expectations will be paramount to ASICMiner’s future. As one of the first successful ASIC producers, AM was able to maintain a significant hardware advantage through mid-2013, …

Jan 19, 2014 Posted by The Genesis Block In Businesses, General, Mining, News, Trading Tagged AM, ASIC, bid, price, volume

Mt. Gox Seizures Linked to Silk Road in Fed Testimonies

Last summer, news that federal agents had seized a combined $5M from accounts owned by Mt. Gox roiled bitcoin markets. The warrants enabling the action cited improper filings when the company opened its bank accounts, including unlicensed operation of a money service business. Yet, written testimonies from federal regulators for the recent Senate hearings on digital currencies indicate the seizures were actually part of the much larger crackdown on online narcotics marketplace Silk Road – insight that presumably had to remain hidden at the time of the seizures due to the ongoing investigation. Experienced market participants will recall that before …

Jan 13, 2014 Posted by The Genesis Block In Businesses, Featured, News, Regulatory, Trading Tagged analysis, ICE, Silk Road, USSS

Litecoin Leads Bitcoin in Dramatic Price Move

Yesterday proved rather interesting for the digital currency markets, particularly as related to alt coins. While prices were mostly up on the day across the board, one particular dynamic stood out as noteworthy: a massive leap in LTC / USD was followed shortly thereafter by a similar climb in XBT / USD. We’ve written previously about the interaction of bitcoin and litecoin, noting that their trading indicates a strong relationship between the two (see here and here for further detail), but for litecoin to so visibly and dramatically lead trading is relatively unprecedented and largely unexpected. Bitcoin maintains a total …

Jan 3, 2014 Posted by The Genesis Block In Economics, Featured, News, Trading Tagged LTC, trading, USD, volume

Bitcoin’s Sixth Year Likely Driven By Institutional Participation

Happy Genesis Block Day to all of our readers. Today marks the five-year anniversary of the first bitcoin block ever mined, ushering in not only a new digital currency, but also the functional implementation of a potentially revolutionary value transfer technology. Over the past year, market participants have witnessed tremendous growth cycles driven by regional catalysts around the globe – from the Cypriot financial crisis in March to the Chinese exuberance over the last quarter. With increasing interest coming from institutional finance of late, it appears the most significant wave in bitcoin’s sixth year may be oriented not geographically, but …

Jan 3, 2014 Posted by The Genesis Block In Businesses, Economics, Featured, General, News, Regulatory, Security, Trading Tagged block, DTC, trading, volume

Trading Volume Indicates $1M+ Revenue to BTC China in First Week With Fees

One week ago today, rumors began to hit the market of Chinese payment processors no longer being able to serve bitcoin exchanges. BTC China and OKCoin, the leading XBT / CNY exchanges by volume for much of the past few months, also reinstated trading fees on the same day. Those factors combined have led to reduced trading volume at those exchanges, as well as a glimpse into why bitcoin companies have attracted so much venture capital in 2013. On September 24, BTC China temporarily removed trading fees from their exchange. Bitcoin’s popularity in China ballooned dramatically shortly thereafter as other …

Dec 23, 2013 Posted by The Genesis Block In Businesses, Economics, News, Trading Tagged China, Market Dashboard, trading, USD, volume

BTC China Halts CNY Deposits, CNY-USD Spread Climbs to 30% as CNY Volume Drops

Bitcoin markets have been roiled dramatically in the past two weeks by actions of the PBOC. Initial notice on December 5 stating that financial institutions would not be allowed to transact in bitcoin were followed by rumors that payment processors would no longer be able to serve bitcoin exchanges, which have since been validated. The result has been not only a dramatic drop in exchange rates – from $650 to as low as $400 earlier today – but also an historic spread between USD and CNY markets, reaching upwards of 30% this morning. This morning, BTC China and OKCoin temporarily …

Dec 18, 2013 Posted by The Genesis Block In Economics, News, Trading Tagged BTC, CNY, trading, USD

Bitcoin Falls 20% on PBOC Rumors, Chinese Exchanges Reinstate Fees

Bitcoin suffered a roughly 30% drop before recovering somewhat yesterday after word hit the market indicating Chinese regulators would no longer allow payment processors to serve bitcoin exchanges. Doubts about the validity of such statements have increased since their announcement, with little official word seen yet from regulators or payment companies. Incidentally, at least two of the largest CNY exchanges happened to drop their zero-fee trading on the same day, offering initial insight into how much free trading was bolstering the recent Chinese market presence. Yesterday morning, reports began surfacing on Chinese microblogging sites indicating the country’s top payment processing companies …

Dec 17, 2013 Posted by The Genesis Block In Economics, News, Trading Tagged CNY, payment, trading, USD

Bitcoin 0.8.6 Released, Updates to Block Size Limits, Free Transactions, OSX Bugs

Bitcoin v0.8.6 was released yesterday, offering updates to existing restrictions on the size of free transactions and full blocks, as well as a series of fixes for bugs in certain node transmissions and OSX usage. The update follows the 0.8.5 release in September and precedes the much-anticipated 0.9 release. Free Transaction Limit Changes In an effort to make free transactions more commonly accessible, Bitcoin 0.8.6 lowers the maximum size of free transactions from 10,000 bytes to 1,000 bytes and eliminates the minimum 0.01 XBT output requirement. By lowering the maximum size of a free transaction to 1,000 bytes, there is …

Dec 10, 2013 Posted by The Genesis Block In Bitcoin 201, Featured, Mining, News Tagged block, chain, OSX, transaction

[TGB] Market Dashboard Overhaul: New Exchanges, Alerts, Conversion Tools

This morning we launched a series of upgrades to our Market Dashboard. Your feedback has been crucial in prioritizing feature improvements and we hope you will continue to send us your thoughts at [email protected]. Additional Exchanges and Conversion Given the increasing distribution of global trading volume, the Market Dashboard now covers the four largest bitcoin exchanges including Bitstamp, Mt. Gox, BTC China and BTC-e. A 24-hour volume overview was added as well to help you stay abreast of shifting market liquidity. We’re in the process of adding even more exchanges – let us know what you’d like to see by …

Dec 6, 2013 Posted by The Genesis Block In Businesses, Economics, Featured, General, News, Trading Tagged charts, Market Dashboard, trading, USD, volume