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 …
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Friedcat, the pseudonymous CEO of ASICMiner, made his first direct announcement in approximately a month last week, offering updates on product sales and upcoming hardware developments. Despite signs of progress towards upgraded hardware for the industrial mining company, investors have proven unimpressed, leaving the company’s stock price near historic lows. ASICMiner was one of the first companies in the world to reliably sell and deploy bitcoin mining ASICs, but has long since lost that market leadership – a title it is working to reclaim. Still mining with first generation 130nm ASICs, the company has announced efforts towards second and third …
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This morning, Armory, an open source bitcoin wallet that claims industry-leading security, closed a $600K seed funding round – some of which was in bitcoin – from highly-credentialed legal, technical and financial investors. Armory was one of the first platforms to embrace ‘cold storage’ of bitcoin, a process in which private keys used to sign transactions are stored solely on a computer not connected to the internet. Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen stressed the importance of increased wallet security earlier this year, citing compromised computers as a primary source of vulnerability, despite the strength of the bitcoin protocol itself. …
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Trezor is the first mass-produced bitcoin hardware wallet and is on pace to reach customers’ hands next month. Hardware wallets, as opposed to the software wallets currently in use, allow users to store their bitcoins off of personal computers but maintain the ability to transfer bitcoins conveniently. The wallet is able to sign bitcoin transactions while connected to a computer via USB, without allowing the computer access to private information. Gavin Andresen, the lead developer of bitcoin-Qt, stated in June that wallet security is the largest concern in the coming year and that hardware wallets will be hugely beneficial. Bitcoin’s …
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As the digital currency markets continue to mature and build trade history, we can learn more about market reactions, patterns and influences. Often cited as the digital version of gold – a finite, non-state wealth store – bitcoin may be joined in the world of nouveau analogies by litecoin, which has already become commonly referenced as digital silver. Litecoin (LTC) is nearly identical to bitcoin with a few notable exceptions. Litecoin uses a different proof-of-work algorithm chosen specifically to make mining possible with consumer-grade hardware. Additionally, the LTC protocol targets 2.5 minutes average block times (compared to 10 for BTC) …
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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Considering a bitcoin mining hardware purchase? Make a more informed decision with our Bitcoin Mining Dashboard. Avalon specializes in developing and selling ASIC Bitcoin Miners. ASIC chips are the customized component that performs hashes in bitcoin mining. Avalon was the first company to mass produce ASIC miners and at 65 GH/s they are significantly faster that GPU miners. Avalon pre-sold 3 batches of bitcoin miners, consisting of 300, 600 and 600 units, before deciding to sell bulk orders of chips last April. Avalon began selling batch 3 units on March 25th for 75 BTC each, projected to be 1 month’s return on …
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Jul 19, 2013
Posted
Mining, News
Tagged ASIC, Avalon, Bitcoin Mining Dashboard, BTC, Buttefly Labs, DHL, GPU
Last month we noted the surprising correlation between USD and BTC. From May 1 through June 20, the two currencies shared a 0.76 correlation, which actually increased to 0.89 when comparing bitcoin with three-day-old USD levels. Since then, markets have reacted to a series of macroeconomic events that not only broke that correlation, but actually reversed it, such that BTC has been inversely tracing USD with remarkable accuracy ever since. Fed Influence May Be Inescapable, Even For Bitcoin In a press conference on June 19, Ben Bernanke said the Fed may begin tapering its asset purchases as early as later …
Read More →The bitcoin market is currently facing a number of technical headwinds, including a likely retest of a critical support level and a cross below a key long term moving average. Key Support Test The low 90s have proven to be strong support for downward pressure over the past three months. That level first served as the inflection point for the final run-up before bitcoin peaked at $266/BTC. Since then, the low 90s has served as support for downward price action, accompanied by outsized volume, indicating a key technical level. Downward pressure towards that level has been increasing since it was …
Read More →Towards the end of last week something seemingly unexpected happened in the bitcoin market – the price of BTC rose on unquestionably bad news. After Mt. Gox announced a temporary halt on USD withdrawals, the price of BTC on Gox climbed approximately 5% in a matter of hours. While this may seem like an odd reaction at first, further investigation shows that this is actually a highly consistent and predictable occurrence. The rate change on Mt. Gox, the long-time leader in bitcoin exchange volume, was actually an anomaly. In comparing the price of BTC on Gox with the price other …
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