The last week has seen dramatic upwards price action in the bitcoin markets, driven by a series of macro and micro events across the globe. The fallout from Silk Road’s closure turned out to be but a blip in bitcoin’s price history, with significant gains since then. Turmoil in global financial markets and recent news of leading global websites accepting bitcoin may have bolstered enthusiasm for digital currency, but most interesting may be CNY’s definitive recent price leadership. Compared with prices before the brief Silk Road drop, bitcoin exchange rates have climbed 14% in the last two weeks. At $145/BTC …
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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
Silk Road, the online drug bazaar that has eluded authorities and been ingrained in the bitcoin narrative for years, was shut down yesterday. Ross Ulbricht was named in the court documents outlining Silk Road’s activities, as were a number of key data points that offer insights into the impact the world’s most infamous retail website has had on bitcoin. Ulbricht was caught as a result of human error and excessive risks related to physical delivery of false identification being delivered to his home address in San Francisco from Canada. After tracking the package, authorities found their way to Ulbricht and …
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Publishing has evolved drastically over the past two decades, proving to be one of the industries most disrupted by the advent and proliferation of the internet. Ever-lower barriers to entry for new participants have led to more competition for publishers, as well as more noise for consumers. The result has been a broad decline in publishing revenue and a user experience dominated by increasingly invasive advertising. Bitcoin, with it’s unique applicability for micropayments, may eventually be able to conquer this problem. An Old Model Disintegrates Historically, revenue generation for publications was straightforward. Publishers would sell individual copies or subscriptions to …
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Sep 25, 2013
Posted
Businesses, News
Tagged New York Times, payment, price, Wall Street Journal
Comments 4
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
On Tuesday, Mt. Gox filed a response to the lawsuit brought against them by CoinLab. The two companies planned to work together as providers of bitcoin exchange services, but both parties have ultimately claimed a breach of contract by the other. We were first alerted of the latest filing here. Summary of Claims According to the contract, Mt. Gox would turn over all North American bitcoin exchange operations to CoinLab. The original negotiations for the deal took place during the Summer of 2012 and the contract was signed on November 22, 2012. After the signing date there would be a …
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Sep 13, 2013
Posted
Businesses, News, Regulatory, Trading
Tagged Licensed Materials, North American, price, Transition Period
Comments 1
After remarkably low volume and volatility throughout much of August, yesterday saw one of the largest bitcoin exchange rate movements in weeks. A number of factors may have contributed, including the recent news that Germany recognized bitcoin as private money, but more interesting may be the market signals observable from the movements. Mt Gox counterparty risk quantified Despite their declining volume relative to the total market, Gox still handles the majority of USD/BTC trading with more than double the share of Bitstamp, their next closest competitor. As we pointed out last month, fiat withdrawal hiatuses at Mt. Gox have led …
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Considering a bitcoin mining hardware purchase? Make a more informed decision with our Bitcoin Mining Dashboard. As money continues to pour into bitcoin mining investments, this week has seen a series of announcements from new companies offering a broad spectrum of opportunities for market participants. With promises ranging from massive improvements in bitcoin ASIC chip specs to fully managed ASIC farms with profit sharing plans, the bitcoin network may be set to change not only in total speed, but in concentration of hashing power as well. Cointerra announces 28nm chip specs After posting information about their well-credentialed team on their website …
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Aug 8, 2013
Posted
Businesses, Mining, News
Tagged ASIC, investment, Peter Vessenes, price, TH
Comments 8
SatoshiDice is an internet gambling company which relies on the bitcoin block chain (the public ledger of all bitcoin transactions) to facilitate betting and payout. The company gained popularity quickly after its launch in April 2012 and saw approximately 4M BTC flow through its system before being acquired for 126,315 BTC by an unknown buyer on July 17, 2013. This report offers an overview of the events leading up to the acquisition and an analysis of the final valuation, including: Company Background (Page 1) Historical Performance (Page 2) Competitive Landscape (Page 3) Regulatory Risks (Page 3) Valuation Analysis (Page 4) …
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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 bitcoin 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. The price was then lowered to 0.89 BTC on June 25th for bulk orders over 1,000 units. An organizer of previous bulk orders has announced an 8 day window to place orders for 0.175 BTC each. This order is only open to previous customersand …
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