Bitcoin

A Democratic U.S. senator is asking the federal government to take this remarkable step: completely ban Bitcoin. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia sent a letter today to the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and other regulators characterizing the virtual currency as encouraging “illicit activity” as well as being “highly unstable and disruptive to our Continue Reading →

The Dogecoin started off as a penniless Internet joke. But Matt Thompson plans on selling his vacation home for this meme-inspired currency. The 27-year-old entrepreneur has been selling games and gadgets over the Internet for years, but nothing as big as his Wisconsin vacation home, which he is offering for 100 million Dogecoins. Dogecoin (pronounced Continue Reading →

The Bitcoin community is on edge as a leaked document shows that the Mt. Gox exchange, a longtime pillar of the virtual currency, is missing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of customer money and is heading for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the leaders of high profile Bitcoin companies, including Coinbase and Circle, issued a public letter Continue Reading →

Bitcoin miners and investors will not be regulated by the US Treasury. The clarification came in a pair of rulings on Thursday from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Treasury Department, which said that people who mine virtual currencies for personal use and businesses that buy and sell virtual currencies Continue Reading →

Another step for Bitcoin entering mainstream commerce and consciousness. The Sacramento Kings basketball team has started to let fans pay for tickets and merchandise using the cryptocurrency — becoming the first professional sports team to hop on the Bitcoin bandwagon. People who visit the Kings’ physical retail store in Sacramento can already go in and Continue Reading →

Security remains a major pain point for Bitcoin — as a number of hacks on companies involved with the virtual currency prove — and that’s led Coinbase, the most heavily funded Bitcoin startup out there, to beef up its measures. The company has extended its two-factor authentication security process when sending over $100 in Bitcoin Continue Reading →

When Kanye West wrote the lyric, “I’m chilling, trying to stack these millions,” he probably did not mean digital currency. But a new technology might give him pause, or at least have him scratching his head. In a sign that the frenzy over Bitcoin may have reached a new level of ridiculousness, there is now Continue Reading →

Remember the giddy highs of $1000 Bitcoin? That’s so two weeks ago. Lately, the virtual currency is in the midst of another of of its famous crashes — or swoons if you prefer — as bad news trickles in from overseas. Here’s a chart, via Bitstamp, that shows the latest price tumble. The currency reached Continue Reading →

It appears not only people in the tech world believe Bitcoin is the currency of the future — one of the US’ biggest banks also sees legitimacy in the virtual currency. Bank of America published its first research report on Bitcoin on Thursday saying that the digital currency could become a major contender to other Continue Reading →

Last year Oxford University Press split its word of the year honors between the US and the UK, but for 2013 there’s one word to rule them all — and it is “selfie.” The term beat out contenders like twerk, bitcoin, and binge-watch, due largely to its remarkable uptick in usage. According to research conducted Continue Reading →