Bitcoin

Members of Congress will get a crash course on bitcoin on Monday, the digital “currency” that allows users to conduct transactions online. In just five years the virtual currency has gone from being worth pennies to nearly $600 a piece. It has funded nascent democracy movements as well as a huge underground marketplace for illegal Continue Reading →

Only 27 percent of store purchases were made with cash in 2011, a number that’s projected to continue declining in the future, according to the Huffington Post. Credit card transactions accounted for 66 percent of in-store purchases. It looks like plastic might soon be following cash out of store doors, however, due to the digital Continue Reading →

Bitcoin.org released a security advisory over the weekend warning the Bitcoin community that any Bitcoin wallet generated on any Android device is insecure and open to theft. The insecurity appears to stem from a flaw in the Android Java SecureRandom class, which under certain circumstances can produce numbers that aren’t truly nondeterministic. This can allow Continue Reading →

In the case of a Texas man accused of massive Bitcoin-based fraud, a federal judge has ruled that bitcoins are “a currency or form of money,” and are therefore subject to relevant US laws. The case revolves around Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BTCST), a virtual Bitcoin-based hedge fund that many suspected of being a scam. Continue Reading →

E-commerce leviathan Amazon is taking a step into social gaming: Amazon Coins, its new virtual currency, is now live in the U.S. To kick it off, Amazon announced that it would put $5 worth of the currency — equivalent to 500 Coins — into all Kindle Fire users’ accounts to use on apps and in-app Continue Reading →

Imagine a world where the Nasdaq, the Nikkei and the FTSE all failed within the span of a week and you have an idea how crazy the world of virtual currency trading has become. Wired reports that a new study from computer scientists Tyler Moore of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas and Nicolas Christin Continue Reading →

PayPal currently doesn’t have much of a relationship with the virtual currency Bitcoin, but that may soon change. The company’s president David Marcus seems to be very interested in the virtual currency, and says his company is “thinking about” potentially including it one day, according to a Bloomberg video interview published on Wednesday. Bitcoin wasn’t Continue Reading →

The world and his brother — well…the media, at least — has gone Bitcoin crazy in recent times, and the latest company to cash in on that attention ride that wave is dating site OKCupid, which is now accepting payments in the digital currency. The newest addition to the growing list of companies to support Continue Reading →

The currency hit a new high of $266 before falling to $105 and then bouncing back to $130. The fall is unlikely to put off speculators. Two months ago a Bitcoin was worth $20. With Europe racked by economic uncertainty following the banking crisis in Cyprus, there have been fears that a “bubble” is being Continue Reading →