THELOGICALINDIAN - RAKUTEN
E-commerce behemothic Rakuten announced this week that they now acquire bitcoin for all purchases on their United States based websites, which accommodate Buy.com. Just a few canicule afterwards the announcement, they additionally enabled bitcoin payments on their German and Austrian sites. The absolutely big account will be back Rakuten opens up bitcoin payments on their Japanese site.
Rakuten will use cipher bitcoin payments processor Bitnet, which was founded by above Visa advisers and raised a $14.5 actor Series A allotment round aftermost October (Rakuten is an broker in the aggregation as well). Signing such a above applicant could advice Bitnet acceleration the ranks as a adversary to companies like BitPay and Coinbase.
Late aftermost month, Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said at a appointment in Tokyo that his aggregation was “thinking about” and “would apparently accept” bitcoin payments in the future, but I was afraid with how bound it absolutely materialized. With added than $5bn in anniversary revenue, Rakuten is the eighth-largest internet aggregation in the world, and now amid the better companies to acquire bitcoin.
EVOLUTION MARKET
“Evo Market,” as it was known, was allegedly the better and best accepted darknet bazaar in the deathwatch of Silk Road (and again the additional Silk Road) actuality shut bottomward by authorities. This week, users of the armpit were austere to the tune of at atomic $12 million, back the bearding (or not?) operators of the armpit absitively to “exit scam” their users — they pulled the bung on the armpit and kept the tens of bags of bitcoins captivated in escrow and in user accounts. The Guardian has more.
A lot of bodies got austere and were abashed at this about-face of events, but it should be a breeze that handing ascendancy of your bitcoins to bearding atramentous bazaar operators is arena with fire. The abstraction extends to added centralized casework as well, with endless bitcoin sites accepting either absent or baseborn chump funds over the years. This would be a acceptable abode to bang home the point that if you don’t ascendancy your clandestine keys, your bitcoins are not absolutely yours. Multi-signature bitcoin technology will eventually accomplish such contest technologically impossible, but the sites that accept currently implemented it are few.
Another bitcoin service, Coinapult, was hacked to the tune of 150 BTC this week.
STUFF
In their anniversary 10-K filing with the SEC, Overstock appear that they accept purchased a 24.9% pale in a registered broker-dealer, “as allotment of our efforts to advance and authorization software to barter cryptosecurities application the Bitcoin arrangement and its protocols.”
Probably allotment of Overstock’s decentralized stock-exchange project, Medici. Going from an online banker to demography on Wall Street is absolutely a pivot!
Mastercard’s 10-K repeatedly cites cryptocurrency as a abeyant approaching competitor. (“Rapid and cogent abstruse changes could occur, consistent in new and avant-garde acquittal methods (including cryptocurrencies) and programs that could abode us at a aggressive disadvantage and that could abate the use of MasterCard products.”)
San Francisco-based Bitreserve announced a partnership with Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas-Pliego, possibly to accomplish some affectionate of access into the Mexican remittance market. Bitreserve was launched by CNET architect Halsey Minor aloof four months ago. In that time, they affirmation that their affluence accept developed by added than 1000%. Here’s a absolutely air-conditioned page they put up to anticipate some abstracts from the site.
MORE STUFF
Credit-Suisse published this brief on bitcoin which concludes, “bitcoin has a approaching in assertive areas and countries.”
The UK government has appear that it will activate acclimation bitcoin exchanges, and at the aforementioned time has apprenticed 10 actor GBP to armamentarium analysis on agenda currencies.
Her Majesty’s Treasury published this address on the allowances and risks of agenda currencies. The paper’s cessation begins by saying, “The government is committed to accretion cyberbanking antagonism in the interests of all customers. Encouraging greater addition in payments, which accommodate the accouterments for the cyberbanking sector, is axial to this. The government intends to actualize a world-leading ambiance for the development of avant-garde payments and banking technology.”
BITS & PIECES
Amazon Prime users can now stream The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin documentary for free.
In an credible freeholder dispute, the World Bitcoin Association, which runs the New York Bitcoin Center, filed for defalcation this week. The center, which charcoal accessible during this dispute, is amid aloof one block off of Wall St. and is appropriate abutting to the New York Stock Exchange.
The Victorian government in Australia is to advertise 24,500 bitcoins bedeviled from a Silk Road vendor. As far as I know, this makes Victoria the additional government to advertise bitcoins.
Intel catches up with IBM and looks to hire a researcher to investigate blockchain tech.
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