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Bitcoin Vegas Coming Out Party

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This week history was made in Las Vegas when, for the first time ever, digital currency entrepreneurs prominently showcased themselves at Money2020, the largest payments and financial services technology conference in the world.  CoinX, Bitpay, Kraken, Blockchain.info and Coinbase had booths on the expo floor and a lot of digital currency investors and entrepreneurs were in attendance, notably Nejc Kodric and Damijan Merlak of Bitstamp, Stan Stalnaker of Ven/Hub Culture, Gabriel Sukenik of Coinapult, and Meyer “Micky” Malka of Ribbit Capital.  See photos below.

As expected, the event was largely dominated by traditional players, and only three of over one hundred panels were directly related to Bitcoin and virtual currencies, which qualifies as a drop in the ocean.   However, the words “bitcoin”, “ripple”, “digital” and “currency” were heard everywhere both in and out of the formal sessions, especially in connection with two other key words: regulation and disruption.

Here are a few things that stuck in my mind:

• In the panel “Bitcoin & Beyond: Math-Based & Virtual Currencies”, masterfully moderated by Continue reading →

2013-10-01 Crypto-Timeline

Here is a log with relevant legal, regulatory, law enforcement and business risk milestones in the crypto-currency race to maturity with links to trusted sources.

The  Key September 2013 Crypto-Events were:

• 9/5/2013 – United Kingdom debates Bitcoin regulation
• 9/6/2013 – Satoshidice recovers from series of DDoS attacks
• 9/11/2013 – Rogue transaction cripples casual Bitcoin software users
• 9/13/2013 – Mt.Gox answers Coinlab’s complaint with a vengeance
• 9/19/2013 – Swiss politician is both puzzled and concerned about Bitcoin’s risks and potential
• 9/20/2013 – Singapore’s Monetary Authority cautions consumers against bitcoin trading
• 9/20/2013 – Canadian Royal Mint to test ‘MintChip’ payment system
• 9/23/2013 – Virtual stock markets btct.co and litecoinglobal.com shut down due to regulatory environment
• 9/27/2013 – TerraHash shuts down

Please point me to any events that you consider important and would like to see on the log.

For ease of tracking I’ve decided on the following discrete categories to classify all events:

1. Banking: Refers to decisions made or stances taken by banks and other traditional financial Continue reading →