Category Archives: News
Bitcoin Payment Processor Coinvoice Begins Accepting Payments
Coinvoice now offers an online Bitcoin invoicing service
Coinvoice, a project from Conformal Systems, has launched its cash-to-Bitcoin invoicing service. Coinvoice allows the business itself to be paid in bitcoins while continuing to invoice their customers in dollars.
“We believe in Bitcoin. We think that providing these services will ultimately help Bitcoin become more mainstream and that’s the real goal.” – Jacob Yocom-Piatt, Conformal Systems CEO
“Coinvoice will really benefit businesses or independent contractors that want to continue to invoice their clients in dollars but who also want to receive bitcoins for the work they do. They can now do this without forcing their clients to adopt bitcoins themselves. We think this is a great way to lower the barrier to entry into the Bticoin ecosystem for certain businesses,” said Daniel Tobon, one of the Conformal team members. “Coinvoice is also very valuable to foreign businesses with US clients who want to be paid quickly without having to worry about burdensome and expensive currency controls and money transfer fees. They can invoice locally and receive payments globally.”
Coinvoice plans to add several other payment options and the ability to invoice in other local currencies in the near future. Until then, they’re continuing to work on making their payment settlement systems as quick and efficient as possible. “Businesses want to accept Bitcoin can now do so as quickly as they can settle a regular invoice. Even faster in some cases,” says Jacob Yocom-Piatt, CEO of Conformal Systems. “Our goal is to give businesses the easiest, fastest and most reliable way to receive bitcoins.”
Conformal Systems is also authored btcd, an alternative full-node implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. The cryptocurrency was a perfect fit for a company that was already heavily involved in the cryptography business with the development of their zero-knowledge backup software Cyphertite. “We believe in Bitcoin,” says Mr. Yocom-Piatt. “We think that providing these services will ultimately help Bitcoin become more mainstream and that’s the real goal.”
Learn more at www.coinvoice.com.
Top Bitcoin News Last Week: Mining Hardware, SecondMarket, Gambling
Bitcoin News
Here is a roundup of the top Bitcoin news from September 24 to September 29.
A Bitcoin gambling site loses big, SecondMarket launches an investment vehicle to track Bitcoin prices, and Black Arrow starts selling new Bitcoin mining hardware.
Monday, September 23
Tuesday, September 24
Friday, September 27
SecondMarket Launches Bitcoin Investment Trust
“I’m excited about today” – Barry Silbert, CEO of SecondMarket
In a personal and passionate email, Barry Silbert, CEO of SecondMarket, announced that his company was launching a new investment vehicle called the Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT). This trust is available only to institutional and accredited investors and derives its value solely from the price of Bitcoin.
In other words, it’s like buying Bitcoin.
“Over the past two years I’ve become a big believer in bitcoin, the digital currency and transaction network,” said Silbert. “Friends, colleagues – honestly, anyone who would listen – have heard me describe the potential benefits of bitcoin. It could be this generation’s store of value, or a true global currency, or a better money transfer network. Or all three.”
The benefit of investing in this trust, Silbert added, is that qualified investors can gain exposure to the price movement of Bitcoin without the challenges of buying, storing, and safekeeping Bitcoin. This is detailed in SecondMarket’s Bitcoin Education Center.
The Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) is a private, open-ended trust invested exclusively in Bitcoin. The sponsor of the trust is Alternative Currency Asset Management LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of SecondMarket Holdings, Inc.
The BIT was created for accredited investors looking for exposure to bitcoin through an investment vehicle as opposed to a direct investment. The BIT solves the challenges of buying, storing and safekeeping bitcoins.
Below is their full investor presentation.
Fee Structure
There is a 1.5% front end fee (waived for 2013), 2% management fee, and 1.5% back end fee. Or, more simply, for a 5% fee you own a shares in a vehicle that tracks a decentralized digital currency meant to democratize money.
This raises the question: is Bitcoin that difficult to buy for qualified investors that they would prefer to own shares in a trust that has a 5% fee structure?
Where are the Winklevosses?
This move by SecondMarket follows the high profile S-1 filing by the Winklevoss twins, who intend to create an ETF that tracks similarly Bitcoin but provides qualified investors an easier path to own the digital currency.
About SecondMarket
SecondMarket calls itself a better market, “empowering entrepreneurs by reinventing the modern stock market and redefining the modern company. We’re enabling companies to provide liquidity, raise capital and communicate with key stakeholders through products that give control to companies, not to Wall Street. We’re changing the market, so entrepreneurs can change the world.”
The company became popular for its ability to provide liquidity for hot private stocks like Facebook and Groupon before their IPOs. Today, SecondMarket has diversified and is creating its own investment vehicles like the Bitcoin Investment Trust.
The House Doesn’t Always Win in Bitcoin Gambling
Bitcoin Gambler Wins 7000 BTC in Rollercoaster Ride Online
One Bitcoin gambler had a rollercoaster ride of a gambling session and ended up on top of the casino, as reported by news.com.au:
Just-Dice.com, a European-based cybercasino offering a set of dice games played for the highly valuable digital currency Bitcoin, has been on a roller coaster ride.
Nakowa’s gambling began badly. His weekend started on a losing streak that made Just-Dice richer than it had ever been, causing the site to hit its highest single profit point of all time (7,000 bitcoins or $862,400 on hand), according to multiple witnesses.
However, as Nakowa – who has been called “fearless” – continued playing, a big swing hit hard. By Monday morning, Just-Dice.com’s on hand profit had been erased completely. It currently sits about $264,200 (2,000 bitcoins) in the red and sinking fast, waiting to be replenished by the casino’s savings account worth about $5.6 million.
Black Arrow Offers Pre-Orders for New Bitcoin Mining Hardware
Black Arrow announces 28nm 64Ghash Bitcoin ASIC as low as $1.99/Ghash
Black Arrow Ltd, a software and hardware development company focused on high quality products, has launched and is taking pre-orders for its Prospero Bitcoin Mining Machines and its Bitcoin ASIC codenamed “the Minion”. The first orders are expected to be shipped at the end of February 2014.
Black Arrow calls itself an “ambitious, fast growing software and hardware engineering company focused on delivering high quality and reliable products,” and has sold Bitcoin mining hardware at competitive prices.
In a press release, the company stated that its expertise in software engineering, hardware design, manufacture and customer support lead to develop solutions and answers for the needs of their clients. These solutions combined with today’s most advanced lithography, warrants the customers to get highest and most reliable mining revenue, reduced operating costs and an overall higher customer satisfaction.
Black Arrow further promised to do its best to offer lower retail price than its competitors and guarantees that in the eventuality of a price decrease before shipment, all preorders will benefit of a proportional increase in hashing power. For this reason the customers who have been with us from the beginning will always receive the best deals.
The Prospero line includes two types of crypto currencies mining hardware products: one to be used at home and one built for datacenters.
Prospero for home (X-1) features a compact and stackable design, out of the box functionality, Ethernet connectivity and friendly UI. It will have a performance of 64 Ghash/second. This product sells has a list price of $319 but is on sale for 25% off.
Prospero for datacenter (X-3) is designed for high performance mining, will be fully rack-able, have out of the box functionality, Ethernet connectivity and friendly UI. It will have a performance of 1300 Ghash/second. This product has a list price of $5,299 and is also selling for a 25% discount.
Black Arrow will start shortly taking preorders and offers 25% discount on all pre-orders paid in September and October. Today, using the 25% discount, one can buy a Prospero X-1 for $239 and Prospero X-3 for $3,999.
At today’s Bitcoin price and network hashing rate, X-1 would return $682 in 15 days and X-3 would return $13,845 in 15 days, though the actual revenue could be lower than this by the time of shipment.
As Black Arrow promised to all the customers who trusted and worked with us from the beginning, everyone who has purchased Black Arrow’s Lancelot mining devices and wishes to exchange them against Black Arrow Prospero miners will receive $300 credit for each Lancelot exchanged.
The Minion ASIC which is the heart of the Prospero mining machines and is based on the performance and features demanded by Bitcoin mining: highest efficiency and lowest cost. It is developed by Black Arrow and VeriSilicon, a leading Custom Silicon Solutions and Semiconductor IP provider. The Minion will be 1,500 times more efficient in Bitcoin Mining than today’s fastest video card and it will be capable of scanning 64Ghash every second (roughly equivalent is 416Gflops). This design has been chosen to offer highest reliability, lowest power consumption and cost. Black Arrow is not making the biggest chip in the industry but exactly this design ensures highest reliability in case of a Minion breakdown.
Learn more at Black Arrow.
