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Mainstream Press, $1M for Charity, and Many Happy Bitcoin Customers

Last week was the first ever Bitcoin Black Friday, featuring over 500 merchants selling discounted goods — both digital and physical — for Bitcoin. In short, it was a massive success.

“Together, we helped make Bitcoin a household word for millions of people,” said the organizers of the event. The Washington Post reported that Bitcoin Black Friday was “the most popular day in the history of Bitcoin commerce.”

The event also provided exposure for Bitcoin merchants and charities in mainstream press. Celebrities got involved in promoting the event, like Ashton Kutcher.

Bitcoin Black Friday https://t.co/tVGMevHAzi

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 28, 2013

Jon Holmquist, founder of Bitcoin Black Friday, put together an infographic with stats from the day, also at the bottom of this article.

Over 1,000 Bitcoin were raised for Charity — that’s over $1 million! And the kicker is that charities received $50,000 more than they would have if those donations had been provided via credit cards, because of fees saved with Bitcoin.

What’s Next?

Well, you can buy the official Bitcoin Black Friday T-Shirt.

You can follow the organizers on Twitter and Facebook to get updates on their upcoming promotions and causes.

And sign up to the On Bitcoin Newsletter to learn about more events like this one and keep up with the latest news.

Here’s that Bitcoin Black Friday Infographic.

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Bitcoin is showing stamina as it outlasts other digital currencies.

In its fourth year of circulation now, the decentralized online-only form of money has evolved from a libertarian-styled geek curiosity to a contender for becoming the first digital currency to go truly mainstream. There are now more than 11 million “coins” created worth more than $1 billion. Lumpy and volatile as it is, the math-based cash is one of the fastest-rising alternative currencies in a world filled with them.

Tyler Moore, who studies alternative currencies, said he still isn’t sure why.

“It’s one part luck, one part decentralization, and one part this design that carries appeal for people that don’t like inflation,” said Moore, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “The timing of it was really good.”

Bitcoin slipped onto the scene in 2009, as trust in established banks crumbled and inflation fears rose. It’s not managed by anyone. There’s no central bank. It’s based on open-source encryption technology.

In fact, the digital cash can be created by anyone with the hefty computer power required to solve specified algorithms that secure the network. Bitcoins are rewards for effort. The system takes banks out of the picture completely as individuals pay each other directly. Transactions are private, but because there’s a public ledger of them, it’s unlikely they are perfectly anonymous.

Via Buffalo News.

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Bitcoin News

A roundup of the top Bitcoin news from May 1 to May 11:

Wednesday, May 1

• 2016 Presidential Candidate Accepting Bitcoins for Donations

Saturday, May 4

• Ashton Kutcher Calls Bitcoin Technology Disruptive for Mass Good

Tuesday, May 7

• Bitcoins Can’t Pay Your Real World Expenses, Forbes Learns

Saturday, May 11 

• Arguments Why Bitcoin Will Survive Amidst Negative Media Attention

CC Image by jdlasica.

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Ashton Kutcher and Bitcoin

At the TechCrunch Disrupt NY Conference, celebrity tech investor Ashton Kutcher raised Bitcoin as an example of technology disruption for potential mass good.

“I think bitcoins are obviously becoming more and more relevant,” said the actor, who is also founder of the A-Grade venture firm.

“The fact that people are hacking bitcoins really hard, it almost hearkens back to when banks first started and they didn’t have safe safes and people were going into the banks and just robbing money out of the safe. It actually validates the value of the money itself,” he said. “I think the fact that you can buy drugs and ammo with it is actually (a) validator of the currency itself.”

“The bigger thing with bitcoin is not bitcoin itself, but what does that decentralized technology really do?” Kutcher said. “The same infrastructure that built out bitcoin could be used in the security industry for mass good.”

Via CNBC.

CC Image by jdlasica.

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