Australian Government Tracks All Bitcoin to AUD Conversions

The Australian government is keeping a close eye on bitcoin, but not on the regulatory front. Rather, it is tracking every conversion from bitcoin intoAustralian dollars, and vice-versa.

The government agency doing the snooping is the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac). The centre is tasked with countering money laundering and terrorist finance, so it is only logical that it would track anonymous transactions.

Tracking bitcoin-related transactions

Austrac CEO John Schmidt told lawmakers that Australia collects data on all international fund transfers, including bitcoin conversions, ZDnet reports.

“At some point, a person will be purchasing bitcoin using Australian dollars, for example, and then if they are dealing in substances or services, will want to convert those bitcoins back into the legitimate currencies of where ever they are, so they can gain the benefit of them.”

This is where it gets interesting. Because the centre gets international transfer instructions, it is possible to identify transactions made by people purchasing bitcoins.

Schmidt added that most countries have the same capability as Australia, but it is unclear whether they use it. He added that some prosecutions have already resulted from intelligence collected by the centre.

The CEO argued that bitcoin is a commodity used to transfer value rather than a legitimate currency. When bitcoins are converted into AUD, Austrac can identify those transactions.

Bitcoin is not a threat, yet

Schmidt also issued a warning that if bitcoin gains more independence from fiat currency it will become more attractive to criminal organizations that need to channel money around. In that case, international cooperation will be necessary, as Schmidt points out:

“Because they will operate on servers in jurisdictions around the world, and use very sophisticated methods to move and hide their identities. It’s when you have the international cooperation [...] that is the answer to being able to stop that criminal behaviour.”

Interestingly, Schmidt pointed out that Austrac is still not able to quantify the size of the bitcoin market in Australia, but he doesn’t see it as a major threat. He pointed out that people are gambling on the prospective value of bitcoin rather than using it for transactions.

“At this point in time, when you consider all the existing threats we face from the criminal perspective, they are not top of the list,” Schmidt concluded.

Australian 100 Dollar Bill image via Shutterstock

Post Source: http://www.coindesk.com/australian-government-tracks-all-bitcoin-aud-conversions/

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Bitcoins, other digital currencies stolen in massive 'Pony' botnet attack

Cybercriminals have infected the computers of digital currency holders, using a virus known as “Pony” to make off with account credentials, bitcoins and other digital currencies in one of the largest attacks on the technology, security services firm Trustwave said.

The attack was carried out using the “Pony” botnet, a group of infected computers that take orders from a central command-and-control server to steal private data. A small group of cybercriminals were likely behind the attack, Trustwave said.

Over 700,000 credentials, including website, email and FTP account log-ins, were stolen in the breach. The computers belonging to between 100,000 and 200,000 people were infected with the malware, Trustwave said.

The Pony botnet has been identified as the source of some other recent attacks, including the theft of some 2 million log-ins for sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter. But the latest exploit is unique due to its size and because it also targeted virtual wallets storing bitcoins and other digital currencies like Litecoins and Primecoins.

Eighty-five wallets storing the equivalent of $220,000, as of Monday, were broken into, Trustwave said. That figure is low because of the small number of people using Bitcoin now, the company said, though instances of Pony attacks against Bitcoin are likely to increase as adoption of the technology grows. The attackers behind the Pony botnet were active between last September and mid-January.

“As more people use digital currencies over time, and use digital wallets to store them, it’s likely we’ll see more attacks to capture the wallets,” said Ziv Mador, director of security research at Chicago-based Trustwave.

Most of the wallets that were broken into were unencrypted, he said.

“The motivation for stealing wallets is obviously high—they contain money,” Trustwavesaid in a blog post describing the attack. Stealing bitcoins might be appealing to criminals because exchanging them for another currency is easier than stealing money from a bank, Trustwave said.

There have been numerous cyberattacks directed at Bitcoin over the last year or so as its popularity grew. Last year, a piece of malware circulating over Skype was identified as running a Bitcoin mining application. Bitcoin mining is a process by which computers monitor the Bitcoin network to validate transactions.

“Like with many new technologies, malware can be an issue,” said a spokesman for the Bitcoin Foundation, a trade group that promotes the use of Bitcoin, via email. Wallet security should improve, the spokesman said, as more security features are introduced, like multisignature transactions, he said.

Digital currency users can go to this Trustwave site to see if their wallets and credentials have been stolen.

Post Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2101260/bitcoins-other-digital-currencies-stolen-in-massive-pony-botnet-attack.html

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Are cracks beginning to show in bitcoin?

In spite of setbacks, Bitcoin start-up founder Jeremy Allaire remains confident currency has a viable future

Jeremy Allaire: “I have long-term savings in bitcoin, though not a huge amount of my assets. It is important that I have long term belief in the currency. I give my sons their allowance in bitcoin and I’ve bought everything from socks to food to electronics with it.” Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons

It has been a difficult seven days for bitcoin. Last Friday the world’s largest bitcoin exchange Mt Gox halted withdrawals of the digital currency citing a software bug.

“A bug in the bitcoin software makes it possible for someone to use the bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of bitcoins to a bitcoin wallet did not occur when in fact it did occur,” the Tokyo-based exchange said in a statement.

“Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly the bitcoins may be resent.”

By Monday, the price of the cryptocurrency had fallen to its lowest level in two months.

On Tuesday, Slovenia-based Bitstamp became the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals, blaming a denial-of-service attack, and Bulgaria-based BTC-E quickly followed suit.

Bitcoin was coming under pressure from hackers launching attacks across the currency’s eco-system, worsened by the fact that the currency is a decentralised digital system of value transfers not governed by any central bank, company or government.

‘Incredibly illiquid’

The currency’s price, which was more than $800 last Friday, plummeted as low as $102.

Even investment bank JP Morgan weighed in on the crisis, saying bitcoin was a “vastly inferior” currency and not a solid investment.

In the report called The Audacity of Bitcoin , John Norman, the company’s head of forex strategy, called the currency “incredibly illiquid” and “extremely volatile”.

“At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, bitcoin looks like an innovation worth limiting exposure to. As a medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value, it is vastly inferior to fiat currencies,” Norman said.

It’s not the first time the cryptocurrency has been the subject of problems.

It was implicated in a huge drug bust last year when the Federal Bureau of Investigation took down the Silk Road electronic exchange.

It experienced regulatory pressure from trading restrictions in China to a recent threat of a complete ban in Russia.

Earlier this month, the Russian authorities issued a warning against using bitcoin, saying Russian law stipulates that the rouble is the sole official currency and that introducing any other monetary units or substitutes was illegal.

The currency also absorbed a decision by Apple to remove all bitcoin-related software from its app store.

However, in the face of all this adversity, bitcoin entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire says he is confident the digital currency will survive.

Allaire, who founded the bitcoin payments company Circle, said the freeze on bitcoin withdrawals imposed by three major exchanges would not cause any long-term damage to the digital currency’s credibility.

“If anything, the recent attacks and response from the bitcoin community, both core developers and ecosystem participants, demonstrate the resiliency and agility of this platform.

“These challenges are driving a greater focus on platform stability, security and scalability, which are important focuses as we move from the early adopter phase into mainstream usage.”

Allaire is one of the people arguing that bitcoin companies should work with governments to establish regulations for the currency.

His bitcoin payments company raised $9 million in venture capital funding and is due to launch later this year, with international operations headquartered in Dublin.

Concerns

“There is no point in dismissing the whole digital currency idea because there are concerns,” he says.

To ensure widespread adoption of bitcoin, he says there needs to be rules around its use.

“There is a strong need to prevent money laundering and criminality with bitcoin. There needs to be rules if bitcoin is going to be big.

Post Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/financial-services/are-cracks-beginning-to-show-in-bitcoin-1.1690576

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BitcoinWallet.com Domain Sold for $250,000

The domain name BitcoinWallet.com has been purchased by Austin, Texas, entrepreneur Alex Charfen for $250,000.

Niko Younts, a media consultant, bitcoin investor and the domain’s previous owner, broke the news via Twitter on 5th February.

Younts, who confirmed the sale to CoinDesk but declined to comment, also noted in the post that he is close to selling the domain BitcoinWallets.com for a similar asking price. The domain asset was a part of the NeverLoseVision.com investment portfolio, a seven-figure incubator portfolio with startup projects and investment domain assets.

A search of the WHOIS domain record-keeping database revealed that Younts is the current owner of BitcoinWallets.com, and that Charfen is the current owner of BitcoinWallet.com.

Who is Alex Charfen?

Founder of the Charfen Institute with his wife Cadey Charfen, Alex Charfen is an established entrepreneur and published author having written books as well as opinion articles for high-profile publications.

Also an accomplished motivational speaker, Charfen has built his career on his personal comeback story. In the 1990s, Charfen worked as at a multinational conglomerate, but lost everything when his investments in real estate were wiped out by the recession and subsequent financial collapse.

Undeterred, Charfen filed for bankruptcy and soon decided he could help the real estate industry learn from the mistakes it made. Charfen launched the Distressed Property Institute as a way to offer REALTORS additional education, and soon started the Charfen Institute, which provides training and educational products.

The company now earns 10.8m annually and placed among the Inc. 5000 in 2013.

Plans for BitcoinWallet.com?

A screenshot of BitcoinWallet.com

At press time, Charfen had not responded to requests for comment about his plans for the website. However, should the entrepreneur decide to launch a bitcoin wallet service, he is likely to find competition from the available desktop, mobile and web wallets.

Existing bitcoin wallet providers such asBlockchain, which recently passed 1 million users, and Coinbase, which raised $25m in its last round of funding, have already established themselves as dominant names in the space.

However, as the bitcoin market continues to grow, it’s not out of the question that the need for more user-friendly wallets, or even specialty types of wallets will emerge, meaning the investment could pay dividends.

What do you think of the purchase? Weigh in with your thoughts below.

Source: http://www.coindesk.com/inc-5000-entrepreneur-buys-bitcoinwallet-com-domain-for-250k/

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Apple Kills Last Bitcoin App

Bitcoin wallets are getting blocked from the App Store

Apple removed the last remaining app used to exchange the digital currency Bitcoin from its App Store on Wednesday.

Blockchain, the bitcoin wallet app, said on its blog that it had no prior warning it would be barred from the store or prompting it to make changes to that app. It said Apple’s only explanation was “unresolved issues.”

Other bitcoin-related apps like Coinbase, Gliph and CoinJar have also been removed from the store. While Bitcoin isn’t illegal, it’s also not recognized as legal currency by governments, TechCrunch notes. This could conflict with section 22.1 of the App Store’s review guidelines, which states that “apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users. It is the developer’s obligation to understand and conform to all local laws.”

Google’s Android platform still allows developers to create and maintain bitcoin wallet apps.

Source: http://business.time.com/2014/02/06/apple-bitcoin-blockchain-app-store/

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Wisconsin man loses $150,000 in international bitcoin scam

By Christena T. O'Brien

The Leader-Telegram

An Eau Claire man has reported losing more than $150,000 in an international Internet scam using a different kind of money.

Jamie Russell, a 34-year-old software engineer who lives in Eau Claire, first invested in bitcoin -- digital currency exchanged through a peer-to-peer network -- in August 2012. He purchased hundreds of bitcoins in their infancy for $5 per coin. Since then the currency has increased in value to more than $800 apiece.

Concerned about the security of his digital bitcoins, Russell agreed to digitally submit 201.7 bitcoins to a man in the United Kingdom for 190 physical bitcoins, or tokens with a bitcoin digital key hidden behind a tamper-proof strip. (Russell actually has some of the physical currency, which he keeps in a safe place outside his home.)

Between Dec. 9 and 11, Russell transmitted digital bitcoins worth $151,275 to the digital wallet of a man who identified himself as David Williamson, according to an Eau Claire police report. The men met through the website bitcointalk.org and had been in contact for more than a year, and Russell came to trust Williamson.

Williamson provided Russell with two shipping tracking numbers and indicated the physical coins were en route to his home in Eau Claire. But they never arrived, prompting Russell to contact Williamson, who provided excuses and eventually cut off all communication.

Russell, who had completed a number of bitcoin transactions -- but none with Williamson -- prior to this with no problems, posted the information online on bitcointalk.org and subsequently learned that as many as a dozen other users also had been defrauded by Williamson.

"I guess criminals flock to places that are fairly new," said Russell, noting Williamson had attempted to get him to exchange even more of his digital bitcoins for the physical tokens. "It's very unfortunate."

Russell reported the fraud to UK officials, who told him he also needed to file a complaint with local police. He then reported the scam to an Eau Claire police officer on Dec. 29.

"It was pretty devastating to have this happen," said Russell, who remains a proponent of the bitcoin. "It still makes me sick to say the amount of money that was lost."

Even with the theft, Russell, who got into bitcoins as a high-risk, speculative investment, said he's still money ahead of where he was before he invested in the virtual money.

Still, he's not taking the loss lightly.

"My mistake was paying money (in the form of the digital bitcoins) first, which exposed me to more risk," he said.

Before sending money in any form to someone or some business overseas, Eau Claire police Lt. Derek Thomas advises people to research the intended recipient.

"These people overseas try to develop a rapport with people in the U.S., ... and once they get the money, they run," Thomas said. And "when a crime occurs overseas, it's very difficult for us to follow up."

Russell, who reads bitcoin articles daily, makes no apologies for his actions.

"Everything I've done in the bitcoin realm has been with my eyes wide-open," he said.

Even though Williamson lives in another country, Russell remains "expectant that he is going to be prosecuted," he said. However, "I'm not expectant that I'm going to get any money out of him."

Post Source: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25057486/wisconsin-man-loses-150-000-international-bitcoin-scam

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Marc Andreessen Predicts Bitcoin Will Change Chip Design Forever

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen believes digital currencies could change the way processors are designed.

Andreessen doesn’t exactly need an introduction. An avid bitcoin advocate, he tends to be quite outspoken – putting his money where his mouth is through investment firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Turning data centres into mining rigs

Speaking at the Open Compute Summit last week, Andreessen said that mining is at the heart of bitcoin, as it handles all computation needed to maintain the trust network, reports TechWeek Europe. He added:

“The press reports on mining as a waste of time, but in reality it’s all the proof of work computation that makes a distributed trust network work.”

Andreessen added that cryptocurrency mining is a “very big thing” and that we are still in the very early stages of it. This is where Andreessen sees an opportunity for chipmakers.

Custom mining chips are nothing new, but few people expected the rise of ASICs to transform the mining scene in such a short time. Andreessen believes custom chips will dominate mining for quite a while, but things could take another unexpected turn.

Andreessen told the gathering that his company has already received pitches for bitcoin optimised data centres. However, it is unclear what such pitches would entail in terms of hardware.

Using standardised server racks to add a bit of mining power to existing data centres is one option, as it would essentially add a few ASICs to a huge data centre.

Another farfetched scenario would be the emergence of custom chips that can deal with standard workloads and mining. In theory, this could be done by adding specialized circuits to x86- or ARM-based server parts, but it is simply not practical for the time being, either on-die or in the same chip package.

Opportunities and pitfalls

Although Andreessen is rather optimistic, there are quite a few problems with bitcoin mining hardware that may keep it out of data centres for a while. Economies of scale are the most obvious challenge, the sheer pace of development is another.

Using existing infrastructure for mining is a tantalizing prospect, but with huge performance gains offered by every new generation of ASICs, deploying bitcoin mining hardware in a server setting would be a rather risky investment.

Once the hardware goes out of date, it would practically become a useless drain.Chipmakers go to great lengths to shave off a few watts from their server processors and to increase their life cycle by making them future proof, thus reducing the total cost of ownership. Adding bitcoin mining features to them could have the exact opposite effect.

In addition, the market for bitcoin mining hardware remains limited. Wedbush Securities estimates that the total market for bitcoin mining hardware stood at $200m in 2013.

It isn’t a small market, until you compare it to overall semiconductor sales. To put things into perspective, Gartner puts the revenue generated in the server space in 2013 at more than $12bn a quarter.

Image Credit: Fortune Live Media / Flickr

Post Source: http://www.coindesk.com/marc-andreessen-bitcoin-change-chip-design-forever/

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Hotels Now Accept Bitcoins

200,000 Hotels Now Accept Bitcoin Through Online Travel Agency CheapAir

California-based travel agency CheapAir.com has announced that it is expanding its service to allow bitcoin users to book hotel stays with the cryptocurrency.

CheapAir has been accepting bitcoin for flight bookings since Novemberwhen it partnered with Coinbase, however until today, users have not been able to pay in bitcoin for its extensive hotel inventory.

Speaking to CoinDesk, CEO and founder Jeff Klee voiced his enthusiasm for becoming the “first company in the US” to allow bitcoin users to book hotel stays with the virtual currency:

“Bitcoin gets a bad rap in mainstream media. What I found is that the people who use bitcoin are great, they’re passionate and they’re looking to solve a lot of the problems inherent in the economic system and the world.”

The news garnered a largely positive reaction on reddit and the BitcoinTalk forum, with ambitious bitcoin users even suggesting they would pass the news along to other travel companies that have expressed a cautious interest in bitcoin.

Better-than-expected return

“For it to become a really big part of our business, bitcoin itself needs to grow. We think it will.”

Klee indicates that the decision to expand its program to include hotels was due to a “better than anticipated” response from the community after it began accepting bitcoin payment for flights.

“We had no idea what to expect, however, it generated a nice enthusiasm,” Klee recounts.

Klee did not share specific numbers, but did say that bitcoin customers are more likely to become loyal than traditional customers, and that his company receives “a nice volume of emails from bitcoin customers”. Still, despite these benefits, he won’t call bitcoin a game-changer for CheapAir just yet, though he thinks CheapAir’s position could change as the currency gains more loyal users.

How CheapAir pays hotels

For CheapAir, paying hotels and flight providers is still a challenge, but one they find worthwhile given the currency’s dedicated customers and engaged base. Klee noted that in order to process transactions, CheapAir must accept the bitcoin and exchange it for fiat currency before paying hotels. This means certain hotels, those that require patrons to pay at checkout, will still be off limits to bitcoin customers.

Klee notes that “once in a while you’ll see a hotel on our site that won’t have a bitcoin logo by it”, but that the majority of properties on the site will see the bitcoin logo clearly displayed on its listings.

Source: http://www.coindesk.com/200000-hotels-accept-bitcoin-cheapair/

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Luxury Yacht Service Makes its First Bitcoin Booking

Luxury yacht service The Advantaged Yacht Charter and Sales in Miami Beach has received its first booking paid for in bitcoin.

The company officially began accepting bitcoin in October last year, but only made its first booking, paid for with the digital currency, last week.

The company has a total of 26 boats in Miami Beach which it rents out, starting from $1,200 for four hours up to $18,000 for the most extravagant packages. Each one comes complete with a captain, a stewardess and a fruit and cheese platter.

Their first bitcoin deal came about after Tony Gallippi, owner of payment processorBitPay gave the company a shout out during his opening speech at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami.

Jessica Londono, co-owner of The Advantaged Yacht Charter and Sales in Miami Beach, was at the conference, as was her first bitcoin client. She explained:

“[Gallippi] just literally said a small little blurb about us, then my client went on and Googled me, saw the website, saw we accept bitcoin and then called me.”

Londono was able to effortlessly process the transaction for her client’s $2,500 charter using BitPay.

“It was literally the easiest transaction I’ve ever done,” she said. “I’ve co-owned the company for about nine years and this transaction took less than one minute.”

Londono sent her client an email with the contract for his charter and the BitPay address. “It’s so much easier than any credit card transaction I’ve ever done,” she added.

Nominal charges

As well as being a much quicker process, accepting bitcoin is also cheaper for vendors, as payment processors such as BitPay require a nominal charge in comparison to credit card charges. Londono said:

“American Express charges about 3.5%, which we lose out of our profits. Bitcoin is essentially free, depending on what service you use.”

Using bitcoin also makes the booking process simpler for Londono’s clients.

Londono first got into bitcoin in March 2012 through her “Apple genius husband”. Now her company, which also deals in yacht sales, is in the process of completing its first boat sale in bitcoin.

She stresses bitcoin is not simply a get-rich-quick scheme for her; it’s about exposure. Going to networking events like the Miami conference has been an opportunity to meet other eager people within the bitcoin community.

“I go to networking events on a daily basis trying to promote my brand, but it was so refreshing to go somewhere where every single person was so happy to talk to you and explain what they do,” she said.

“Everyone’s so excited about bitcoin that it’s just a pleasure to go ahead and get more involved and have more people be part of the bitcoin community.”

She hopes more vendors in South Florida will start to accept bitcoin payments soon.

“We have so many people with foreign currency that this would be an easy way to just unify us all.”

Source: http://www.coindesk.com/luxury-yacht-service-makes-first-bitcoin-booking/

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