Seals with Clubs, Breakout Gaming, Michael Mizrachi's Get Lucky Poker and to a lesser extent NXT's Pangea Poker are just some of the names attempting to establish themselves as Bitcoin based online poker venues. Into this mix comes a new site named Bitnplay who hope that their Bitcoin only online poker site will be enough to entice players away from competitors when they launch February 1st 2015. Continue reading
Sony Now to Release Movie
The movie The Interview whose release was canceled under duress, is now being released. Once again some measure of coercion is likely involved.
GCHQ Says Its Surveillance Ability is Crippled Post-Snowden
According to the Telegraph the British Intelligence gathering agency Global Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, is warning people that it apparently can no longer effectively track people they refer to as "some of the world's most dangerous crime lords." Problems they claim to face in the post-Snowden age include people taking better operational security measures to avoid surveillance as well as a fear on their part to engage in many of the kinds of surveillance that have been revealed because they might be discovered. They also report that cooperation from communications companies has become problematic in smuggling and fraud cases as the companies insist requests concern matters that involve “direct threat to life” now. Continue reading
Satoshi Nakamoto Institute Launch Podcast
Daniel Krawisz and Michael Goldstein of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute today broadcast the first episode of their new podcast titled "The Crypto-Mises Podcast". Episode one covers app coins and why they are a bad investment and includes a response to Vitalek Buterin's article "On Bitcoin Maximalism, and Currency and Platform Network Effects."
The new podcast comes off the back of the duo's informative round table discussion series.
Belarus Experiences Bonanza/Currency Panic
In dueling narratives in today's news headlines in Belarus the country is simultaneously experiencing both a trade bonanza and a currency panic to which strong capital controls have been imposed in response. As this happens a Russian Member of Parliament hinted in a tweet that if President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko warms relations with the west in an effort to improve economic prospects he might face a fate similar to Libya's Ghaddafi who fell in a coup supported by the United States after entering into a détente. Continue reading
50 Cent on Accepting Bitcoin
On the Seth Meyers' Late Night show, rapper 50 Cent described his feelings about the cryptocurrency: Continue reading
Preet Bharara: Keep Politics Out of Ulbricht Defense
The Daily Dot reports that prosecutors in the Ross Ulbricht case working under Preet Bharara is seeking to bar Ulbricht and his defense team from bringing up the subject of Ulbricht's political beliefs at trial, and wants to prevent Ulbricht from saying anything political at all on the stand. Preet Baharara is himself specifically concerned that the defense wants to bring up: Continue reading
Four Bitcoin Based Projects From MIT Students
From MIT 6.858 comes four Final Projects which are using Bitcoin. They are:
- Dryer21 – A bitcoin mixing service.
- CheckBits – A guarantor system for retail payments so that customer information such as a Bitcoin address can be obfuscated.
- TorCoin – An altcoin used to achieve consensus on the Tor network.
- Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees.
Reddit Goes Full Redditard with Reddit Notes
In February of 2013, Reddit began accepting bitcoin for Reddit Gold. The company then went on to hire Ryan X. Charles as a Cryptocurrency Engineer, tasked with a secret project revealed today as Reddit Notes.
The company recently raised $50 million, which could be the result of the company's inability to remain profitable long term, as the company closed the 2013 fiscal year in the red, resulting in the "daily reddit gold goal" meter. Now being valued at $500 million, the company stated its desire to give back 10% of its equity to its user base via cryptocurrency. Continue reading
Jim Harper Departs The Bitcon Fundation
Patrick Murck has confirmed the departure of Jim Harper from the Bitcon Fundation. Harper, who joined the foundation in March of this year, set to work building a bridge between Bitcoin and governments of the world. As it turns out, spinning your wheels or as Murck puts it – trail blazing – is too costly an endeavour and the foundation will now shift its focus from lobbying and back to Core development. Continue reading