This week as Silk Road is raided and billions in Bitcoins are taken in by the FBI, representatives for the secure internet system known as Tor have stepped up to suggest that the government did not break down security in Tor itself. Instead, they say, the FBI found out the Silk Road network and took […]
As the Silk Road came tumbling down today
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US federal agents seized the notorious Silk Road underground online store and arrested its founder, New York prosecutors confirmed today, taking the Tor-accessed bazaar of illegal and controlled substances, stolen software, and identity fraud documents offline. The FBI snatched Ross William Ulbricht, known as “Dread Pirate Roberts” (DPR) on the Silk Road, on Wednesday, the […]
Light just reached one of the darker corners of the web: the FBI has seized Silk Road, a site infamous for hosting anonymized, Bitcoin-based drug and gun sales. The move follows a sting operation that also led to the arrest of site founder Ross Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) for alleged hacking, money laundering and narcotics trafficking. While the seizure isn’t likely to stop online contraband purchases, it’s potentially a big blow. At current Bitcoin values, Silk Road generated $1.2 billion in revenue from just two years of operation — the kind of cash that we’d expect from a large, legitimate e-commerce venture. The FBI’s move also demonstrates that anonymizing technology like Tor won’t always keep law enforcement at bay.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Brian Krebs (Twitter), The Verge
Source: Nicholas Weaver (PDF)
RoboCoin, a kiosk that allows you to trade Bitcoin for other currencies, is now available for pre-order and should be shipping for “Fall 2013.” Lest you decide to become the Bitcoin bank for your neighborhood, remember that the machine costs $20,000 ($18,500 for early birds) and can currently trade BTC for USD.
The device is essentially a hardened, ATM-like machine with biometric time locks and privacy-shielded touchscreen. It can accept and dispense cash (and is “International denomination-ready”) and is Wi-Fi and 3G-enabled.
According to a blog posting the team is ready to change the way Bitcoin is bought and sold.
“RoboCoin represents a compelling investment for business owners,” they write. “They’ll earn a percentage of transactions and attract Bitcoin’s loyal user-base, while also offering unprecedented access and ease-of-adoption to Bitcoin newcomers. Furthermore every Robocoin on the market increases Bitcoin liquidity and usage, putting upward pressure on the digital currency’s valuation, awareness, and legitimacy.”
Robocoin first surfaced in in San Jose at a Bitcoin conference and is directly competing with Lamassu Bitcoin Ventures Bitcoin ATM. This model connects directly to Mt. Gox or Bitstamp, two BTC exchanges, for instant funding.
Having a real, working ATM will add a considerably energy to the Bitcoin market. While these units are arguably expensive (a cheap ATM tops out at about $3,000) it’s clear that the back end is what matters here and not the box. Wheeling one of these into, say, a hacker conference or other con would get you plenty of traffic and improve the standing of Bitcoin in general. Once BTC to other currency transactions are commonplace, it’s clear that cryptocurrencies may have even more of a fighting chance.
We’ve seen a number of “popular” words become part of our history books once the Oxford dictionary adds them to their dictionaries. It looks like that time is upon us once again as the Oxford Dictionaries has added a number of recently popular words, many of them have been upgraded from their slang-term origins. (more…)
Phablet, Bitcoin, Twerk And More Added To Oxford Dictionaries original content from Ubergizmo. 
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So far, governments have had polarized reactions to Bitcoin: they either recognize it as a fully regulated currency or ban it outright. Germany, however, has just taken a more nuanced position. The country now recognizes Bitcoin as private money that stays tax-free for personal uses, such as non-commercial internet auctions. You’ll only have to pay taxes on business transactions. While the decision doesn’t give Bitcoin as much weight as the euro, it should reassure Germans who want to stay on the right side of the law.
[Image credit: Zach Copley, Flickr]
Filed under: Internet
Via: RT News
Source: Die Welt (translated)
On July 1, we got our first look at Lamassu’s Bitcoin ATM, a smaller-than-your-average ATM machine that supports more than 200 local currencies and brings the realities of virtual money into your everyday life. Now the ATM is available for pre-order on the company’s website, with Lamassu kicking off production with a preliminary round of […]
Granted, it’s not exactly a traditional ATM — for one thing, you feed cash in. It’s not exactly a vending machine either — there are no candy bars here, just a transfer of funds to your account. Lamassu’s Bitcoin Machine scans your info via a QR code on your phone, you put some bills in the slot and voila, you’re a little closer to that Bitcoin mansion you’ve had your eye on. The company opened up pre-orders via its site this week — just send along 50.7278 Bitcoins ($5,000) and one of these bad boys is yours for the transferring later this year.
Source: Lamassu
Bitcoin startup Lamassu Bitcoin Ventures, the makers of a Bitcoin ATM which promises to eat your paper (fiat) money and spit Bitcoins into your digital wallet in return, have funded their initial production run of 15 units a few hours after kicking off pre-orders (via their website) — taking the bulk of payments in Bitcoin, fittingly.
Presumably that means they’ve booked $60,000-$75,000 in sales revenue for the initial production run — based on the $4,000-$5,000 per machine price-tag they talked about at the Bitcoin London conference last month. Lamassu is not, however, confirming how much revenue they’ve generated at this point.
What’s the point of a Bitcoin ATM? The aim is to lower the barrier of entry to the digital cryptocurrency — which still very much ‘reeks of geeks’ (and investors) at this still early stage in its development – by letting people swap banknotes for Bitcoin in person. Of course there are myriad ways to do fiat-to-Bitcoin currency exchanges online but the Bitcoin ATM doesn’t require the user to sign up to an online exchange service in order to get some Bitcoin. (Albeit, users of the ATM do need to have their own Bitcoin wallet to store their exchanged BTCs).
The Bitcoin ATM accepts paper currency only but there’s no minimum limit (yes, you can exchange $1 to get around 0.009 Bitcoin, at current exchange rates, if you really want). It only accepts cash, so no debit/credit card payments — a deliberate choice by its creators to keep their costs and complexity capped by not having to deal with banks.
They argue it also makes things simpler for purchasers of the ATM itself, being as they don’t have to gain bank approval to get the machine up and running. However they do warn that buyers still need to make sure they comply with any pertinent financial regulations in their own country (Bitcoin regulations can’t even charitably be called ‘a work in progress’ yet, and the Bitcoin policy confusion varies from country to country).
The startup says it has had more than 150 inquires about the machine ahead of production. Some of the countries that have put in pre-orders are Canada, Australia, New Zealand, U.S., Slovakia, Finland and Denmark, according to co-founder Zach Harvey.
While it’s funding the initial run from pre-orders and its own investment, Harvey said Lamassu may look to raise external funding in future. ”Investment is something we’re considering seriously for the next step of mass adoption,” he tells TechCrunch.
Lamassu expects to ship the first 15 units to buyers next month.
Here’s the pitch Harvey gave about the ATM at the Bitcoin London conference last month:
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