If you want to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of being rich and feel embarrassed about your bank account at the same time, here’s a little exercise for you. Type $100,000 in a notepad app. That’s a lot of money! Then type that 10 times in a row for a million. Even more money! And finally, type $100,000 10,000 times for a billion. Yeah.
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PayPal just made 56-year-old Chris Reynolds a quadrillionaire. Yes, a quadrillionaire. For a little while, anyway.
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If there’s one thing I know about Gizmodo readers and staff, it’s that we all have a bunch of excess money that’s stressing us out. What should we do with it? Where should we invest it? Tough questions. But even if the whole tech startup vs. blockbuster investing question doesn’t quite apply to you it’s still kind of fascinating. The bottom line is, unsurprisingly, that they’re both super risky, but for different reasons.
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Wealth. Big stinking masses of it. That’s what the Bank of England is letting you get a glimpse of through its own official app. A panoramic tour gives a scrollable view of an unspecified number of gold bars, each weighing in at 13kg and — more importantly — worth around £350,000 ($528,000). (But hey, at least the app is free.) The Bank of England houses 400,000 of them in total, although most are actually owned by other banks. Those looking to channel the lifestyle of Scrooge McDuck can take the tour on both iOS and Android — hit up the source for links to both.
Source: Bank Of England
A Bitcoin ATM capable of gobbling up currency from over 200 countries and converting it instantly to the virtual currency is expected to hit the public this quarter, potentially shifting Bitcoins themselves into the mainstream. The machine, made by Lamassu, can switch physical to digital cash in fifteen seconds, the manufacturer claims, simply scanning in
Ever wondered how much money in video games and science fiction movies would be worth in our world? Well, thanks to the Intergalactic Exchange Bureau, you can now convert between a number of fictitious currencies.
Developed as a promotional stunt by Money in Advance, the Intergalactic Exchange Bureau can convert currencies from Star Wars, Star Trek, Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire and a couple of others. Whether you’re paying in Gold dragons, Septims, Creds, or Galactic Credits, you’re covered. Though don’t try and pay in Rupees. They don’t take Rupees.
Of course, they didn’t have actual exchange rates to work from, and they came up with their own estimates based on their independent assessment of the value of objects in the various fictional universes. That said, real-world currency relationships were based on actual market values. Though what the price of frozen concentrated orange juice in New York has to do with the price of lightsabers in the Dagobah system, I don’t know.
PayPal has launched a new program called Galactic that looks to explore the future of intergalactic payments. Most notably, how will people on Mars pay for things? PayPal is looking into this inevitable dilemma and is looking to find solutions before the problem even starts. Is it a good thinking-ahead move? It sure seems like
Good news for parents who were stung by children’s in-app purchases: Apple is now reaching out to affected customers, with disputed purchases under $30 qualifying for a $5 iTunes voucher in compensation and larger sums being fully refunded in cash.
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Mt. Gox is a popular Bitcoin exchange firm that deals with Bitcoin-related transactions, whether it is transferring a physical denomination to exchange into the virtual currency, or exchanging the virtual currency for actual cash. Because of the traffic it receives, the company has been having increasing trouble keeping up with USD withdrawal requests, prompting it
It’s easy to see that the Bitcoin market is under stress when there’s rising overall activity and tighter oversight. However, it’s now so hectic that the Mt. Gox exchange has trouble fulfilling even basic transactions — and the institution is freezing US dollar withdrawals for two weeks to keep things in check. Mt. Gox’s team will use the downtime to upgrade its trading system and (hopefully) address the heavy workload. Deposits and transfers in American currency should still be good to go. Let’s just hope that Mt. Gox manages smoother transitions in the future — after all, not everyone can afford to leave their money in limbo during a tech refresh.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Mt. Gox
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