PATREONItems tagged with bitcoin
Since its debut in 2009, Bitcoin has enjoyed a massive share of the cryptocurrency market to the point where it almost seemed untouchable. While there are many different cryptocurrencies out there, none have been a serious threat to the big B. That is until now. The mighty alternative to challenge Bitcoin as of late is called Ethereum, a cryptocurrency that's been around for just under two years. If you've been partaking in the Internet at all lately, you've probably found mention of the hot new currency unmissable. Many have begun wondering how they can dive in and strike it rich with Ethereum (including those who avoided the Bitcoin bandwagon entirely), and that's beginning to show in the currency's...
Read more...
Early adopters of Bitcoin who horded as much of the cryptocurrency as they could and then sat back have reason to celebrate today. The volatile digital currency topped the $3,000 mark over the weekend. While the value of Bitcoin has been known to see big spikes (and drops), this was this first time it breached $3,000 since the cryptocurrency was introduced in 2009. Reaching the new milestone was not wholly unexpected. Bitcoin had been trending between $2,700 and $2,900 during the past week before leaping over the $3,000 hurdle, albeit briefly. To put the milestone into perspective, you could have purchased 5,000 Bitcoins in 2009 for a measly $27, as one Norwegian man did who forgot about them...
Read more...
Your stash of Bitcoin may right now be worth a lot more than a pretty penny, at least currently. The total market cap for cryptocurrency just hit an all-time high north of $100 billion USD. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple have lead the charge over the last two months and there seems to be no sign of them slowing down any time soon. Since April 1st the combined market cap of cryptocurrency has increased 300 percent from $25 billion to $100 billion. Bitcoin has witnessed an 160 percent upshot while Ethereum’s value has increased by 439 percent. There have been a few dips in value over the last few weeks, but they have all been short-lived. Bitcoin values went from $2,700 to $2,000, but then pulled...
Read more...
With the popularity of upstart Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum on the rise and the value of well-established currencies like Bitcoin steadily increasing, there is new-found interest in Cryptocurrency mining. If you remember, a few years back, Cryptocurrency miners caused a shortage of AMD GPUs, which resulted in such high demand that what were supposed to be relatively affordable graphics cards ultimately sold at price points significantly above their MSRP. Over time, GPUs were supplanted by more power-efficient FPGAs and ASICs specifically designed for Bitcoin Cryptocurrency mining, but changes in the market have once again made GPUs a viable solution.MSI Radeon RX 580As such, there is another...
Read more...
Bitcoin seems to be the currency of choice when it comes to demanding ransoms, and that is because culprits demanding payment can hide behind a pseudonym (Bitcoin itself is not actually anonymous). So it is no surprise that a hacking organization has instructed Apple to fork over a Bitcoin ransom in exchange for not leaking a cache of iCloud and other Apple email accounts belonging to hundreds of millions of iPhone owners.The hackers call themselves the "Turkish Crime Family." In addition to accepting Bitcoin, the group has told Apple it would also be fine with being paid in Ethereum, which is another form of crypto-currency that is gaining in popularity. Either way, the group wants the equivalent...
Read more...
When ransomware strikes, its impact could range from mild to severe. Sometimes, ransomware targets regular users, while other times, it targets important mega-corporations (or even police stations). In this latest incident, it affected a hotel, and subsequently ran the risk of affecting all of its guests. Here it is, the downright gorgeous Romantik Seehotel Jägerwirt in Austria. Staying at a place like this is the stuff dreams are made of. It could feel like paradise on Earth; certainly not a place where you'd expect to have to deal with the major hassle of being locked out of your room against even the hotel's will. This hotel, like so many others, integrates many of its intricate utilities...
Read more...
If you operate a Web server that runs on Linux, we're here to give you a bit of a prod in case you haven't updated it in a while. A piece of ransomware called FairWare is floating around, and as you'll soon see, its name is ironic as it's anything but "fair". Reports are coming in of users who have been struck with this awful type of malware, although it doesn't seem clear at this point exactly how the infection takes place. It's also not clear if this is some sort of automated attack -- one that simply scans the internet at large and infects where it can -- or if the attacks are focused. Either way, if you are hit with it, you are in for a bad day. Once infected, you'll notice that you no longer...
Read more...
In the latest episode of what's become an ongoing Silk Road soap opera, the U.S. Marshals Service announced this week that it plans to auction more than 2,700 Bitcoins that were confiscated as a result of several investigations tied to the illegal marketplace. All tallied, the Bitcoins are worth in the neighborhood of $1.6 million in U.S. currency.This isn't the first auction of forfeited Bitcoins from the Silk Road saga and it may not be the last. There have been four previous auctions of the digital currency from June 2014 to November 2015, all of which were seized during the prosecution of Ross Will Ulbricht, otherwise known by his online identity Dread Pirate Roberts.The FBI raided and shutdown...
Read more...
Will the real creator of Bitcoin please stand up? It appeared he did in 2014 when Satoshi Nakamoto was identified as the mysterious man behind the popular cryptocurrency that took the world by storm. Newsweek even tracked him down for a cover story. He's since denied any involvement with Bitcoin, and adding to the intrigue is a blog post by an Australian entrepreneur who claims he is the real creator of the digital currency. His name is Craig Wright, and if we're to believe him, Satoshi Nakamoto was nothing more than a pseudonym, a "public persona" so that he could still contribute to Bitcoin's growth while keeping his real identity hidden. Not anymore, apparently."Since those early days, after...
Read more...
Valve has decided to start accepting Bitcoin payments on Steam in an attempt to expand the accessibility its digital distribution empire into emerging gaming markets such as India, China, and Brazil. By adding Bitcoin to the mix, Valve is making it easier for gamers who live in places where traditional payment options aren't available to stock their online libraries. Bitpay will handle the logistics of accepting the popular cryptocurrency through Steam. According to Bitpay, it was Valve that approached the company to make this possible so that it could "easily reach gamers in every market around the world," and do it "without the high fees or the risk of chargeback fraud that come with card payments."...
Read more...
It seems that it was just yesterday that someone had to know a thing or two about software and programming to wreak havoc on fine upstanding Internet citizens via malware incursion. Ah, the good old days. Nostalgia aside, though, one cannot help but feel rattled by the news that security researchers at McAfee have discovered new software with which the oh-so-nefarious out there can easily construct their own ransomware. And not only is such a product in the wild, but it is online software, too, accessible by anyone capable of navigating a keyboard and a TOR browser. Dubbed Tox, the devil's tool raising the ruckus runs on TOR and is easy to work out and completely...
Read more...
Bitcoin’s price is dropping, and no one has a clear explanation for why. After dropping to an all-time low of about $181 over the weekend, the value of Bitcoin has improved to about $330 – still well below the highs the digital currency once enjoyed. Theories for the recent drop abound, but few experts are finding an explanation on which they can agree. Bitcoin enthusiast Roger Ver is defending the digital currency. If you are a long-time bitcoin investor, you’ve been on quite a ride. The digital currency reached a peak of $1,150 in December of last year and retailers like Dell have been rushing to accept it. But Bitcoin has had a volatile several months since. The most recent...
Read more...
Bitcoin is quickly overcoming its sketchy past, one that was linked with illicit drug markets and other illegal activities. It's still a highly volatile currency, but it's also one that more and more online and offline vendors are willing to gamble on. That includes online auction site eBay, which is reportedly in talks with various bitcoin payment processing companies, including Coinbase, to integrate bitcoin processing into its Braintree payments subsidiary, which is a part of PayPal. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, no agreement has yet been reached. Should a deal eventually be put in place, however, it would be a major endorsement of bitcoin -- and the virtual coin movement...
Read more...
Bitcoin just landed a big time partner in Dell, the third largest PC maker in the world and now the largest e-commerce merchant to accept the cryptocurrency. Dell doesn't get the distinction of being the first system builder to jump on the bandwagon, but with nearly $60 billion in annual sales, the OEM is by far bitcoin's biggest e-commerce coup. Coinbase is the bridge connecting the two, and with the third-party payment processor's integration, Dell is able to accept bitcoin payments from both its home consumer and small business clients in the U.S. To pay with bitcoin, you simply add items to your cart as you normally would and then select "Bitcoin" as the payment option. To celebrate the partnership,...
Read more...
The somewhat controversial cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin continues to show signs that it's here to stay, as opposed to a passing tech fad. More and more companies are starting to accept Bitcoin as payment for goods and services, and even Google is embracing it, or at least acknowledging that it's an important part of today's Internet culture. In collaboration with Coinbase, you can now look up conversion rates for Bitcoin using Google Search. Google Finance partnered with Coinbase a month ago to launch a Bitcoin price tracker that allowed for quick and easy BTC-to-fiat price conversions compatible with a range of global currencies, from the Icelandic króna to the United States dollar....
Read more...
California fancies itself a fairly progressive state, so it wouldn't be all that shocking if Bitcoin ATMs littered the length of the location of the west coast within the next few years. For now, however, there are just two and they exist in the Los Angeles area. They're managed by ExpressCoin, a Bitcoin payment processor based out of Santa Monica. You can find one of them at 5825 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood and the other at 701 Lincoln Blvd. in Venice. Both ATMs are worth $15,000 and were built by Robocoin out of Las Vegas. Image Source: US Finance Post Bitcoin ATMs are a rare breed at this early stage, though gaining momentum. According to Coin ATM Radar, there are only 132 Bitcoin ATMs in...
Read more...
The bumpy Silk Road saga is finally coming to an end after the U.S. Marshals Service auctioned away some 30,000 Bitcoins that were confiscated from the site. It was a 12-hour auction consisting of nine blocks of 3,000 Bitcoins and a single block of 2,657 Bitcoins. All combined, the confiscated cryptocurrency was worth just shy of $18 million. Silk Road was once a popular site for purchasing illegal drugs and other shady miscellaneous items. Bitcoin quickly became a preferred method of payment due to its anonymous nature, which had obvious appeal for buyers trying to keep their activities on the down low. Image Source: Flickr (BTC Keychain) The FBI raided and shutdown Silk Road in September of...
Read more...
We all make mistakes, but as it turns out, some of them are more significant than others. As the Silk Road and Bitcoin saga continues, it appears that a list of bidders who were hoping to place bids for the ~$18 million in seized assets from Silk Road's closure have been made public. For a bit of background, around 30,000 Bitcoins were confiscated from Silk Road after it was seized and shut down for illegal practices. The U.S. Marshals Service was helping to handle a nine block bidding process, whereby the $18 million in assets could be re-entered into the market via legal means. Unfortunately, an email with those bidders was sent around, and Blind Copy wasn't used. Thus, identities were leaked,...
Read more...
Apple made a huge amount of announcements today as it pertains to OS X and iOS 8, but one theme managed to translate throughout: it's opening itself up a bit more than it has in the past. That means that third-party keyboard apps will now be supported throughout the OS, and third-party apps will have access to the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Beyond all of that, it appears that even Bitcoin will be supported within iOS 8, which is a direct 180 from Apple's stance just a few months ago. The company had been fair heavy-handed with its disapproval of apps related to the virtual currency, and while it has yet to come out and straight-up confirm that Bitcoin will be allowed into the iOS ecosystem...
Read more...
We're not going to stand on our soap box and talk about how pirating games is wrong and how it robs publishers and developers of the fruits of their labor. We won't even bring up how piracy has led to increasingly intrusive and annoying DRM schemes. However, we will point out that there are other reasons why you should think twice about pirating a PC game, one of the biggest being the risk of infection. Can you really trust that torrent file to be free of malicious debris? Not always. There's a torrent floating around that claims to be an early version of Ubisoft's forthcoming Watch Dogs title, but what's hidden inside the archive is a Bitcoin miner. At best, downloading the torrent and attempting...
Read more...
Depending on where you live and shop, you can buy a taco with Bitcoin, a form of virtual currency. You can also buy computer systems and even a Lamborghini with Bitcoin. Despite various shady activities and scandals associated with untraceable crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, the list of things you can buy with it keeps it growing. Heck, you can even make donations to political committees. The U.S. Federal Election Committee (FEC) is allowing Bitcoin to be used to make donations to political action committees under certain conditions, Reuters reports. Following a unanimous vote, the FEC approved donations up to an individual limit of $100 for each election cycle. Political committees are also...
Read more...
Security researchers at Trend Micro report finding a new Android malware family designed to mine crytocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin. The malicious mining code is being repackaged in copies of popular apps like Football Manger Handheld and TuneIn Radio. To hide the code, malware writers modify the Google Mobile Ads portion of the app, allowing them to slip into Google Play. Once installed, the hidden code gets busy mining virtual currencies in the background. It detects when there's an Internet connection so that the CPU miner can connect to a dynamic domain, which then redirects to an anonymous Dogecoin (or other virtual currency) mining pool, Trend Micro says. In one example,...
Read more...
