The Verge - All about Bitcoin: the rise and trials of an anonymous virtual currency

Why won’t Bitcoin die?

2013-05-21T13:30:02Z

I attended the first Bitcoin World Conference and Expo, held in a second-floor meeting room in a midtown Manhattan hotel, on a Saturday in August 2011. The virtual currency was powering an alternative economy worth around $81 million USD. Roughly 75 attendees, mostly long-haired programmers and pasty cypherpunks, came from as far as Switzerland. After the talks, we took a group photo.

The Bitcoin economy is now worth more than $1 billion USD. More than 1,000 people showed up last weekend at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center for Bitcoin 2013, a much more professional affair hosted by the non-profit Bitcoin Foundation. Lanyarded Bitcoiners swarmed the trade show booths on Friday night, gripping wine in clear plastic cups, as a...

US seizes and freezes funds at biggest Bitcoin exchange

2013-05-15T07:16:33Z

Authorities in the US have reportedly frozen a mobile payments account associated with Bitcoin exchange MtGox, as part of an investigation announced Tuesday. Dwolla, an Iowa-based mobile payment startup, confirmed to Betabeat Tuesday that it has halted all activity associated with the account belonging to MtGox, after receiving a warrant from the Department of Homeland Security. A spokesperson for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) later told CNET that an investigation is underway, though she declined to comment on its scope or nature.

OKCupid cofounder Chris Coyne was among the first to publicize the seizure, posting a screenshot of an email he received from Dwolla yesterday. In the email, published to Coyne's Twitter...

Top Bitcoin exchange faces $75 million lawsuit as international partnership reportedly breaks down

2013-05-03T03:20:03Z

This past February, the largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, announced a partnership with an American company called CoinLab. The goal of the partnership was to give Mt. Gox access to US customers through CoinLab, as the company is strongest in Japan. It also served to help Mt. Gox navigate new regulation guidelines the US government has proposed for Bitcoin transactions. In all, it looked like it could have been a win-win — but as Gawker reports, that doesn't appear to be the case.

CoinLab has filed a lawsuit against Mt. Gox to the tune of $75 million. CoinLab alleges that Mt. Gox has "willfully failed to perform its obligations" under the original contract, because it "failed to provide CoinLab with account reconciliation data, server...

Employee creates Bitcoin botnet to exploit ESEA's 500,000-member gaming community

2013-05-02T10:42:21Z

The ESEA gaming network has been exploiting its users' powerful graphics cards to mine Bitcoins without their knowledge. "Mining" is the way Bitcoin is created — it involves dedicating some or all of a CPU or GPUs power to solving hashes, which in turn generates the virtual currency. The mining began on April 13th and affected thousands of gamers, who unwittingly mined over $3,700 worth of the currency. ESEA, which describes itself as "the largest competitive video gaming community in North America," wasn't aware that the Bitcoin mining was taking place, and blames the behavior on a rogue employee out for personal gain.

The full story on how and why the Bitcoin-mining software made its way to users' computers isn't yet available, but...

Gold 2.0: can code and competition build a better Bitcoin?

2013-04-23T13:30:04Z

Bitcoin has had a wild ride these past few months. The stateless digital currency’s price has soared to new heights only to plunge back down to earth at less than half its previous value. As the price of gold takes a nose dive of its own, some serious economists have risen to Bitcoin’s defense as true believers urge traders to hang on. Others argue the electronic money scheme is either a dangerous fad, a form of Dadaist art, or more simply, not money at all. But even as the debate rages on, one thing that's fostering hope for Bitcoin as a stable store of value is the fact that, unlike a gold bar or a dollar bill, new code and alternative currencies being built alongside Bitcoin might help change it for the better.

Since Bitcoin is...

Bitcoin exchange BitFloor shuts its doors, promises to return everyone's money

2013-04-18T02:38:35Z

Bitcoin exchange BitFloor is closing its doors, halting trading and announcing that it will return everyone’s funds. In an announcement on its main site, the company’s founder, Roman Shtylman, says that "due to circumstances outside [BitFloor’s] control" it "must cease all trading operations indefinitely." More specifically, BitFloor says that because its US bank account is closing it won’t be able to provide the same level of dollar deposits and withdrawals that it has been up to this point. The news comes after weeks of DDoS attacks and technical problems at leading exchange Mt. Gox and a roller coaster ride of price fluctuations that saw Bitcoin tank from a high of over $200 back down to a low below $70. The news was reported...

Dating site OKCupid wants to help Bitcoin users find love

2013-04-16T09:33:05Z

Online dating giant OkCupid is the latest in an increasingly-long line of companies to accept Bitcoin for payments. The site has teamed up with Bitcoin wallet site Coinbase to allow singles to subscribe to its premium service using the digital currency. Other sites that have recently opened their doors to Bitcoin payments include Reddit and expense report site Expensify. OkCupid may not seem like a typical fit for Bitcoin, but as Coinbase puts it, "this is one more step forward for bringing Bitcoin to the masses - one date at a time."

Mt. Gox goes back offline as the Bitcoin exchange reveals 'huge' DDoS attack (update)

2013-04-12T04:59:10Z

After a self-imposed 12-hour halt in trading due to crammed servers, Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox attempted to get back in business today with upgraded hardware — but it didn't take long before things went wrong again. The site is currently offline due to what the exchange tells The Verge is a "huge" DDoS attack; trading resumed for less than two hours.