Not Legal Tender

Ask any Modern Monetary Theorist and they’ll tell you the difference between Bitcoin and a currency is that it’s not legal tender, that is to say that it’s not mandated by the State as acceptable payment for all debts, public and private. Nonetheless, users of the bitcoin revolution app will tell you the profits that can be made from bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are most-definitely real. That could very possibly change in the future though, which is why people often enjoy keeping up to date with all things Bitcoin through websites like aboutbitcoin.io. Because one day Bitcoin could very well become legal tender. But for now, it isn’t. However, there is still a growing interest in bitcoin as potential digital currency, with the market slowly growing and becoming open to services similar to xCoins and other crypto-based exchanges. For now, those who are interested are keeping an eye on these changes just in case it grows even more in the future.

Instead this libertarian fantasy is a mere illusion of a commodity, not even as useful as gold which you can’t eat but at least has the properties of non-reactivity, conductivity, and ductility.

Third cryptocurrency exchange becomes hacking victim, loses Bitcoin

By Charlie Osborne for Zero Day

March 6, 2014 — 10:27 GMT (02:27 PST)

Poloniex, a Bitcoin trading post similar to Mt. Gox, has lost 12.3 percent of the Bitcoin stored in hot wallets on the website. However, in stark contrast to how Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles handled his company’s Bitcoin losses, the owner of Poloniex, Tristan D’Agosta — a.k.a. Busoni — admitted to the loss and asked users how they would like to be compensated.

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Mt. Gox, once the dominate Bitcoin trading post online, closed its doors last week and filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan following years of undetected infiltration that resulted in the theft of 750,000 customer-owned Bitcoin, as well as Mt. Gox’s store of roughly 100,000 coins, in total worth almost $500 million. System design flaws, hackers and poor accountancy practices have been blamed for the massive financial losses.

Flexcoin follow suit and closed after hackers stole 896 Bitcoin — worth approximately $606,000 — and the trading exchange did not have the funds or resources to recover.

For Bitcoin, Secure Future Might Need Oversight

Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times

MARCH 5, 2014

To save their nascent currency, Bitcoin’s backers may be forced to alter their philosophy and embrace the same messy humans – auditors, insurers and even regulators – that the currency’s most ardent supporters have long abhorred. This raises two difficult questions: Can human oversight integrate into Bitcoin’s free-for-all ethos quickly enough to render Bitcoin safe? And, can Bitcoin be made safer without tamping down on the very openness that proponents say makes Bitcoin such a cheap, efficient and innovative financial platform? At the moment, the answers are still very much up in the air. Nevertheless, the attempt has been made in order to ensure that investments are safe during transfer. Some investors seek out exchange and digital wallet services similar to monedero as a way of dealing with and controlling their investments.

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Some in the more mainstream part of the Bitcoin world – firms that have sought venture capital and are trying to appeal to ordinary investors and large businesses – say they’re up to the challenge. They are working to set up stringent technical and financial audits of trading sites, and to create insurance mechanisms so that holders of Bitcoin won’t be wiped out by catastrophic losses like the one at Mt. Gox. There are even efforts to pursue government oversight.

CEO of bitcoin exchange found dead in Singapore

By Associated Press

Published: March 6

The American CEO of a virtual currency exchange was found dead near her home in Singapore.

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Postings on her Facebook page showed her to be a believer in the potential of virtual currencies.

Last month, she linked to an article on entrepreneurs suffering depression, commenting above the link: everything has its price.