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Merchants are starting to see bitcoin as a compelling alternative to credit cards for online transactions, the vendor says.
September 11 -
The anonymous blackmailers may be trying to manipulate the market price of bitcoins, even if their claim to possesses Mitt Romney's tax returns is hoax.
September 6 -
Bitcoin lets users send money nearly instantaneously, at almost no cost, and (if desired) anonymously. Getting funds in and out of the system is the hard part. That may soon change.
August 24
Bitcoin, the international digital currency defined by its lack of a central issuing authority, now has something like a chamber of commerce.
A group of entrepreneurs, advisers and funders have launched the Bitcoin Foundation, which will work to promote acceptance of the currency. The group aims to help Bitcoin users and software developers exchange information more easily about the technology, which lets users move money instantaneously to others on the Bitcoin network. The virtual tender had an estimated
"My hope is that the Bitcoin Foundation will be the organization that focuses and unlocks all of your energy and talents towards promoting Bitcoins, protecting them, and increasing their legitimacy through standardization," Peter Vessenes, the group's executive director and the founder of the Seattle start-up
The foundation has set a series of goals for 2013, including hosting a Bitcoin conference in Silicon Valley next spring, publishing a set of best practices for businesses that transact in bitcoins, and creating a certification process for Bitcoin businesses.
The organization has a five-person board that will serve for a term of two years. The directors are Vessenes; Gavin Andresen, the lead software developer for Bitcoin (billed as the foundation's "chief scientist"); Mark Karpeles, the chief executive of Mt.Gox, an exchange based in Japan where bitcoins can be bought and sold for government currencies; Jon Matonis, a technology adviser, a former CEO of the encrypted-email provider Hushmail, and a veteran of Visa; and Charlie Shrem, co-founder and CEO of
The foundation is accepting donations via its
