Monthly Archives: February 2014

bitcoin

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox’s website down

The website of Mt. Gox appears to be taken down, shortly after six major Bitcoin exchanges released a joint statement distancing themselves from the troubled Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange.

Mt. Gox’s homepage was not loading, although no error message appeared. Mt. Gox was not immediately available for comment.

“This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company’s actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry,” the companies – Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, BTC China, Blockchain and Circle – said in the statement. ()

On Sunday, Mark Karpeles, chief executive of Mt. Gox, resigned from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, in a blow to the digital currency. Mt. Gox had once been the largest exchange handling Bitcoin.

The resignation followed a number of technical issues, including a massive cyber attack from unknown sources that has been spamming bitcoin exchanges.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/25/mtgox-website-idUSL3N0LU1N920140225

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    The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." http://www.reuters.com
    Tags: bitcoin, digital, mt, gox, currency
  • Hedge Fund Anticipates Bitcoin Will Overtake PayPal in US Dollar Transactions Later This Year
    87
    With the price of bitcoin seemingly on the up and up, there’s no shortage of conversation on the topic of where the price goes from here. There’s seemingly no shortage of optimism, either, with the value of bitcoin up a whopping 18 percent in the past week. Hedge fund Laureate BVI is…
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  • Mt. Gox's CEO resigns from Bitcoin Foundation
    87
    Mark Karpeles, chief executive of Mt. Gox, the embattled Toyko-based bitcoin exchange, resigned on Sunday from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, in the latest blow to the digital currency. Jinyoung Lee Englund, a spokesperson for the Bitcoin Foundation - a trade group promoting the adoption of the digital currency,…
    Tags: bitcoin, mt, digital, currency, gox's, gox, exchange
  • #Bitcoin prices are all out of whack
    86
    Bitcoin prices are all out of whack. Mtgox cratering. pic.twitter.com/exe8Bwl6cG
    Tags: bitcoin
  • Bitcoin Foundation Blames Mt. Gox for Withdrawal Stoppage
    83
    The Bitcoin Foundation said the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange in Tokyo is to blame for technical faults that prevented customer withdrawals of the virtual currency that lost as much as 21 percent of its value today. “The issues that Mt. Gox has been experiencing are due to an unfortunate interaction between Mt.…
    Tags: mt, gox, bitcoin, currency, exchange
emerging, Trading

Yuan’s sharp drop puts investors on alert for end of strengthening trend

The yuan has recently been something of a safe haven among emerging-market currencies, yet market participants have learned from a bloody lesson over the past week that it is no longer an easy, one-way bet.

A sharp fall of both the onshore and offshore yuan against the greenback made the Chinese currency the worst performing one within emerging Asia over the past two weeks.

http://www.scmp.com/business/

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    89
    Efforts by China to damp speculation in its currency risks driving away investors just as it’s attempting to open up its capital markets in a once-in-a-generation economic overhaul. After allowing the yuan to steadily rise in each of the past four years, China’s central bank let it tumble about 1…
    Tags: china, yuan, currency, week, currencies, investors, asian
  • China January lending soars to four-year high
    85
    China's banks disbursed the most loans in any month in four years in January, a surge that suggests the world's second-biggest economy may not be cooling as much as some fear. Chinese banks lent 1.32 trillion yuan ($217.6 billion) worth of new yuan loans in January, beating a 1.1 trillion…
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  • Why Is China’s Economy Still Showing Signs Of Overheating Despite Slower Growth?
    83
    The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) economy has shown signs of overheating despite a sharp slowdown in economic growth, suggesting that, constrained by the supply of labor, its potential growth rate might have fallen significantly from its past level. With the priorities of the PRC’s authorities shifting from raising economic growth…
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  • No Flash Boys in #China’s Sleepy Over-the-Counter Markets
    82
    Shanghai's over-the-counter equity market was almost deserted on a weekday morning last week. Two cleaning ladies swept the floor of a trading hall devoid of brokers or computers, while a woman at an information desk ate breakfast and talked on her mobile phone. During four visits this year to the…
    Tags: market, investors, week, china, asian
  • PBOC Singling Out Industries Fuels Nomura Anxiety: China Credit
    78
    The singling out of three debt types most at risk by the People’s Bank of China has prompted Nomura Holdings Inc. to warn that rising borrowing costs will make it even harder to avoid a default by these issuers. The PBOC will enhance monitoring of local government financing vehicles, industries with overcapacity…
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Trading

Buffett’s annual letter: What you can learn from my real estate investments

In an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming shareholder letter, Warren Buffett looks back at a pair of real estate purchases and the lessons they offer for equity investors.
By Warren Buffett

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/24/warren-buffett-berkshire-letter/

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    http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf
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  • The Unlikely Tale of How ARM Came to Rule the World
    81
    This is a story about ARM Holdings (ARMH), the mobile technology company. But before it gets going, here are a few things you need to know: 1. ARM is a company made up mostly of chip engineers. They design parts of chips—such as graphics and communication bits—and they design entire…
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  • Behind the failure of the Publicis-Omnicom merger
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    Publicis CEO Maurice Levy's last-ditch offer to let Omnicom chief John Wren be CEO couldn't save the $35 billion deal to create the world's largest advertising company.   http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/
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bitcoin, Trading

Mt. Gox’s CEO resigns from Bitcoin Foundation

Mark Karpeles, chief executive of Mt. Gox, the embattled Toyko-based bitcoin exchange, resigned on Sunday from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, in the latest blow to the digital currency.

Jinyoung Lee Englund, a spokesperson for the Bitcoin Foundation – a trade group promoting the adoption of the digital currency, confirmed the news and said the resignation was effective immediately.

http://www.reuters.com/

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  • Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox's website down
    87
    The website of Mt. Gox appears to be taken down, shortly after six major Bitcoin exchanges released a joint statement distancing themselves from the troubled Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange. Mt. Gox's homepage was not loading, although no error message appeared. Mt. Gox was not immediately available for comment. "This tragic violation…
    Tags: bitcoin, mt, gox, exchange, currency, digital, gox's
  • Hedge Fund Anticipates Bitcoin Will Overtake PayPal in US Dollar Transactions Later This Year
    84
    With the price of bitcoin seemingly on the up and up, there’s no shortage of conversation on the topic of where the price goes from here. There’s seemingly no shortage of optimism, either, with the value of bitcoin up a whopping 18 percent in the past week. Hedge fund Laureate BVI is…
    Tags: bitcoin, currency, digital, ceo
  • Bitcoin plunges after major platform indefinitely halts withdrawals
    81
    The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." http://www.reuters.com
    Tags: bitcoin, digital, mt, gox, http://www.reuters.com, currency
  • #Bitcoin prices are all out of whack
    81
    Bitcoin prices are all out of whack. Mtgox cratering. pic.twitter.com/exe8Bwl6cG
    Tags: bitcoin
  • Bitcoin bug causes massive sell-off
    78
    A bug in the bitcoin software that makes it possible to alter transaction details over the network has caused panic-selling among holders of the crypto-currency, sending prices crashing below the $600 mark on Monday morning. http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=25707
    Tags: bitcoin, mark
Europe, Trading, USA

Two-Speed Recovery: US vs. EU

The August 2013 gross domestic product report by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis drew little attention, but it contained a fairly remarkable piece of data: Inflation-adjusted GDP per capita in the United States hit a new all-time high in the second quarter of 2013, the first time a new high had been reached since 2007. Real consumer spending has hit a new high, too, and auto sales are at levels not seen since before the financial crisis. Millions of Americans are still searching for work and suffering financial hardship, but on average, by the broadest measures of economic performance, America’s Great Recession is over.

 

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/

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  • Who loses from punishing Russia?
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  • Pound Rises Most in Two Months on Recovery Signs, #IMF Forecasts #GBP
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  • World turbulences ahead ? #IMF #Forex #Economy
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Trading

How Does Facebook Make Its Money?

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  • Four Numbers That Explain Why Facebook Acquired WhatsApp
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  • Warning :: WhatsApp and Tesla set the scene for soaring valuations
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  • Ello CEO Paul Budnitz: “We Are Not Here to Compete With Facebook”
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    Social network Ello, which operates in Vermont, is riding the rocket ship usually reserved for Silicon Valley’s hottest consumer tech startups. The ad-free social network, which has to be the most well-known product from the Green Mountain State since Ben and Jerry’s launched in the late ’70s, has taken the…
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Trading

G20 support builds to adopt ambitious target for global growth

The world’s top economies may agree to set an ambitious target for faster global growth at a weekend meeting in Sydney, where major central banks are also being urged to coordinate policies to avoid “surprises” that could further roil emerging markets.

Opening the two-day meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers on Saturday, Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said support was building for setting a firm goal for growth.

http://www.reuters.com/

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  • OECD Urges G-20 Ministers to Tackle Post-Crisis Low-Growth Era
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    Group of 20 finance ministers need to find ways to boost productivity growth or risk seeing the world economy to slip into an extended period of low growth, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. The widespread drop in productivity may “presage the beginning of a new low-growth era,”…
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longread

Google Glass shares much of its electronics and software with the smartphone. #longread

Google Glass shares much of its electronics and software with the smartphone, but it’s a very different machine.

You hold a smartphone in your hand. And we do—at restaurants, at the movies, walking across the street, and even in bed. We use smartphones to check our mail, update Facebook, get driving directions, search the Internet to settle bets, and, sometimes, even to make calls. But Glass you wear on your face, and that fundamentally transforms all these human-computer interactions, making them more intimate. Because you don’t use your hands, and because it projects an image onto a transparent screen suspended in front of your eye and uses a vibration to stimulate your inner ear, using Glass is like being naked with the machine: synapses and wires united.

http://www.technologyreview.com/

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  • Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its maker pursued him #longread
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  • Run Your #Meeting Like a Boss: Lessons from #Mayer, #Musk, and Jobs
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longread, Trading

How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook’s New $19 Billion Baby

Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp’s discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the  railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That’s where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a miniscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world’s largest social network.

http://www.forbes.com

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  • Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its maker pursued him #longread
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  • Machines are for answers; humans are for questions. #Longread
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  • Maybe the future of journalism #Longread
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Trading

WhatsApp Shows How Phone Carriers Lost Out on $33 Billion

Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $19 billion purchase of mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp Inc. is a stark reminder of how much money phone carriers are losing out on as competitors let users text and chat at no charge.

Free social-messaging applications like WhatsApp cost phone providers around the world — from Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) to America Movil SAB (AMXL) and Verizon Communications Corp. — $32.5 billion in texting fees in 2013, according to research from Ovum Ltd. That figure is projected to reach $54 billion by 2016.

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Previous article :  https://www.currencyfundgroup.com/2014/02/10/we-all-turn-to-data-adios-sms-and-calls/

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  • Why Square Wallet failed, and why Coin card is next…
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