Appatic

The Feel Of The Week

Excitement from the news of big players entering into Bitcoin is now the expected. The week summarized in this edition was full of it.

The News Highlights:

> USD Bitcoin Average Exchange Price started this week at a $850 and went on tumbling during the week until it fell to a $798 low on January 24. That sparked it up across the rest of week as it ended on a high of $884.

> Finland Central Bank declared that they consider Bitcoin a Commodity. Because “it fails” their currency test. Whatever that may be is not completely clear.

LINK:  Bitcoin fails ‘cash test’ and is considered a commodity in Finland

> University Of Cumbria, in the U.K started accepting Bitcoin as payment for courses.

LINK: http://gigaom.com/2014/01/21/british-university-accepts-course-fees-in-bitcoin/

> CBC-KW sent some Bitcoin over the airwaves on their Morning Edition. They used an app called Chirp.io to do it. I think it was one of the very best uses for that App. Imagine being able to do Sponsored Bitcoin Grabs on TV or Radio in this case without having to deal with attending phones, receiving e-mails, etc.

SOURCE: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/cbc-kw-sends-bitcoin-over-the-airwaves-1.2503580

> Reddit’s Dogecoin SubReddit Community Raised $30,000 In Dogecoin For The Jamaican Bobsled Team, That Then Was Traded Up For Bitcoin In Order To Cashout. But with it they achieved the coolest feel good story of the week.  I mean, Who don’t liked the movie Cool Runnings?

LINK: http://trendblog.net/reddit-community-helps-jamaican-bobsled-team-raise-30000-dogecoin/

> Coinkite rolled out updates to their service providing support for more currencies and exchange reference options.

SOURCE: http://blog.coinkite.com/post/74063369700/more-currencies-more-exchange-reference-options

> OKPAY resumed allowing the use of their service to transfer money in GBP into Bitcoin Exchanges.

SOURCE:

Fund OKPAY account by a GBP wire and then transfer funds to the crypto-currency exchangers: https://t.co/D7qEyDf0Jt

— OKPAY.com (@okpaycom) January 21, 2014

LINK: http://www.coindesk.com/okpay-gbp-bitcoin-transactions/

> Marc Andreessen, Known for being the Co-creator of Mosaic Browser, Founder of Netscape and head of the VC firm Andreessen-Horowitz wrote a thoughtful post on the New York Times on why Bitcoin matters. Easily the Bitcoin related Must-Read of the week. Apart from BWNS of course.

SOURCE: Why Bitcoin Matters

> The Golden Gate Casino and The D Las Vegas started accepting Bitcoin via +Bitpay.  Important news considering how relevant Bitcoin has been for Gambling. Even if what is notorious about this news is that given some regulatory fears in the USA. They are only accepting Bitcoin for the hotel, gift shop and restaurant part of both venues and not the gambling floors.

LINK: http://bitcoinexaminer.org/las-vegas-casinos-bitcoin-gambling/

> Google Let It Be Known – be it on purpose or not— that they are looking into Bitcoin, specially in regards to Google Wallet in an E-mail Exchange Trail.  Without even thinking much about it, I even got involved in this Bitcoin News Story in a minor role as Jarar Malik, author of the e-mails appeared over at Google+ in a post I made about this news as reported by Forbes saying that I believed that the e-mails were legit. Something prompted because skepticism raised by the Bitcoin SubReddit and a lazy news report from The Next Web on if the E-mails that originated the story were real or not because Google released statements were they worded out of it without denying or affirming anything.

E-mails that I can assure that are real. Simply because I saw them myself via a video screenshare stream that I also recorded. And also because if they were not real, Google would had stated them directly as false.  Later on, providing even more certainty on this story. A Google executive raised the questions of what would be a good way to integrate Bitcoin on Google.

SOURCES:

1.- Google confirms their payments team is working to incorporate bitcoin (Reddit)

2.- Google Lets Slip That It's Exploring Possible Bitcoin Integration Plans (Forbes)

3.- Jan 22, 2014, 11-27-19 PM (My G+ post as I confirmed the E-mails were legit)

> Kyle Drake took his CoinPunk Bitcoin Wallet project to IndieGoGo in order to take to new heights by refining it for everyday use for everyone to use. As the IndieGoGo campaign is centered around a hosted implementation that can be used in any of the Top 3 Smartphone OSes without any fear or restrictions.

SOURCE: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-make-the-most-free-and-versatile-bitcoin-wallet-ever

> Microsoft Took Down The Bitcoin Mining Botnet Known As Sefnit. And they did so simply by crafting special updated malware definitions for Microsoft Secure Essentials, Windows Defender Basic (WXP+), Windows Defender  Standard (W8+) and Microsoft Security Scanner (WXP+) so they could detect and sanitize computers of Sefnit.

LINK: http://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-destroys-bitcoin-mining-botnet-sefnit/

> Russia’s Sberbank CEO, over at Davos stated he is supportive of Bitcoin and that he would like Russia to not fight it but embrace it.

LINK: http://bitcoinexaminer.org/sberbank-ceo-supports-bitcoin-and-urges-russia-to-stop-fighting-it/

> Bitangels, an international startup incubator focused on Bitcoin stated they had invested $7M USD in 12 different Bitcoin Startups in 2013.

LINK: http://www.coindesk.com/bitangels-invest-7m-bitcoin-startups-2013/

> A Maimi Yacht Rental Company Started Accepting Bitcoin. Makes a good match with now being able to rent a private jet with Bitcoin as of this month.

LINK: http://bitcoinexaminer.org/yacht-rental-service-in-miami-beach-accepts-cryptocurrency/

> You can now get inspired to lose some weight, win some Bitcoin and give to charity all at the same time. +Pua Pyland A.K.A TheBitcoinWife is spearheading the Bitcoin WeightLoss Challenge. Now fully underway 

It could not be more of a Win-Win-Win deal. So check it out.

SOURCE: Lose Weight. Win Bitcoin. Give to Charity

> TigerDirect Started Accepting Bitcoin. And they didn’t just started accepting it. They embraced it by released special pages for it in their site, promoting their in their Social Media accounts and even purchasing the top ad for whenever someone searches for Bitcoin on Google in the USA.

SOURCE:

Our CEO just signed the contract http://t.co/WQpMk8In6x is NOW officially accepting #Bitcoins #TigerBitcoin pic.twitter.com/62MNkYKmTD

— TigerDirect (@TigerDirect) January 23, 2014

 http://www.tigerdirect.com/bitcoin/ 

> Bitcoin North American Conference, otherwise known simply as BTC-Miami Conference took place on January 25-26 and it apparently was a mixed bag. Some said it was very good and full of good vibe, some say it was just a bit plain and not well organized. Who knows. I guess it could at least stand that it was a “More Than OK” event.

>  Naughty America started to accept Bitcoin. Following Porn.com lead. Naughty America is accepting Bitcoin for 1 month or 1 year subscriptions as long as you are ok paying 15% more than with their previously supported payment methods.

LINK: http://www.coindesk.com/naughty-america-bitcoin-acceptance/

> CoinSeed, A Las Vegas based Bitcoin Investment Fund announced they had purchased $5M USD worth of Bitfury 55nm Bitcoin Mining Hardware. Somewhat of a controversial news as that is a hell of a lot of hash power and if put online in one go it will cause a Bitcoin Network hashrate difficulty take off like maybe never seen yet. CoinSeed says that they are thinking long term and that they are doing it not just to get as many Bitcoins they can and then drop the Bitcoin Mining Hardware but run it efficiently so they effective get to be a mainstay Bitcoin Transaction Processor years from now.

LINK: http://www.coindesk.com/coinseed-5m-investment-bitfury-mining/

> Wikileaks announced that most of their public funds now come from Bitcoin and Litecoin Donations.

SOURCE:

Did you know the majority of WikiLeaks public funding is #BitCoin and #LiteCoin? https://t.co/rHPkDhfEnT More: https://t.co/X4WB1IbPdQ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 24, 2014

> Fancy.com, The Social e-Commerce Site started accepting Bitcoin. You can think of Fancy as Pinterest Meets Dribbble Meets Shopping. No, seriously. That is a thing. They also have apps for Windows Phone, Android and iOS and they are quite a big deal apparently.

SOURCE:

you can now buy from @fancy with #bitcoin more info here: http://t.co/TsRLIVxaoF

— Fancy (@fancy) January 23, 2014

http://thefancynyc.tumblr.com/post/74319834325/pay-with-bitcoin-now-available-on-fancy 

> 6 People have paid for their Virgin Atlantic Space Flight Tickets with Bitcoin so far. Said so by Richard Branson himself.

LINK: http://www.coindesk.com/richard-branson-6-bitcoin-customers-confirmed-virgin-galactic-space-filght/

> The State Of Washington in the USA included Digital Currency in their definition of Money.  As it is their right under the State Uniform Money Services Act (UMSA).

LINK: http://bitcoinexaminer.org/washington-digital-currencies-money/

> KryptoKit, The Chrome Extension Bitcoin Wallet partnered with +Bitpay to enable Two-Clicks Bitcoin Transacting.  Reducing the friction of using Bitcoin while browsing to the lowest possible.

LINK: http://www.coindesk.com/kryptokit-partners-bitpay-two-click-shopping/

> App.Net, the Social Platform As A Service, always mischaracterized as a Twitter Alternative pondered the question if they should accept Bitcoin by launching a 30 days crowdfunding campaign with the goal of raising 10 Bitcoins in order to integrate Bitcoin Payments for good. And a secondary goal of 40 Bitcoins in order to integrate Bitcoin Payments from the to Developers for their Developer Rewards Program. My answer is yes. And I will be supporting this by following the story in G+ and here since I will be posting more on App.Net in Appatic and also by paying for an premium account myself. Maybe will also gift one away here in Appatic too. Stay tuned.

SOURCE: https://bitcoin.app.net/

The Send Off.

And those were the news highlights of that week when it comes to Bitcoin. Comeback every week for the very best way to catch a whole week worth of Bitcoin News in just one place in just minutes, annotated, commented and fully linked at for you.

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