Bitcoin News
Daily diary of what's happening with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of January, 2013. Excerpts:
“The closing price of $20.41 USD was up nearly seven dollars from the 2012 year-end close resulting in more than a 51% increase for the month — Bitcoin’s largest monthly gain since December 2011. The one-year gain, calculated from the January 2012 close of $5.48 is whopping 272%.”
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“The 111,100 bitcoins issued which Bitcoin miners took in during the month is valued at $1.72 million using the average daily valuation for the month of $15.49. Miners had been suffering ever since the block reward subsidy “halving” that occurred in November last year.”
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“A dollar’s worth of ASIC hardware performs hashing at the rate that is nearly two orders of magnitude over what a dollar’s worth of GPU hardware does so we are likely just a couple months (or less) away from seeing the end of any GPU mining that is profitable.”
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“Certainly greater demand occurring due to Bitcoin gaining traction as a payments and money transfer system is partly responsible for a higher valuation but there appeared to be no massive jump that would account for the need for an additional $75 million worth of the currency. Thus a significant portion of the rise can only be attributed to speculative interest.”
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“Most bitcoin market exchanges provide feeds with trading results in real-time and many volume records were broken in January.”
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“Early in January Bitcoin Foundation executive director Peter Vessenes published his Quarterly Update in which he describes an increasing level of interest from investors and shared his prediction that in 2013 there would be Bitcoin ‘liquidity problems’ (price increases).”
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“Bitcoin remains an experimental currency. As the software gets poked and prodded, new vulnerabilities are discovered. Some vulnerabilities will result in funds being lost.”
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“When a SatoshiDICE, BitInstant, CoinBase, or BitPay (all angel- and venture capital-backed Bitcoin-related startups) hits a home run, every person holding a bitcoin likely sees a rising valuation as a result due to increased demand for the currency from that Bitcoin startup’s success story.”
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“Without Wall Street’s participation there are few affordable methods to take a short position or to perform price hedging. Without this relief valve, wild volatility occurs as the market tries to discover Bitcoin’s price.”
- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/42429739154
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While the Mexican peso and the Polish zloty had a good year, there was one currency that outperformed them all — by an order of magnitude. That’s no secret to those reading this, but it will be to reader’s of Sober Look (@SoberLook), a financial blog with a global audience Excerpts:
“It’s not issued by a country, nor is it a precious metal or a rare-earth. Bitcoin is an electronic currency that can be exchanged for some goods and services, particularly online. The currency is not controlled by a central bank.”
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“For more background on Bitcoins see this story from Wired Magazine (Wikipedia does a terrible job describing this process).”
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“Therein lies the flaw of the Bitcoin concept: transaction anonymity attracts illicit activity.”
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“So why has the currency tripled this year? A number of rumors have been circulating in the online forums trying to explain the rally.”
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“Nevertheless Bitcoin is the 2012 winner for the best performing currency against the dollar.”
- http://soberlook.com/2012/12/the-2012-winner-for-best-performing.html
- http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133101.0
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Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of October, 2012. Excerpts:
“The closing price of $11.20 USD was down more than a dollar from the previous month’s close resulting in a nearly 10% drop for the month. For 2012, where the price opened at a $4.72 level, the price rise from January 1st is now at the level of 137%.”
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“What might be surprising is that the month ended down just 10% after the disaster that October 2012 essentially was for the Bitcoin ecosystem as a whole.”
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“A promise of relief arrived with the announcement of Bitcoin-Central’s BTC/GBP market. Further relief arrived with Blockchain.info/wallet’s Instant Online Bank Transfer which is now available in the UK and elsewhere in the EU.”
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“Emerging during the darkest part of the shutdown storm was Coinbase’s launch of its BTC/USD exchange. This allows a Coinbase user to make bitcoin purchases paid for with funds drawn from the user’s bank account.”
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“Banking issues were just one challenge for the exchanges as heavy distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks took many exchanges down at one point or another during the month.”
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“The current development focus is on resolving the immediate scalability issues that exist when running a full Bitcoin.org client node. Significant progress with this occurred in October when the ultraprune capability was merged into mainline — a prerequisite to it being included in a future release.”
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“The 230,400 bitcoins issued which Bitcoin miners took in during the month is valued at $2.70 million using the average daily valuation for the month of $11.72. Miners fared less well in October as the result of a rising difficulty — 15% higher at the end of the month versus the level at the beginning as well as the decline in the exchange rate.”
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“Later this month, at block 210,000, the block reward mining subsidy drops by half. This halving of the amount of currency issued means miner’s revenues will drop in half as well.”
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“The herd-like mentality of speculators means that demand can disappear in an instant and a deep selloff can result. Twice during October were cliff dives of 15% or more.”
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“A significant indicator that Bitcoin has the potential to become much more widely used surfaced with the ECB’s policy brief on Virtual Currency Schemes. The 55-page brief describes Bitcoin as having the potential to have a negative impact on central banks.”
- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/34853623626
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Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of September, 2012. Excerpts:
“For the seventh month in a row, the BTC/USD exchange rate ended higher than the level it was at when the month had begun.”
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“The closing price of $12.40 USD was more than two dollars above the previous month’s close giving a 22% gain for the month. The second quarter had closed at $6.69 so the closing price for Q3 2012 shows a gain of 85%. For 2012, where the price opened at a $4.72 level, the price rise from January 1st now exceeds 162%.”
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“Starting the month off on the wrong foot was the security breach at the U.S. exchange BitFloor in which 24,000 bitcoins were heisted.”
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“Not only did [the Romney tax return hoax] allow the media to portray Bitcoin in a bad light, the Secret Service is now well aware of Bitcoin.”
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“That wasn’t the only interest in Bitcoin from the U.S. government this past month. It appears that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is interested in a particular high-yield investment program (HYIP) […].”
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“Additionally, Federal Reserve staff are now in possession of bitcoins.”
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“So even with these developments, why might the exchange rate be still rising? Block 210,000. […] At the moment the drop occurs (expected around November 30th) the rate of currency inflation will drop from a 25% per-year level to just 12.5%.”
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“If the block subsidy drop weren’t enough to kill off GPU mining, delivery of the order backlog from just one of these ASIC manufacturers will be enough to finish the job.”
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“In September, we heard from Digital Gold Currency (DGC) Magazine’s Julia who believes Bitcoin “opens the door” for alternatives to fiat — a sentiment echoed by GoldMoney founder James Turk.”
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“What may be a telling sign of Bitcoin’s potential is when a small Bitcoin upstart is not just seen as an attractive acquisition target but instead becomes the acquirer. This happened with Ogrr […].”
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“Bitcoin is not just some form of electronic cash. Bitcoin is the focal point of innovation that defines money on entirely new terms.”
- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/32694107461
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Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of August, 2012. Excerpts:
“August 2012 became the sixth month in a row that the BTC/USD exchange rate ended higher than the level it was at when the month had begun.”
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“August’s closing price of $10.16 is an 8% gain over July’s close and means that so far this quarter (Q3 2012) there has been a 51% gain.”
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“For 2012, where the price opened at a $4.72 level, the price rise from January 1st now exceeds an eye-popping 115%.”
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“The 243,950 bitcoins issued which Bitcoin miners took in during the month is valued at $2.67 million using the average daily valuation for the month of $10.94.”
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“MPEx, the largest exchange where Bitcoin options are traded, reported that in August a record 75,000 CALL and PUT option contracts were traded on its exchange platform.”
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Unlike commercial endeavors which may do phased rollouts of their offerings, one region at a time, awareness of Bitcoin is occurring organically and in numerous places across the entire globe simultaneously.”
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“This is evidenced with requests as to how bitcoins can be purchased seen for the time from Turkey, Bolivia, Iceland and elsewhere. The traffic hitting the BitcoinTalk forum has been rocketing higher recently, and several Bitcoin website owners have reported seeing the traffic growth occurring primarily from outside the U.S.”
- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/30706441112
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Jon Matonis (@JonMatonis) compiled a list of statistics that consolidate data and provide information on various aspects of Bitcoin. Excerpts:
“2. Price Chart – This chart displays the last trade price for bitcoin (BTC) against a number of currencies and ranks the exchanges by 30-day volume. Advanced charting capability is provided here. The price depth chart of BTC/USD on the MtGox exchange is usually the best indication of overall market price.”
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“6. Number of Daily Transactions – This chart displays the total number of unique bitcoin transactions per day. An alternate version is also provided that excludes transactions with the top 100 popular bitcoin addresses based on number of outputs.”
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“8. Bitcoin Days Destroyed attempts to provide a reliable indication of transaction volume that strips out transfers to oneself and immediate account reorganizations since a high value for days destroyed indicates less hoarding and more old bitcoin on the move. It can be considered a measure of monetary velocity.”
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Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of July, 2012. Excerpts:
“The July BTC/USD closing price of $9.35 means a bitcoin cost two and a half dollars more than when 2Q2012 ended.”
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“For 2012, where the price opened at a $4.72 level, the price rise from January 1st now exceeds 98%.”
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“The 238,650 bitcoins issued which Bitcoin miners took in during the month is valued at $1.93 million using the average daily valuation for the month of $8.12. Along with the rising exchange rate, mining profitability has been rising as well.”
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“The trading volume at the exchanges with customers from Europe continued at a record pace in July.”
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“Once bitcoins are acquired, financial transactions no longer need to go through the banking system.This property has now been discovered by high yield investment program (HYIP) operators and the pace of participation only appears to be accelerating.”
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“Bitcoin.org lead developer, Gavin Andresen (@GavinAndresen), commented that HYIPs are ‘(almost?) always dressed-up Ponzi schemes’ and he makes a plea to participants to ‘please lick your wounds quietly when they implode’. Andresen showed prescience back at a time when bitcoins were selling for under a quarter dollar each when he remarked that ‘we are in the Wild West days of open-source currency. I expect people will get burned by scams, imitators, ponzi schemes and price bubbles.’
- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/28473024447
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Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of June, 2012. Exerpts:
“For the month of June, 2012 the closing price of $6.69 was a dollar and a half above the previous month’s close giving a 28% gain for the month. The first quarter had closed at $4.90 so the closing price for 2Q2012 shows a gain of 36%. For 2012, where the price opened at a $4.72 level, the price rise from January 1st now exceeds 41%.”
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“Unlike previous rallies for Bitcoin, this one occurred without there being a major story or significant level of media attention.”
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“The Bitcoin exchanges offering BTC/EUR trading all saw record monthly trading volume levels and most of the other European currency markets such as the BTC/GBP (British sterling pound) and the BTC/PLN (Polish zloty) broke monthly volume records as well.”
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“The upcoming drop in the block reward (expected to occur in early December) is likely one reason [for the price rise]. When that event occurs, the rate of currency inflation will drop from the 25% per-year level to just 12.5%.”
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“The most significant conversion of funds out of bitcoin occurring today happens to be coming from those who are, ironically, enthusiastically showing their trust in Bitcoin’s future.”
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“Miners took in the 226,750 bitcoins that were issued (also referred to as being “mined”) during the month. Using the average daily valuation of $5.99 the value of these bitcoins issued totals a little over $1.35 million.”
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“A speculator unloading bitcoins generally has one option — to cash out at an exchange, whereas smaller investors and consumers holding bitcoins can cash out by spending their coins on goods and services.”
- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/26295113993
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A post on Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of May, 2012. Exerpts:
“For the month of May, 2012 the closing price of $5.197 was nearly a quarter dollar above the previous month’s close giving a 5% gain for the month. The first quarter had closed at $4.90 so the price is now up 6%, quarter-to-date for 2Q2012. For the year, which opened at a $4.72 level, the price is now up more than 10%.”
“The leading exchange has seen volume trending down and that continued this month with just $6.3 million worth of trades at Mt. Gox in May. For comparison purposes, this trading volume level is about a third of the level that occurred in the month of January this year.”
“A new online gambling service has single-handedly more than doubled the quantity of transactions appearing on the Bitcoin blockchain.”
“For every major Bitcoin-related development that occurs, there are many, many others — including launches that might be subtle but have no less the potential to become massively disruptive and successful.”
A post on Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) gives a monthly wrapup on Bitcoin for the month of March, 2012. Exerpts:
“For the month the closing price of $4.90 was just four cents above the previous month’s close, but up 3.8% above the opening level at the beginning of the quarter and year when it traded at $4.72.”
“The volume of trading was way down for the month — $8.6 million worth of trades at Mt. Gox, which for comparison purposes saw $19.6 million worth of trades in January and $14.4 million worth in February”.
“For every Linode type of story that takes Bitcoin down a notch there are multiple smaller instances of forward progress for Bitcoin”.
