Original author: Stan Higgins
Coin News
Hip-hop heavyweight Nas made a dramatic career move when he traded the thrills of rap superstardom for life in Silicon Valley’s tech startup scene.
As founder of the venture capital firm Queensbridge Venture Partners, Nas, full name Nasir Jones, has invested in projects that include popular ride sharing startup Lyft, mobile laundry service Washio and e-commerce platform Fancy, forging connections with tenured VCs in the process.
Through new relationships with Andreessen Horowitz’s Ben Horowitz and Chris Dixon, the 40-year-old has also become interested in the burgeoning digital currency space.
Like Dixon and Horowitz, both vocal supporters of the digital currency movement, Jones is similarly bullish about bitcoin’s potential – having already invested in financial services provider Coinbase.
Speaking to CoinDesk in a new interview, Jones suggested that bitcoin could be one of history’s best investment opportunities:
“[Bitcoin] will evolve into an industry as big, if not bigger, than the Internet. My man Ben Horowitz really opened my eyes to that point. This isn’t of the Internet age, bitcoin is its own age.”
Despite his enthusiasm, Jones also acknowledged that many people still perceive bitcoin as unsafe. However, he suggested that such concerns may be overreaching, adding that time and talent will be enough to overcome them.
“Obviously challenges will arise from a security and privacy perspective, but the Internet was the same way 20 years ago,” he said.
Personal bitcoin use
Jones confirmed that he and his team have been buying bitcoin for more than a year, using wallets provided by Coinbase to store funds. While his firm hasn’t spent any of the accumulated bitcoins yet, he revealed it may do so soon:
“[We're] holding onto it for now, but [we're] looking forward to making transactions in the near future.”
In addition to his interest in bitcoin’s economics, Jones also harbours a passion for the digital currency’s underlying ideology.
“I was really inspired by the boundaries people were pushing,” Jones said. “[Bitcoin] seemed like something people bet against because the government doesn’t welcome with open arms what they don’t control. But it is such a big idea that it could never be controlled.”
Investment opportunities
On the new investment front, Jones indicated he is still observing the digital currency space – seeking to identify trends and potential opportunities.
He suggested, however, that he may invest in projects focused on bringing bitcoin to people with little or no access to banking services.
“[I] would love to see how it affects people who don’t use credit cards or don’t have bank accounts,” he said. “[Bitcoin] could be a big opportunity for those folks.”
Jones also discussed his relationship with the Coinbase team, remarking that he was personally struck by their collective talents:
“The Coinbase guys are great. [Co-founder] Fred [Ehrsam] loves hip hop. How could I not get involved?”
Musical career
Jones is also rumored to be working on his next album, the follow-up to 2012′s number one hit ‘Life is Good’. In his comments, he suggested the marketing campaign for this album could include bitcoin.
Earlier this year, 50 Cent became one of the first mainstream artists to embrace bitcoin, partnering with merchant processor BitPay for his latest album ‘Animal Ambition’, released in June.
Though noncommittal, Jones didn’t exclude the possibility that he could take a similar approach to future musical releases. He concluded:
“We are exploring this now: to be continued.”
Image via Emagen Entertainment Group
CoinbaseinvestorsMusicNasir Jones
Original author: Pete Rizzo
Scott Robinson of Plug and Play asking how many people own bitcoin at the PayPal event.Startup showcase
Robinson’s goal presenting at the event was twofold: talking about the potential for bitcoin, and informing the audience about the rise and role of bitcoin startups.
“Bitcoin is a technology that is five years old. It seems a lot like the Internet,” he said.
Robinson’s slide comparing bitcoin with early stages of the internet. Source: CoinDeskHe also announced that Plug and Play is offering bitcoin startups $25,000 in funding, office space and mentorship for interested entrepreneurs.
To provide examples of successful bitcoin ventures pushing the technology towards mainstream use, two bitcoin startups briefly talked at the event after Robinson’s presentation.
One was 37Coins, an SMS bitcoin wallet service that allows the unbanked access to financial resources via bitcoin and any cellphone.
Jonathan Zobro, co-founder of the company, said:
“We’re solving the fundamental first step by pushing bitcoin to people.”
To demonstrate its service, the startup gave away $2 in bitcoin to every event attendee who texted a displayed phone number, which then created a 37Coins bitcoin wallet and sent the initial bitcoin balance to that person via SMS.
Xapo’s director of client services, Fernando Gouveia, also briefly spoke about his company, which has been one of the most successful in raising venture capital in the bitcoin space with $40m raised in total.
PayPal and bitcoin
Founded in 1998, PayPal became successful making Internet payments super easy by allowing its users to send money via email addresses.
PayPal is now a large company under the eBay umbrella, and bitcoin as well as other digital currencies have become obvious competitors to its business model.
Scott Robinson talking bitcoin at the PayPal HQ.In June, eBay CEO John Donahoe said that bitcoin is more than just on the company’s “radar screen” and that it will have to find a way to integrate digital currencies.
However, it’s also possible Donahoe and his team might be developing an in-house solution to compete with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
At the beginning of this year, CoinDesk reported PayPal had filed a patent to develop digital tokens – a sign it may plan to rival bitcoin in the space.
And, although purely coincidental, PayPal’s bitcoin event happened the same day Stripe announced investment in a new project called Stellar with Mt. Gox creator and Ripple Labs co-founder Jed McCaleb.
Stellar has built an open payment platform for money, digital or otherwise, complete with its own altcoin, hoping developers will use its API to allow consumers to transact in any form of money they ultimately choose.
Images by CoinDesk
CaliforniaPayPal
Original author: Daniel Cawrey
Update (1st August 16:05 BST): Article now includes comment from Overstock’s Judd Bagley.
Online retail giant Overstock has announced plans to offer its employees a bitcoin bonus scheme.
Overstock representative Judd Bagley told Mashable that the company is “trying to figure out” how it can pay out bitcoin bonuses and aims to get the program in place by the end of the year.
Under the scheme, Overstock employees will be incentivised to accept their bonuses in bitcoin by offering a premium over cash payments.
Bagley told CoinDesk:
“The first step will be to offer to pay employees their annual bonuses in bitcoin. Those will be paid out during the first quarter of 2015. Participation will be incentivized by adding a small premium to the bonus for those who opt to receive it in bitcoin. Depending on how that works out and is received, we will look at making regular payroll checks available in bitcoin.”
In January of this year, Overstock became the first major retailer to accept bitcoin payments, with CEO Patrick Byrne telling CoinDesk that cost was the key driver behind the company’s decision to embrace bitcoin via a partnership with Coinbase.
Bitcoin sales news
Bagley also told Mashable that Overstock’s the most popular items bought with bitcoin were “sheets”, while bitcoin sales had reached $2m “just recently”.
Overstock’s bitcoin sales passed the $1m mark on the 4th of March, while, Byrne announced that the company had processed a total of $1.6m in bitcoin purchases by late May.
A glance at the figures reveals that Overstock had more bitcoin purchases in the first two months of bitcoin sales than it did in the last five months.
Overstock’s initial projections for sales processed with bitcoin were $3-5m this year, but that figure was revised to $10-15m in March. At this point, it seems the original projection might be more realistic.
Bullish on bitcoin
Although bitcoin sales have failed to hit Bryne’s optimistic forecast, the company is still committed to bitcoin and seems keen to introduce policies that encourage bitcoin adoption.
A month ago, Byrne said Overstock would start offering “special deals” to vendors willing to be paid in bitcoin. The deals could involve discounts and favourable terms. Byrne also revealed Overstock may offer its employees the option to get paid in bitcoin, so the bonus scheme could be just the first step in this process.
In addition to supporting vendors and employees who opt for bitcoin, Overstock also pledged to donate 3% of its bitcoin profits to organisations that promote cryptocurrencies.
Overstock
Online retail giant Overstock has announced plans to offer its employees a bitcoin bonus scheme.
Overstock representative Judd Bagley told Mashable that the company is “trying to figure out” how it can pay out bitcoin bonuses and aims to get the program in place by the end of the year.
Under the scheme, Overstock employees will be incentivised to accept their bonuses in bitcoin by offering a premium over cash payments.
Bagley told CoinDesk:
“The first step will be to offer to pay employees their annual bonuses in bitcoin. Those will be paid out during the first quarter of 2015. Participation will be incentivized by adding a small premium to the bonus for those who opt to receive it in bitcoin. Depending on how that works out and is received, we will look at making regular payroll checks available in bitcoin.”
In January of this year, Overstock became the first major retailer to accept bitcoin payments, with CEO Patrick Byrne telling CoinDesk that cost was the key driver behind the company’s decision to embrace bitcoin via a partnership with Coinbase.
Bitcoin sales news
Bagley also told Mashable that Overstock’s the most popular items bought with bitcoin were “sheets”, while bitcoin sales had reached $2m “just recently”.
Overstock’s bitcoin sales passed the $1m mark on the 4th of March, while, Byrne announced that the company had processed a total of $1.6m in bitcoin purchases by late May.
A glance at the figures reveals that Overstock had more bitcoin purchases in the first two months of bitcoin sales than it did in the last five months.
Overstock’s initial projections for sales processed with bitcoin were $3-5m this year, but that figure was revised to $10-15m in March. At this point, it seems the original projection might be more realistic.
Bullish on bitcoin
Although bitcoin sales have failed to hit Bryne’s optimistic forecast, the company is still committed to bitcoin and seems keen to introduce policies that encourage bitcoin adoption.
A month ago, Byrne said Overstock would start offering “special deals” to vendors willing to be paid in bitcoin. The deals could involve discounts and favourable terms. Byrne also revealed Overstock may offer its employees the option to get paid in bitcoin, so the bonus scheme could be just the first step in this process.
In addition to supporting vendors and employees who opt for bitcoin, Overstock also pledged to donate 3% of its bitcoin profits to organisations that promote cryptocurrencies.
Overstock
Original author: Nermin Hajdarbegovic
Original author: Nermin Hajdarbegovic
Original author: Nermin Hajdarbegovic
James Downer is a student of International Relations and Computer Science and is fascinated by the collision between the two subjects. In this article, Downer discusses last Wednesday’s debt default by Argentina, bitcoin’s growing role in the country and its thriving black market for dollars.
If Argentina’s ‘Default Wednesday’ had been as bad as its 2001 debt default, the country’s citizens would be scrambling en masse for alternatives to the peso – such as bitcoin.
When Cyprus, with a population of just over a million, suffered a financial crisis in 2013, freezing bank accounts and eventually confiscating money from private accounts, the fear peaked the interests of bitcoin enthusiasts worldwide.
As the situation in Cyprus hit the media, the bitcoin price surged from $47 on 17th March when banks closed, to a staggering $266 on 11th April, shortly after their opening.
Argentina’s 2001 default was eerily similar to the Cyprian crisis with property seizures and frozen accounts. Now Argentina, a country of 41 million, finds itself in default for the eighth time since liberation from Spain.
In the first major sovereign bankruptcy since Cyprus, what might this mean for bitcoin?
A history of the recent troubles
The years of financial troubles which led to Argentina’s default on Wednesday have their roots in the total chaos that gripped Argentina at the end of 2001.
On 21st December 2001, then Argentinian president Fernando de la Rúa fled La Casa Rosada, the presidential office, by helicopter. Because his vice-president had already abandoned his post that October, President of the Senate Ramón Puerta took office for that day and the next. On the 23rd, he passed the baton to Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, who during his one week in office defaulted on Argentina’s debt of $132bn.
Saá’s own party withdrew their support for the new president before the 31st and Eduardo Duhalde was appointed his successor. It wasn’t until Néstor Kirchner took office in 2003 that things returned to normal.
The riots that lead to this revolving door started three weeks prior to de la Rúa’s flight, when his government announced a ‘corralito’, or fencing in of bank accounts. The corralito was a last-ditch attempt to postpone default and maintain dollar reserves by capping the number of pesos that citizens could withdraw at $250 per week.
High-stakes game of chicken
In both the Cyprian and 2001 Argentina defaults, the cause was a clear insufficiency of reserves to pay obligations. Because of this, Argentina’s current default is rather unique.
Argentina elected to play chicken with foreign credit markets, declaring that they wouldn’t pay unless the holdouts accepted the same terms as the other 92% of bondholders – 65 cents on the dollar. The restructuring that set these terms occurred in 2005 and 2010.
During this time, Elliot Management Corporation CEO Paul Singer has maintained that his firm deserved to be payed in full, even though they only purchased the bonds for a few cents on the dollar during the default.
This spring it managed to convince a lower New York court, not only that Argentina must pay, but that payments to the other creditors would be held hostage until the country could see eye to eye with Singer. Argentina appealed the case to the US Supreme Court, but the justices refused to hear the case.
The collateral damage from all of this will hurt New York as a financial centre, crush Argentina’s ability to get international credit, and make future restructuring of debt much more difficult.
While the default most certainly doesn’t mean another episode of corralito and property confiscation, it will worsen Argentina’s inflation. The country is currently projected at just shy of 40% inflation for 2014 and is also entering a recession.
Because of the default, foreign credit will be even harder to attract to Argentina and, as a result, the country will be forced to take on more debt and devalue the peso to maintain reserves.
The combination is clear. Inflation will rise and Argentina will remain an outsider to financial capital markets for a while longer.
Inflation could boost bitcoin
Argentina is without a doubt a leader in bitcoin development, use and leadership in Latin America – and high inflation only reinforces this adoption.
Co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation of Argentina, Franco Daniel Amati echoed the sentiments of every single bitcoin user I’ve talked to in Argentina with his reason for adoption of the digital currency:
“We know the peso will lose value – and probably rapidly. With bitcoin, even if it just maintains price, it’s a huge advantage for us Argentinians.”
Additionally, bitcoin gives common Argentinians options: it offers a solution to the US dollar exchange lockdown that has resulted in a 50% difference between the official and non-official exchange rates. Those who want access to a more stable store of value can have that without frequenting the black market.
Benefits for locals and tourists
The connection between adoption and inflation isn’t just personal, either. BitPagos, an Argentinian payment processor based in Buenos Aires, addresses this exact need by allowing merchants to receive payments in bitcoin.
Founder and CEO, Sebastian Serrano grew wise to this need and has been growing quickly, targeting primarily hotels where foreign clients face enormous charges for using credit cards.
Don’t look to Argentina to be the cause of a short term speculative spike in price, but rather take it as an example of the true uses of bitcoin and the steady adoption of the technology in a country that yearns for financial sanity.
Peso closeup image via Shutterstock
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, CoinDesk.
ArgentinaBitPagosdebt
If Argentina’s ‘Default Wednesday’ had been as bad as its 2001 debt default, the country’s citizens would be scrambling en masse for alternatives to the peso – such as bitcoin.
When Cyprus, with a population of just over a million, suffered a financial crisis in 2013, freezing bank accounts and eventually confiscating money from private accounts, the fear peaked the interests of bitcoin enthusiasts worldwide.
As the situation in Cyprus hit the media, the bitcoin price surged from $47 on 17th March when banks closed, to a staggering $266 on 11th April, shortly after their opening.
Argentina’s 2001 default was eerily similar to the Cyprian crisis with property seizures and frozen accounts. Now Argentina, a country of 41 million, finds itself in default for the eighth time since liberation from Spain.
In the first major sovereign bankruptcy since Cyprus, what might this mean for bitcoin?
A history of the recent troubles
The years of financial troubles which led to Argentina’s default on Wednesday have their roots in the total chaos that gripped Argentina at the end of 2001.
On 21st December 2001, then Argentinian president Fernando de la Rúa fled La Casa Rosada, the presidential office, by helicopter. Because his vice-president had already abandoned his post that October, President of the Senate Ramón Puerta took office for that day and the next. On the 23rd, he passed the baton to Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, who during his one week in office defaulted on Argentina’s debt of $132bn.
Saá’s own party withdrew their support for the new president before the 31st and Eduardo Duhalde was appointed his successor. It wasn’t until Néstor Kirchner took office in 2003 that things returned to normal.
The riots that lead to this revolving door started three weeks prior to de la Rúa’s flight, when his government announced a ‘corralito’, or fencing in of bank accounts. The corralito was a last-ditch attempt to postpone default and maintain dollar reserves by capping the number of pesos that citizens could withdraw at $250 per week.
High-stakes game of chicken
In both the Cyprian and 2001 Argentina defaults, the cause was a clear insufficiency of reserves to pay obligations. Because of this, Argentina’s current default is rather unique.
Argentina elected to play chicken with foreign credit markets, declaring that they wouldn’t pay unless the holdouts accepted the same terms as the other 92% of bondholders – 65 cents on the dollar. The restructuring that set these terms occurred in 2005 and 2010.
During this time, Elliot Management Corporation CEO Paul Singer has maintained that his firm deserved to be payed in full, even though they only purchased the bonds for a few cents on the dollar during the default.
This spring it managed to convince a lower New York court, not only that Argentina must pay, but that payments to the other creditors would be held hostage until the country could see eye to eye with Singer. Argentina appealed the case to the US Supreme Court, but the justices refused to hear the case.
The collateral damage from all of this will hurt New York as a financial centre, crush Argentina’s ability to get international credit, and make future restructuring of debt much more difficult.
While the default most certainly doesn’t mean another episode of corralito and property confiscation, it will worsen Argentina’s inflation. The country is currently projected at just shy of 40% inflation for 2014 and is also entering a recession.
Because of the default, foreign credit will be even harder to attract to Argentina and, as a result, the country will be forced to take on more debt and devalue the peso to maintain reserves.
The combination is clear. Inflation will rise and Argentina will remain an outsider to financial capital markets for a while longer.
Inflation could boost bitcoin
Argentina is without a doubt a leader in bitcoin development, use and leadership in Latin America – and high inflation only reinforces this adoption.
Co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation of Argentina, Franco Daniel Amati echoed the sentiments of every single bitcoin user I’ve talked to in Argentina with his reason for adoption of the digital currency:
“We know the peso will lose value – and probably rapidly. With bitcoin, even if it just maintains price, it’s a huge advantage for us Argentinians.”
Additionally, bitcoin gives common Argentinians options: it offers a solution to the US dollar exchange lockdown that has resulted in a 50% difference between the official and non-official exchange rates. Those who want access to a more stable store of value can have that without frequenting the black market.
Benefits for locals and tourists
The connection between adoption and inflation isn’t just personal, either. BitPagos, an Argentinian payment processor based in Buenos Aires, addresses this exact need by allowing merchants to receive payments in bitcoin.
Founder and CEO, Sebastian Serrano grew wise to this need and has been growing quickly, targeting primarily hotels where foreign clients face enormous charges for using credit cards.
Don’t look to Argentina to be the cause of a short term speculative spike in price, but rather take it as an example of the true uses of bitcoin and the steady adoption of the technology in a country that yearns for financial sanity.
Peso closeup image via Shutterstock
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, CoinDesk.
ArgentinaBitPagosdebt
Original author: James Downer
Original author: Stan Higgins