October 24, 2014 - In This Issue:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel: 'Unlike PayPal, Bitcoin Succeeded in Developing a Currency'

PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel believes Bitcoin has succeeded as a currency, but still lacks as a payment system.

On October 15, Peter Thiel was invited to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business to speak about entrepreneurship and business practices for an event organized by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

 

The event was hosted by Booth School of Business' Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics Randall Kroszner, and gathered more than 1,000 members of the University community, reported the Chicago Maroon.

Thiel started his talk with a critique of what he calls "a pervasive, pessimistic worldview" consisting in believing entrepreneurial successes can only happen with discoveries in limited fields:

"Basic geography and chemistry are two examples of areas in which there is nothing left to discover, but most fields are not like that. However, if we believe that there are no 'secrets,' we're never going to find out. [...] There is a common belief that all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked. I'm telling you that it has always been intermediate-hanging fruit, and it is up to us to find it and pick it."

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CNET Founder Readies Bitreserve Launch in Bid to Quell Bitcoin Volatility       

Halsey Minor made a name for himself during the dot-com boom with CNET. Now he's climbing onto another new-technology wave with Bitreserve, a bitcoin-wallet service unveiled in May that will become publicly available later this month.

 

Bitreserve has a few features differentiating it from other digital-currency wallet services. It taps the efficiency and low-transaction costs of bitcoin, but also promises to lock in users' bitcoin deposits at fixed exchange rates. The service does not allow actual exchanges of bitcoin against fiat currencies but rather promises to absorb and manage the risk of bitcoin losing value against them by maintaining and publicly displaying an asset reserve covering 100% of its clients' dollar- and other currency-denominated deposits. The goal is to overcome the extreme price volatility that has been the digital currency's primary deterrent for mainstream users and thus provide them with a service for cheap, reliable money transfers.

 

"We want bitcoin to go from being this weirdo currency to being 'my currency,' " says Mr. Minor.

 

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Bitcoin: "A Better Store of Value" than the Currencies of Mismanaged Economies

NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) - If there's one thing that makes people more uncomfortable than anything else, it's not quite knowing whether their money will mean anything. Americans don't know what this means because the U.S. dollar is one of the most secure currencies in history. But for people from a country like Venezuela, it's a real fear.

 

Juan Llanos, the executive vice president of strategic partnerships at Bitreserve, being a native of Argentina knows a thing or two about economic unrest.

 

"The reason is that to us, inflation is not a theoretical concept studied in college. The effects of high inflation are very real. The rise of the cost of basic goods affects every single person," Llanos told Inside Bitcoins.

 

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Bitcoin may be volatile but has value beyond price point

SAN FRANCISCO - Bitcoin burst on the world a few years ago as a shiny new virtual currency. Lately, that shine has been a bit tarnished.

 

The value in the decentralized and unregulated digital currency has plummeted since hitting a high of more than $1,130 in December 2013. It's now priced at more than $380, a two-thirds decline in value.

 

And even though many entities, financial companies and other businesses have embraced bitcoin, some have shied away - including Japan, where banks cannot deal in the currency.

 

Some high-profile crimes have also hampered bitcoin. Earlier this year, customers lost $425 million when the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, lost the digital currency in their accounts.

 

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Will Bitcoin spark 'a new era of banking' for UK businesses?

National second hand goods chain, CeX, has announced this week that it will be accepting Bitcoin as currency and will provide the currency in exchange for hardware or software that people bring in to trade. 

 

Bitcoin, for those who aren't in-the-know, is an online currency and payment system. It is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen.

 

The currency was invented in 2009 by an unknown developer under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. All transactions are anonymous and there is no middleman or bank involved. The authenticity of each transaction is protected by digital signatures corresponding to the sending addresses.

 

As Bitcoin is not tied to any country or location, transferring money internationally is without charge and is not subject to any regulation. Bitcoin is created by a process called mining, in which participants verify and record payments into a public ledger in exchange for transaction fees and newly minted bitcoins.

 

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