Bitcoin Bubble Tracker: January 10

By PYMNTS | January 9, 2014

Link to live trading on the various markets

Bitcoin Bubble Tracker | Week 6

This last week saw bitcoin’s valuation soar thanks to Zynga’s embrace of bitcoin as a tender on its gaming platform, bitcoin’s valuation fall as China gave it the boot, the Feds listening intently to advocates who want to burnish its image, members of Congress taking both sides of the bitcoin debate and the usual inventory of hack attacks. Yes, just another week in bitcoin land.

Hope you enjoy, and if you have any news you’d like to share, please send it our way at contactus@pymnts.com.

Bubble Builders

Bitcoin has gone omnichannel! There is now a place in New York, right near the stock exchange, where bitcoin enthusiasts can hang out and trade bitcoin tips. But, that’s not all. You’ll be relieved to know that you can now pay for food in Chile using bitcoin, and you can pay using a bitcoin wallet that has reached 1 million users. And, bitcoin even made an appearance at CES, the big consumer electronics and technology trade show in Las Vegas.

January 9, 2014 – Overstock.com’s big experiment with Bitcoin launched.

January 9, 2014 – A new Bitcoin exchange leader has emerged in China, called Huobi.

January 9, 2013 – The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) issued tax guidance on Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not considered a good and doesn’t qualify as money or a currency and falls under Singapore’s goods and services tax and guidelines vary according to how the service is provided.

January 9, 2014 – Joshua Blank, a tax law professor at New York University said that the IRS can’t outlaw Bitcoin but can use past experience to require information reporting about transactions. He mentioned that “the danger is the creation of an electronic black market, similar to the cash economy” and that’s what the IRS wants to avoid.”

January 9, 2014 – A small high-end winery, Pyramid Valley Vineyards, in New Zealand becomes the first wine business in the southern hemisphere to accept Bitcoin. A winery in Canada and California both accept Bitcoin.

January 9, 2014 – Nina Olsen, the IRS’s National Taxpayer Advocate, said that the IRS should give taxpayers clear rules on how to handle Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

January 8, 2014 – A traveling Bitcoin ATM was present at CES. The company reports that they have shipped 130 of the machines across the globe.

January 8, 2014 – GreenBank Capital, the Bitcoin Merchant bank, made its first investment through its new Bitcoin Angel Subsidiary and acquired 20% of the Sovereign Exchange International. The Sovereign Exchange International will act as a clear

January 8, 2014 – The first brick-and-mortar Bitcoin Center opened down the street from the NYSE and will act as an area to house Bitcoin fanatics.

January 7, 2014 – Bitcoin advocates are working to win over (or reduce the alarm) regarding Bitcoin at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement.

January 7, 2014 – Senator Thomas Carper, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman, spoke to the possible merits of Bitcoin saying, “we know there’s some bad stuff that can happen…but we also know that some good things could happen, it can enhance transactions between buyers and sellers. It can actually help Internet and national trade”.

January 7, 2014 – A nightclub in Chile, California Cantina, will become the first restaurant in Chile and the first nightclub in all of Latin America to accept Bitcoins.

January 6, 2014 – Zynga, the social game maker, announced that they will be teting a Bitcoin payment option with popular games like FarmVile 2, CastleVille and CityVille.

January 6, 2014 – The president & COO of BuzzFeed spoke about his option on Bitcoin and said “As an investor, I’m bullish but cautious, as a hobbyist I can’t stop reading about it”.

January 6, 2014 – KryptoKit, a Bitcoin wallet service, announced that three high-profile Bitcoin entrepreneurs would be joining the team.

January 6, 2014 – Blockchain.info, a Bitcoin digital wallet, reached 1 million users.

January 5, 2014 – A research team lead by Princeton University faculty is designing a prediction market underpinned by Bitcoin transactions. The professor handing the project, Arvind Narayanan, said that he “believes Bitcoin provides an opportunity to decentralize prediction markets from external oversight”.

Janurary 5, 2014 – Bitcoin Pulseor launched, which is a service that tracks data related to Bitcoin on Coinbase, Coinmap and Github as well as investment services, consumer services and discussion groups as well as the latest exchange rates.

Bubble Busters

It’s a bad day in bitcoin land when the biggest internet marketplaces in a massive consumer market just says no to bitcoin. That’s what happened in China when Alibaba and Taobao put the kibosh on bitcoin. And, we really thought that Kayne West had more of a sense of humor, but new cryptocurrency, coinye (west), will likely have a very short shelf life when it launches next week. At least this phantom has a sense of humor.

January 9, 2014 – The top internet retailer in China, Alibaba, has banned the use of Bitcoin on its platform starting on January 19^th.

January 9, 2014 – Bloomberg Businessweek’s cover story is “Bitcoin Dreams” with an image of a unicorn on the front and a subheading reading “Why are investors so crazy for an alternative currency invented by a phantom”.

January 9, 2014 – A malware attack that was focused on Yahoo ads, after entering PCs in Europe attempted to steal computational resources to mine Bitcoins.

January 8, 2014 – A senior German Central Bank (Bundesbank) official warned that “because of its design and because of the large volatility, Bitcoin [is] highly speculative. We do not see that the price is being driven by fundamentals.”

January 7, 2014 – China’s largest online marketplace, Taobao, will ban the sale of all cryptocurrencies, mining equipment and mining tutorials starting on the 14^th of January.

January 7, 2014 – Due to legal pressure from Kanye West’s legal team and a cease and desist letter, Coinye launched their site ahead of schedule.

January 6, 2014 – RightClick LLC, a Bitcoin investment company, was sent a notice by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement (FinCen) that it is not a money-services business in the eyes of the federal government.