Bitbond has raised $1.2 million in new equity capital to grow its user base and further its product development; the firm offers loans globally to small and medium-sized enterprises and uses the bitcoin blockchain for global cross-border lending; since its launch the platform has originated over 1,600 loans worth approximately $1.2 million; it currently has 76,000 registered users in 120 countries. Source
While bitcoin's price has been reaching new highs its trading volatility has also been high; market momentum has recently been slowed by a number of factors including exchange regulation and new fees in China and the denial of the Winklevoss bitcoin ETF; Business Insider charts the cryptocurrencies progress and reports a double top with a neckline at $1,100 noting that if the price falls below the chart's neckline, technical analysis would indicate it's likely to fall even further, giving it a new expected average of approximately $900; given recent market factors a significant decrease in China trading volume and the technical analysis, bitcoin's price appears to be headed lower. Source
Bitcoin trading has become a viable income source for many Chinese cryptocurrency traders; launched in 2009 the cryptocurrency has recently reached highs of over 8,000 yuan ($1,160.65) and is currently trading at around 6,600 yuan ($957.53); with a global worth of over $14 billion, over 90% is currently in yuan and Chinese investors are actively taking advantage of the currency's gains; investor Huai Yang is reportedly earning 1 million yuan ($145,081) per month from trading bitcoin; other investors have also reported steady bitcoin trading monthly incomes of over 40,000 yuan ($5,803). Source
The SEC has agreed to reconsider its review of the Winklevoss bitcoin ETF rejection following a petition from the Bats exchange; a comment period is now open for support or opposition of the Disapproval Order until May 15; the SEC has not approved any bitcoin ETFs for trading also rejecting the listing of SolidX on the NYSE Arca. Source
The Bitcoin Cash (BCC) blockchain has successfully split away from the legacy chain; the block was mined by the China-based mining pool Viabtc at 2:14 pm EDT; the first Bitcoin Cash block was 1.9 MB in size, holding 6,985 transactions - much larger than BTC's 1MB limit and approximately 3,000 transaction throughput. Source
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) denied the approval of a rule change proposal that would have allowed for the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF to be traded on the Bats BZX Exchange, also operated by the Winklevoss brothers; approval would have created the US's first publicly traded bitcoin investment fund; the SEC cited two main factors in their disapproval of the investment: 1) the Exchange lacks surveillance-sharing agreements with significant markets for trading the underlying bitcoin commodity and 2) the markets involved in bitcoin trading are not sufficiently regulated. Source
Over the weekend, the price of bitcoin dropped by as much as 20%; the price has since rebounded slightly with a current price as of writing of $1,041; the recent volatility is due to disagreements between developers, exchanges and entrepreneurs about the size limit of a block; some want to increase the current block limit of 1 MB; two groups have been debating including Bitcoin Unlimited, who is advocating for no limit on block sizes, and Bitcoin Core, who is advocating to keep the block size as is; Bitcoin Unlimited has recently threatened to implement a hard fork. Source
Billionaire investor Mike Novogratz has 10% of his money invested in bitcoin; the former hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs partner began betting on the digital currency in 2013 and has benefited from its one year gain from $500 in 2016 to a current price of over $1,200; to manage some of the risk of bitcoin's price volatility Novogratz suggests sector diversification; he is an investor in cryptocurrency ether which has seen a price increase from $1 to over $48 and is also a proponent of blockchain. Source
Starting August 1 at about 8:20 AM EST, the bitcoin blockchain split, and there is a new set of tokens - bitcoin cash (BCC) - on the new blockchain; bitcoin's price dropped about 10% from $2,944 to $2,632 in about forty minutes, according to bitcoin trading platform OKCoin. Source (Chinese)
Starting August 1 at about 8:20 am EST, the Bitcoin blockchain split and there was a new set of tokens...