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Alpha Technology has a new development update and its Viper scrypt board seems to be making headway. The British ASIC maker said it has completed the schematics for the ATX power distribution board and of the AC power metering board. Those of the actual ASIC board are not complete yet, but Alpha said it is “almost” done. In addition, the company has finalised the design of the enclosure and WebGUI user interface. ... In any case, the advent of powerful and immensely efficient scrypt ASICs is not good news for GPU miners, as the ASICs will render GPU-based miners uncompetitive...

The US House of Representatives committee on small business held a hearing on 2nd April to discuss the growing use of bitcoin by the country’s small business owners (SMBs), and the pros and cons that using this technology as a payment option offers the demographic. Entitled ‘Bitcoin: Examining the Benefits and Risks for Small Business’, a panel of experts spoke about the benefits and costs of the use of bitcoin by SMBs, while also touching on hot topics like Silk Road and the recent IRS decision on the tax treatment of digital currencies. Committee Chairman Sam Graves noted in his...

One of my favorite things about bitcoin is how it’s such an all-inclusive tent. Bitcoin attracts political idealists from the right, political idealists from the left, Silicon Valley technologists, social science academics, philosophers, capitalists, socialists, and even apolitical speculators. Alex Payne kicked off this latest round of analysis with his blog piece: “Bitcoin, Magical Thinking, and Political Ideology”. A self-described programmer and secular humanist, Payne worked as an early engineer at Twitter building the service’s developer platform and backend infrastructure.

Just how big a financial opportunity is bitcoin? Recently, Wall Street has been starting to ask that very question, paying more and more attention to the upstart alternative currency. The first analysis by a registered broker dealer which attempted to value bitcoin’s worth was published on 1st December by Wedbush Securities. While Los Angeles-based Wedbush is a respected securities firm, it doesn’t count itself among the first-tier of investment banks, or the ‘bulge bracket’ as its known on Wall Street. The Wedbush research report contained some novel analysis and perspective, but it was also ‘light’ in that it weighed in...

WASHINGTON -- The baffling Bitcoin boom is either an exercise in self-delusion -- a high-tech Ponzi scheme that will come crashing down -- or an imaginative new Internet technology that will ultimately change how millions of people around the world conduct everyday business. There is little middle ground. Called a "digital currency," Bitcoin originated in early 2009 with a software program written by Satoshi Nakamoto. Who is Nakamoto? Good question. It's a pseudonym, and we don't know who's behind it -- whether man or woman; individual or group; American, Japanese, Russian or some other nationality. But what seems clear is...

Newegg, the online electronics retailer worth at least $2bn in annual revenue, has tweeted yet another hint that it will begin accepting bitcoin payments in the near future. The California-based company posted this teaser today: "Still waiting for an update, but will let you all know as soon as we receive word! RT @TheIanMerrill: @Newegg do you take #bitcoin yet?" There has been much online speculation over the past month as to what Newegg might be planning. A company of this size accepting bitcoin would be one of the biggest gestures toward mainstream bitcoin acceptance yet.

A Congressional report quietly released last month suggests that bitcoin could be a threat to US monetary policy, and makes the case for continued central banking control. The report, Bitcoin: Questions, Answers, and Analysis of Legal Issues, was published by the Congressional Research Service, which produces research reports for US policy makers. It argues for the benefits of a single, incumbent currency (the US dollar), for stability. “If greater use of bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) leads to multiple monetary units, these benefits could be threatened, particularly if these new currencies continue to exhibit a high degree of price volatility,” the...

Make no mistake, the Bitcoin opportunity is creating a fast evolving trillion dollar new market in cryptocurrency eCommerce and more importantly mCommerce or mobile-Commerce. The future of cryptocurrencies is being secured right now with the launch of many new apps to enable digital cash, electronic payments and secure eWallets using cryptocurrencies via smart phones and other digital devices such as secure pens, sophisticated crypto-watches and customised memory sticks. Cryptocurrency adoption is growing very fast, in a similar exponential curve to the adoption of the world wide web in the years following 1995 or even the spread of electric power exactly...