Page 4,301«..1020..4,3004,3014,3024,303..4,3104,320..»

3 Ways Software Programs Can Help With Internet Security in 2017 – Geek Snack

Back in the day, computer viruses could only infect diskettes by changing their label. That was back in the 1980s, when Brain, the first computer virus, was invented. The authors developed the virus with the intent of protecting their heart-monitoring software against piracy. Fast forward to the present day, you can no longer expect viruses to be as harmless as the Brain virus. Virus authors these days make money off their illegal activities. In fact, they make a billion dollar business by creating malware and viruses. This is why Internet security is very crucial these days. You need an Internet security suite if you want maximum protection for your computer. Take note that antivirus and Internet security software are two different things. Both are designed to safeguard your computer against harmful programs but an Internet security software has more innovative features than an antivirus tool. Here are some ways an Internet security software can improve your security in 2017:

Should you get an Internet security suite if you already have a good antivirus software? Yes. You will need its advanced features for maximum security. The top internet security available for PC today offers the complete protection for your computer and mobile devices. It has an excellent malware defense, parental control, two-way firewall, antispam, and webcam protection among others.

Read this article:
3 Ways Software Programs Can Help With Internet Security in 2017 - Geek Snack

Read More..

Encryption leaves authorities ‘not in a good place’: Former US intelligence chief – ZDNet

James Clapper at a Senate intelligence committee hearing in February. (Image: file photo)

James Clapper, Barack Obama's former director of National Intelligence, has said the issue of criminals and terrorists going dark by using end-to-end encrypted systems is causing issues in the United States.

"The so-called going dark phenomenon -- a situation that was dramatically accelerated by the Snowden revelations -- in our country, I don't think we're in a good place here," Clapper said at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

"I think there needs to be a very serious dialogue about giving criminals, terrorists, rapists, murderers, etcetera, a pass."

Clapper said he hopes technology giants will use the creativity and innovation that made the iPhone and turn it to a form of encryption that simultaneously protects privacy while allowing authorities to access its content, but he had no answers to offer himself.

"One of the approaches that might have promise, I don't know, would be circle back on a system of key escrow where not one party necessarily would have the keys to the kingdom from an encryption standpoint," he said.

"Where there might be three independent, separate, autonomous elements that would have to prove the provision of encryption in order to solve a crime or detect a terrorist attack, for example.

"We had some discussions about that in the waning days of the Obama Administration. I'm not a techie, but that appears to me to have some promise."

The former director of National Intelligence also said there is no single correct answer to the issues of whether intelligence agencies should disclose vulnerabilities in software to vendors, or use them to collect information.

In recent days, political leaders in the United Kingdom and Australia have called on social media companies and tech giants -- labelled by Australian opposition leader Bill Shorten as Big Internet -- to help provide access to encryption. It is an idea that Clapper is backing, particularly after a meeting with executives from Silicon Valley at the White House approximately 18 months ago.

"I was struck by the interest that the companies have in helping," he said. "I do think there is a role to play here in some screening and filtering of what appears in social media.

"I know this is a very sensitive, controversial issue, but in the same way that these companies very adroitly capitalise on the information that we make available to them and exploit it, it seems that that same ingenuity could be applied in a sensitive way to filtering out or at least identifying some of the more egregious material that appears on social media.

"I do think that as part of their social or municipal responsibility that they need to cooperate and if that means under some safeguarded way that they would have confidence in ... that law enforcement particularly, would be allowed access to encryption.

"I hear the argument about if you share once with one person and it's forever compromised -- I'm not sure I really buy into that."

Talking to ABC radio on Wednesday morning, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cybersecurity Alastair MacGibbon stepped away from some of the rhetoric used by Australian politicians this week.

"The Australian government -- in fact, all governments with an interest in the safety of the public -- like encryption. End-to-end encryption helps reduce criminality against individuals, against governments and against business," MacGibbon said.

"But there's no absolutes. Clearly, encryption causes problems if you're investigating criminals or terrorists."

MacGibbon dismissed the issue of intelligence agencies using encryption backdoors to access communication content, and instead said investigations might be interested in a user's metadata and working with industry to solve crimes.

"No one is talking about back doors here," he said. "But as a police officer you'd execute search warrants. From time to time we do expect our privacy to be breached, but most of us don't ever have that privacy breached."

"And we need to take that same logic into the online space. That means, from time to time, you'd expect a law enforcement agency to break in to a private communication or to something that happens online."

MacGibbon said that regardless of whether it is a bus or an internet service, the public expects that service providers do not allow criminals or terrorists to abuse the service.

"There's nothing extreme about that. That's just what we expect offline and we should have that same philosophy online."

See the original post here:
Encryption leaves authorities 'not in a good place': Former US intelligence chief - ZDNet

Read More..

Hungary’s CryptTalk boosted by encryption controversy – Financial Times

In his modest office in one of Budapests innovation parks, Szabolcs Kun reels off an eclectic list of clients: law firms, commodity traders, television celebrities and dealers in gemstones and precious metals.

Oh, and we recently got an inquiry from a top European football club, he adds.

All want the same thing: completely secure telephone calls.

Football club managers are like commodity traders: both deal in very expensive goods and have to negotiate [by phone], says Mr Kun, a 34-year-old IT entrepreneur, whose start-up CryptTalk is one of the products making a name for itself in Hungarys growing technology sector.

It was energy traders in Hungary who, in 2010, first alerted Mr Kun to the increasing threat of phone tapping. They found prices would mysteriously move against them after agreeing a deal on the phone, he says.

Mr Kun and Attila Megyeri, his business partner, were experienced telecommunications engineers. As more clients found evidence of eavesdropping, they turned their attention to security when communicating by telephone.

They wanted to provide a software solution, so that customers would not need to buy a second phone or additional gadget to increase security.

Even more importantly they wanted to make sure the software did not have a so-called back door that would allow governments or hackers to circumvent security measures. Traditional telecom providers typically offer secure telephony and call encryption through a central server, which generates and stores encryption keys.

This is legally mandated so the secret services can monitor calls [when justified], says Mr Kun. But it is also a back door into your system. Even if [it exists] for good control purposes, that door can be opened by the bad guys, for industrial espionage.

To circumvent this risk, the pair used so-called peer-to-peer encryption, whereby calls and messages are scrambled from handset to handset using software based on a complex algorithm. This generates an encryption code shared only between caller and receiver.

The Achilles heel of such systems is the delay in calls typically of two seconds duration that is caused by the encryption-decryption process and can frustrate users. With their specialist knowledge of telephony and many hours of hard work, Mr Kun and his partner eliminated this lag.

The two founders have won backing from a clutch of private investors to finance their vehicle, Arenim Technologies. Angel investors are still the most common way for Hungarian start-ups to raise funding, with 37 per cent of start-ups using this route for finance, according to the European Startup Monitor, a study conducted by start-up associations around Europe.

Arenim was registered in Stockholm while the development team remained in Budapest.

After a long review, we chose Sweden. It has the best privacy laws...Its where the rights to free speech and such stuff are important, Mr Kun says.

Sweden also has more liberal export regulations than Hungary, where licences are needed to sell security software outside the EU.

Designed to work with Apples iPhone, they quietly launched their CryptTalk app in 2014.

This is a solution with no back door, without any special hardware and, very importantly, even we, the vendors, cannot decrypt calls made using CryptTalk, Mr Kun says. If my engineer goes crazy, or gets a big offer from a bad guy heres $1m, but help me [eavesdrop] even in that situation, CryptTalk cannot be hacked.

Two audits undertaken by NCC Group, a UK-based cyber security and risk mitigation company, in 2015 and 2017, support this claim.

CryptTalk was found to be secured to a very good standard and no practically exploitable vulnerabilities were found, NCC wrote.

Commercial progress, though, has been modest: CryptTalk has attracted 15,000 users, half from within Hungary, with revenues last year totalling 0.4m. Prices start from 19.99 per month for a subscription.

Gyuri Karady, Arenims business development director, says that a slow start is typical for a new product like this. He argues that businesses, while spending huge sums on computer security, typically fail to show the same concern over their phone calls.

Most corporates dont seem to have caught on that they are at risk, he says.

Arenim Technologies 25 staff are now focused on launching an Android-based version of CryptTalk later this year, followed by a drive for international sales.

CryptTalk was at the centre of controversy in March last year when, as part of Hungarys war on terror, a government official threatened to ban secure communications providers, including CryptTalk, for thwarting eavesdropping operations.

In an ironic twist, the very same week the Hungarian Innovation Association a state-supported body championed by the government awarded the annual prize for start-up innovation to Arenim Technologies in recognition of CryptTalk.

The hubbub died down after the government decided not to enact the ban.

Mr Kun says he is willing to co-operate on legitimate security concerns with any state including, if necessary, closing a users account. But, he says: So far, [we have had] zero official request from authorities or governments of any kind to co-operate with them or provide them data.

Publicity surrounding the governments threat to CryptTalk last year had a positive effect on sales. Extensive media coverage in the region and globally, led to a surge in users, which jumped 20 per cent from 8,000 to 9,600 in one month.

It shows the Hungarian government does support start-ups, says Mr Kun. We couldnt have paid for this [kind of] marketing.

See the original post:
Hungary's CryptTalk boosted by encryption controversy - Financial Times

Read More..

We want to limit use of e2e encryption, confirms UK minister – TechCrunch


TechCrunch
We want to limit use of e2e encryption, confirms UK minister
TechCrunch
The UK government has once again amped up its attacks on tech platforms' use of end-to-end encryption, and called for International co-operation to regulate the Internet so that it cannot be used as a safe space for extremists to communicate and ...
Theresa May's repeated calls to ban encryption still won't workNew Scientist
Government again takes aim at encryption after terrorists shake LondonSC Magazine UK
Theresa May wants social media companies to create controversial 'backdoors' for policeThe Daily Dot
Forbes -http://www.channelweb.co.uk -CNBC
all 395 news articles »

See the rest here:
We want to limit use of e2e encryption, confirms UK minister - TechCrunch

Read More..

Krypt.co scores a $1.2M seed round to simplify developer encryption … – TechCrunch


TechCrunch
Krypt.co scores a $1.2M seed round to simplify developer encryption ...
TechCrunch
Krypt.co, a new security startup founded by two former MIT students and one of their professors, is launching today with a free product called Kryptonite,..

and more »

Read the original:
Krypt.co scores a $1.2M seed round to simplify developer encryption ... - TechCrunch

Read More..

OP-ED: Diluting encryption is more trouble than its worth – CitiBlog (blog)

In the early 1990s, the USs National Security Agency developed the so-dubbed Clipper Chip. This was intended as a backdoor bypassing encryption to allow the United States government to intercept messages.

The concept intended to use an outlet called key escrow, where specialist government encryption chips unique to each device could intercept data as and when the government requested it. Very quickly, however, the concept ran aground.

In a simple explanation, the project was defunct within a few years of the US government trumpeting its development and despite both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations touting its potential. Noted computer security researcher Matt Blaze discovered a serious flaw in the chips security features, while many US citizens raised concerns about privacy and the chips vulnerability eventually lead to the concept being shelved altogether.

Twenty-something years may have seen technologys advances become ever-more sophisticated and several political shifts occur in the interim, but a lot of the arguments in the debate over encryption remain the same. It has also played out in debates in the West on whether or not the more open Internet can be reconciled with security, and whether or not encryption can ever be breached just for one individuals communications.

Last year, the debate on encryption was a big story in the United States. Apple and the FBI were involved in a long-running argument in data on an iPhone 5C recovered from the site of a mass shooting in California at the end of 2015.

That case eventually went away after months of debate, with the Washington Post alleging that the FBI ultimately recruited some professional hackers to break into the phone on their behalf. But it lead to an interesting debate along the way on the ubiquity of encryption, and the impracticality of whether or not it simply can be breached for one phone.

In the last few decades, the incorporation of encryption in communication can be seen everywhere online. Internet communications all use it on some level, and strong encryption allows things we take for granted, like online shopping, banking, e-mail, accessing health records or credit scorers, and the majority of all messaging apps, with some of the big examples being WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger.

Apples argument in the case last year, which is backed by the majority of technology companies and people in the computing industry, is that it is not technically possible to breach one device using its operating system without creating a vulnerability that affects every phone using a set Apple operating system. It is not inconceivable that if such a vulnerability was created, it may well end up in the hands of hackers, and furthermore, that after being asked to just use it once, there would be repeated requests for more use.

The encryption debate has had a curious recent demonstration when a coded hack of the older Windows XP by the NSA ended up in the hands of hackers, who duly ended up unleashing it worldwide on unprotected XP systems used by such diverse people as Britains NHS, the German rail network, Spanish phone giant Telefonica, FedEx, the Russian Interior Ministry, and several locations in Asia.

It may well be that the majority of computers turned out to be more secure than billed in the initial hack, and that Microsofts decision to stop supporting XP in 2014/15 did not help, but its highly unlikely even risking incidents like this happening with their newer technology would be a sell for technology companies to their users or shareholders.

Nevertheless, the encryption argument is still being made. Its presence has been heardahead of this weeks UK election, which is coming in the wake of repeated terrorist atrocities in Europe, including Saturdays awful events in London Bridge and adjacent Borough Market.

Arguments over encryption have long been bought up by the Conservative Party in arguing that strong encryption enables terrorists to hide their secrets, but the arguments have been more focused of late. In this year, they were bought up by Home Secretary Amber Rudd in March in the wake of the Westminster Bridge attacks, and calls to lower encryption surfaced again after Manchester & London Bridge.

The problem with the encryption debate as far as the Tory Party argues it is the question of motivation. Namely, how much of what is motivating them to make the argument over ending encryption is to keep British citizens safe from terror, and how much of their motivation is because they wanted to weaken encryption anyway.

In their manifesto, which was released before the two most recent attacks, the Conservatives pledged to toughen up internet regulation in such a way that technology journalists and experts compared their proposals to the so-dubbed Great Firewall of China in effect, the method where China seals its internet users in a self-contained corner of cyberspace.

The talk directed towards the likes of Facebook was either comply or be banned, which wouldnt be a great advert for the UKs attempts to position itself at the forefront of technical innovation, and given the ready availability of proxy or VPN networks, may not succeed anyway. In all truth, what would also happen for the counter-terror squad is that they would have to sift through thousands and thousands of messages to find the ones theyre looking for, and those looking to keep their messages encrypted will most likely find new apps to use anyway when the ones they were using have backdoors added.

In the governments defence, the argument on encryption is not a black and white issue, and technology companies can do more to help the fight against the spread of extremist ideology online. It is also true the likes of Facebook and Google do hold severe unchecked power over the world power that has grown massively in the last 10-20 years, and which seems to continue without stopping.

But the idea that encryption is to be the fall guy when everyday consumers rely on these tools to keep their personal data safe and to use the internet in confidence, and that the internet can be replaced by a state-regulated version, is not really a strategy thats ultimately going to work.

It is true the counter-terror plans need new options to reduce and eventually end the threat posed by groups like ISIS. But broadly speaking, weakening encryption is an easy idea to pitch, but too hard a one to really make work for the goals intended for it.

Read more from Charles Crook

Read this article:
OP-ED: Diluting encryption is more trouble than its worth - CitiBlog (blog)

Read More..

Bitcoin Paused And Is On The Run Higher Again – Seeking Alpha

Bitcoin is on the run higher once again. The news propelling the crypto-currency has to do with China's exchanges coming to a conclusion over the withdrawal issue. The bigger exchanges had put a halt to withdrawals. The exchanges had put a 1-month moratorium on withdrawals over concerns of money laundering. That 1-month moratorium went in to effect in February. By removing the ban on withdrawals there is an added element of security for individuals owning Bitcoin. The past coulee of days has seen the crypto-currency pushing towards the all-time highs. Whether that level is crossed any time soon or the currency fluctuates on any level, the long term prospects for the currency ultimately remain bullish.

As the chart above shows, the past 19 days has seen some intense buying. On the 16th of May, the currency was trading below $1,700.00. It then moved all the way upward to $2,900.00 in spectacular fashion; a 70% move upward in 7 days. But, then the currency fell back down another $1,000.00 in 3 day's time.

I had an expectation there would be a further easing of price. However, that was not to be; additional positive news prompted additional buying. The price of Bitcoin never hit the levels I had expected to see, a range of about $1,750.00 - $1,850.00. Instead, the constant drip of additional acceptance for the monetary alternative keeps drawing in more demand and continues to keep price moving higher and higher.

When you are in the midst of a long position on Bitcoin and there is a move upward, then right back downward, it can be disconcerting. But, there are option exchanges to allow for protecting your positions. A move of the magnitude that has happened, moving from $900.00 all the way up to $2,900.00 since the first week in April, and then back down to $1,900.00 in just days is a unique characteristic of Bitcoin.

There is a set amount of coins in the Bitcoin exchange system - 21 million. This means the currency is not going to get diluted because of a central bank's policies of inflation and constant printing. The world's currencies have an effective unlimited supply of money. This is why currencies typically move in tighter ranges compared to Bitcoin.

If you go long Bitcoin, I highly recommend your considering the most recent moves the coin has made. I typically trade with options because of the price movements that potentially could happen.

The recent moves are a good example of the potential for Bitcoin. The Chinese exchanges have begun allowing withdrawals. My initial thought when I heard this news was that price would come down. After all, this is a big issue that individuals were not able to withdraw their funds and now they can. If, all of a sudden you can withdraw funds, wouldn't there be selling and withdrawals?

Instead, this was viewed as being a positive enough development that the surge in buying sent the currency higher. The price movement showed me that any reluctance to get into the crypto-currency was greater than the amount of withdrawals that could have taken place.

I continue to point out all of the positive aspects of why Bitcoin is a far better choice than cash. Last year, in 2016, $500 billion was transferred from one country to another via intermediaries such as Western Union (NYSE:WU). For anyone wanting to transfer funds having to use an intermediary is time consuming and involves fees. Bitcoin, as a form of currency, offers an alternative and sending funds to someone on the other side of the world has never been less expensive nor immediate than it is now with companies building platforms on top of the crypto-currency blockchain.

The current market capitalization of Bitcoin is $50 billion. Given the total size of capital being sent abroad if there is continued acceptance and usage then Bitcoin has the chance to grab a good chunk of the market share of the intermediary money-transfer business.

If you were going to send money via these more traditional money transfer systems, the costs would starts at $4.99 for transferring $20.00. That very same cost via Bitcoin is relatively free in comparison starting at about .0002 per Bitcoin. At today's price of $2,400.00 for BTCUSD, $0.48 as in forty-eight cents.

The individuals who send funds via alternative methods, such as Western Union, tend to be poor without bank accounts, hence the use of an alternative money transfer system. These individuals are cost conscious. Saving as much as they could with an app that is free and a transfer system that is relatively free would be a high motivational factor to switch protocols.

Bitcoin is a relatively newer concept. The crypto-currency was invented in 2009. In less than 9 years the currency has gone from a market capitalization of zero to $40 billion in the course of that time. As more and more hurdles are crossed, the acceptance of the currency will grow. In the United States the underbanked and unbanked represent some 7%. This alternative to moving money to-and-fro for these individuals will mean an opportunity for the crypto-currency.

However, very few places accept Bitcoin. This is not a problem as your Bitcoin is stored on your phone via a mathematical equation. You can transfer your coins to a pre-paid gift card, a lot like you would find in a convenience store. This makes using the crypto-currency simple to actually spend. However, more and more, there are systems being put into place to allow for accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment.

As more and more individuals get involved in the currency, the long term prospects of drawing in larger and larger demand will dictate that the currency continues to move higher.

My long term projections for Bitcoin remain the same: I am bullish. I believe that acceptance of the new currency will continue. I see more and more little hurdles being crossed allowing improved and uninterrupted access for the crypto-currency. This will continue to create demand which will drive price upward.

I do not believe that price will move in a straight line. The past several day's worth of activity is proof of that. As a trader, this should be something kept in perspective. As an investor, buying the currency and walking away without looking for a very long period of time will reward the owner considerably. As a user of the coin, the ultimate purpose of the currency is a medium of exchange. Ultimately, the weight of the currency's actual purpose will continually propel Bitcoin higher.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BTCUSD, COIN.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

View original post here:
Bitcoin Paused And Is On The Run Higher Again - Seeking Alpha

Read More..

Bitcoin Hits A New Record. Is A Crash Coming? – Fox Business

Bitcoin, the virtual currency, hit a new all-time high of $2,967 Tuesday, after having roughly tripled this year.

Given bitcoin's history and unregulated nature, a tumble at some point seems inevitable.

The currency's backers don't necessarily disagree. They just don't care.

"This is probably the third or fourth bubble, if you want to call it that, in digital currency that we've gone through," said Brian Armstrong, founder and chief executive of bitcoin-services firm Coinbase.

These waves tend to bring hype and volatility, but also new money, new ideas and new people to the currency and its offshoots. The result is that the world of cryptocurrencies is larger than it was before.

"A bunch of new people who had never heard about it are going to learn about it," said Mr. Armstrong.

Continue Reading Below

ADVERTISEMENT

Tony Horsley, a 78-year-old Atlanta investor whose portfolio includes 12 stable companies including Apple Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc., says bitcoin's huge price run-up in the past two months made him curious and gave him an idea to add "a little excitement to the mix." "When you get to my age, you can afford to take a few risks," Mr. Horsely said. "My portfolio of 12 stocks is boring."

A stateless currency launched in 2009, bitcoin isn't controlled by any one entity or government. Maintained by a decentralized network of computers, it is designed to quickly and cheaply match users with each other, sidestepping middlemen like banks.

The number of people actually using bitcoin is hard to pinpoint, but each new leg up in the price increases its mainstream exposure. It has been used for nefarious purposes like ransomware and drug trafficking. It also appeals to investors who don't trust their home currency and to entities in developing economies that want more efficient international payments.

Nairobi, Kenya-based BitPesa says it has helped 6,000 users across 85 countries send and receive payments in bitcoin. Global entrepreneurs have launched hundreds of bitcoin-like tokens known as "initial coin offerings," an alternative to venture-capital funding.

Many investors pay for the tokens with bitcoin or a rival virtual currency called Ethereum. The trend has helped spur demand for both.

Elizabeth Rossiello, BitPesa's co-founder and CEO, says regulators from the U.K. to Luxembourg are increasingly recognizing bitcoin's legitimate uses. "We stopped hearing, 'Go away, it's gonna die'," she says.

Under a new law, Japan's Financial Stability Agency started recognizing the digital currency as a payment method. Investors have responded by putting new money into bitcoin, and companies ranging from discount-airline Peach to energy company Nippon Gas Co. are accepting it.

Most of the gains this year, about $1,800 per bitcoin, happened since April 1, according to data provider Coindesk. The number of daily transactions on bitcoin's network has roughly tripled to around 300,000 from about 100,000 two years ago.

The currency, which eased off its record Tuesday morning to $2,878, now has a total market value of $46 billion, up from $15.3 billion on Dec. 31, 2016, according to CoinMarketCap.

Still, that is tiny compared with the $1.5 trillion of U.S. currency in circulation. And all the bitcoin in the world are still worth less than the $65 billion market value of electronic-payments company PayPal Holdings Inc., not to mention most big banks and technology companies.

What keeps bitcoin believers invested is the notion that the currency is still in the earliest stages. They remain convinced bitcoin will find a use that results in its widespread adoption, which in turn would cause its value to keep soaring.

Until then, the roller coaster ride in bitcoin value creates winners and losers, even as the surrounding publicity helps expand bitcoin's appeal and put the currency at a higher "plateau," as Coinbase's Mr. Armstrong described it. In recent weeks, Coinbase has been putting together a funding round that would value the company at $1 billion, which would make it one of the most valuable companies focused on digital currencies.

Bitcoin enthusiasts expect jarring turns in the price. "Markets work in bubble cycles," said Charlie Shrem, chief business officer of Jaxx, a cryptocurrency-services business based in Toronto. "There will be a bust, people will get wrecked."

Mr. Shrem knows from experience. The 27-year-old Brooklyn native bought his first bitcoins in 2011 for somewhere around 45 cents each. He rode a wave up, co-founding an early exchange called BitInstant and became one of the first crop of bitcoin millionaires.

In 2014, he was arrested for money laundering and running an illegal money transmitting business. He pleaded guilty to reduced charges, and served just over a year in prison. He said his bitcoin fortune was eaten up by lawyers' fees but he is as bullish on the currency today as he was six years ago.

Backers argue bitcoin's most interesting uses are years away, just as iPhones followed long after the internet. Some early work has focused on bitcoin as a vehicle for international micropayments, supplanting a process that now can require multiple bank intermediaries.

Another possibility is that bitcoin will be used to fund startups through initial coin offerings. ICOs, as they are known, are one the most meaningful catalysts for digital currencies' price surge this year, according to Eric Piscini, a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP who specializes in virtual currencies.

Bitcoin also could evolve as a sort of gold 2.0, a digital store of value that can hedge against market volatility while protecting savers and investors against governments' economic mismanagement.

Jeff Garzik, an early bitcoin developer who now runs a company that specializes in the technology underpinning bitcoin, says more gold investors will someday turn to bitcoin.

The current bitcoin moment, he says, "is nothing compared to what you'll see."

Write to Paul Vigna at paul.vigna@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 06, 2017 13:59 ET (17:59 GMT)

Read more here:
Bitcoin Hits A New Record. Is A Crash Coming? - Fox Business

Read More..

Why Buy This Expensive Bitcoin Trust Instead of Actual Bitcoin? – Investopedia

If you're interested in getting invested in the digital currency world, now seems to be as good a time as ever. Bitcoin has seen repeated record-setting price levels, and a host of other digital currencies are becoming increasingly popular around the globe. And yet, there are some reasons why even seasoned investors may be reluctant to get involved in direct investments relating to cryptocurrencies. Fortunately for those people, there is an exchange-traded fund focusing on Bitcoin in particular that can simplify the process. It is called the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) and it is provided by Grayscale Investments. Here are some of the basic details about the new trust and its relationship to the digital currency itself.

The Bitcoin Investment Trust sported a tremendous 248% increase in the month of May. This far surpasses the gains of 72% overall for the Bitcoin-U.S. dollar currency cross. With that figure in mind, investors may be jumping to get access to GBTC shares. However, there are other factors to consider as well.

First, May's performance seems to be a relative anomaly for the trust. For two of the three months prior to May, Bitcoin performance superseded the trust's performance, which suggests that the two are actually more neck-and-neck than May's figure would suggest. Second, investors looking to buy into GBTC should keep in mind that it is currently trading at more than double the cost of Bitcoin itself even though the underlying asset is 100% Bitcoin Business Insider reports.

Potential investors are likely wondering why GBTC shares can be found at such a high premium over Bitcoin. The issue seems to lie in supply and demand. While Bitcoin demand has skyrocketed, GBTC has kept its shares outstanding close to 1.7 million in the two years that it has existed. In fact, the ETF seems unlikely to change the number of total outstanding shares in the future, according to the company's head of research, Ihor Dusaniwsky. He explains that "with the operational risk of buying and holding actual Bitcoins to support ETF creation very high, and difficult and expensive to insure, it is unlikely that GBTC's outstanding share amount will climb above 1.7 million anytime soon."

It is useful to note that GBTC didn't always seem this expensive in comparison with Bitcoin. Before Bitcoin's price spiked in the past several weeks, the trust traded on an average premium of just 10% above the crypto currency in 2017. The issue seems to have come about when Bitcoin's demand blew up and GBTC's supply did not change. As Bitcoin continues to spread further into the financial world, it will be interesting to see where GBTC's share prices go as well.

GBTC is traded on OTCQX.

Read more from the original source:
Why Buy This Expensive Bitcoin Trust Instead of Actual Bitcoin? - Investopedia

Read More..

Mark Cuban tweets, and bitcoin drops – MarketWatch – MarketWatch

When Mark Cuban tweets, people listen.

At least that appeared to be the case on Tuesday when the outspoken billionaire offered this bitcoin warning to his 7.1 million Twitter followers:

At the time, bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.20% was slightly off its high for the day but was still holding strong near the $2,900 level. As you can see, soon after the tweet, the volatile cryptocurrency drifted further from its peak.

Regardless, bitcoin has been on an absolute tear this year, surging some 200% and gaining more widespread recognition, even prompting one of social medias most popular gun-toting poker players to join the fun.

But Cuban remains unconvinced:

And:

Of course, this isnt a big departure for Cuban, who once told USA Today that bitcoins got no shot as a long-term digital currency.

He didnt, however, rule it out as a possible investment play.

Read: With bitcoin surge, cryptocurrencies top $100 billion in market capitalization.

Go here to see the original:
Mark Cuban tweets, and bitcoin drops - MarketWatch - MarketWatch

Read More..