Category Archives: Bitcoin
Dark web finds bitcoin increasingly more of a problem than a help, tries other digital currencies – CNBC
Criminals are dropping bitcoin in favor of other digital currencies that are harder for law enforcement to use in tracking activities in an anonymous corner of the internet known as the dark web, analysts said.
Although hard numbers on criminal activity in digital currencies are difficult to pin down, Shone Anstey, co-founder and president of Blockchain Intelligence Group, estimates that illegal transactions in bitcoin have fallen from about half of total volume to about 20 percent last year.
"Now it's significantly less than that," he told CNBC earlier this month, noting that overall transaction volume has grown globally.
A U.S. Homeland Security official confirmed to CNBC in a phone interview on Thursday that criminals are "looking more closely at other currencies like monero and ethereum."
"What the criminals are starting to see, and some of the trends we're picking up as well, is that bitcoin also works equally just as much against you as it does for you," said the official, who didn't want to be named.
Ethereum cybercrime revenue in $ millions
Source: Chainalysis
Bitcoin is built on the blockchain, a public record of all transactions available online. Users also need a public address of numbers and letters in order to receive payments. As a result, intelligence agencies can track the movement of funds to addresses that hackers provide and catch the criminals when they try to cash out through more regulated entities such as exchanges or banks.
Jonathan Levin, co-founder of blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, noted that recent law enforcement crackdowns have "made a dent in the trust" in dark web markets, where people primarily use cryptocurrencies for payment.
On July 20, the U.S. Justice Department and Europol announced the closure of two of the largest dark web marketplaces, AlphaBay and Hansa, which listed tens of thousands of vendors selling illegal drugs, counterfeit identification documents and other illicit products.
The DOJ said AlphaBay transactions used bitcoin, monero and ethereum, while Europol estimated a minimum of $1 billion in transactions on AlphaBay since its launch in 2014.
A few days later, a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California charged Russian national Alexander Vinnik and the digital currency exchange he allegedly operated, BTC-e, with money laundering and related crimes. Once a major exchange, the BTC-e website now shows it's been seized by U.S. authorities.
Screenshot of BTC-e landing page
"We're getting a lot better through law enforcement tracking those [criminals] and holding the exchanges more accountable," the Homeland Security official said. "I think [bitcoin]'s a lot more legitimate than people give it credit for."
The average number of daily bitcoin transactions has climbed to 224,000 so far this month from around 206,000 last August, according to data from the Blockchain website. Daily trade volume in bitcoin has multiplied rapidly in the last year, climbing to an average of $2 billion so far this month from an average $86.7 million last August, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Bitcoin has more than quadrupled in value this year, to hit a record high of more than $4,700 on Tuesday.
Daily confirmed bitcoin transactions by seven-day average (2009 - 2017)
Source: Blockchain.info
In the last three years, new digital currencies such as monero have emerged in an effort to increase privacy. Unlike the open transaction record of bitcoin, monero's technology hides the name of the sender, amount and receiver.
A representative from monero did not respond to email and Twitter requests for comment.
Monero hit a record high Monday of $154.58, up more than 1,000 percent this year, according to CoinMarketCap.
Digital currency ethereum is an increasing target for cybercrime as well, according to Chainalysis. Ethereum is up about 4,300 percent this year amid a flood of funds into the digital currency for initial coin offerings, which have raised the equivalent of nearly $1.8 billion in the last three years, CoinDesk data showed.
Cybercriminals raised $225 million in ethereum so far this year, Chainalysis said in a report posted Aug. 7 on its website. Phishing attacks disguised emails or other communication used to trick people into disclosing personal information make up more than half of all ethereum cybercrime revenue this year at $115 million, the study said.
The Ethereum Foundation did not return a CNBC request for comment.
That said, analysts pointed out that bitcoin is still favored by many criminals since its relatively more widespread use makes it easier for them to quickly convert the digital currency to cash without any intermediary.
The sharp gains in bitcoin's price have also made it more attractive for hackers in recent high-profile attacks such as WannaCry, though analysts estimate the criminals have only received tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand U.S. dollars' worth of bitcoin.
"Bitcoin basically introduced a situation where we could bypass the money mules," said Rickey Gevers, cybercrime specialist at RedSocks Security, which detects and fights against malware.
But, Gevers said, "in the beginning [bitcoin] looks very anonymous, and in the end it doesn't look very anonymous."
Wall Street is increasingly interested in bitcoin. More investment funds are opening and the U.S. Commodity Futures and Trading Commission is allowing bitcoin options to begin trading. Switzerland's financial markets regulator in mid-July also approved Falcon Private Bank as the first Swiss private bank for bitcoin asset management.
"The whole use issue of digital currencies has become a big industry. Bitcoin isn't this weird, odd currency that's being used on the dark web," said Paul Triolo, practice head of geotechnology at consulting firm Eurasia Group. "Since the early days of bitcoin on some [levels], the world has changed quite a bit."
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Dark web finds bitcoin increasingly more of a problem than a help, tries other digital currencies - CNBC
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Russian Regulator: Bitcoin Should Be Limited to ‘Qualified Investors’ – CoinDesk
Russia's deputy finance minister, Alexei Moiseev, has spokenout onhow he believes cryptocurrencies should be regulated in the country.
According to reports issued by RTyesterday,Moiseev suggested in a televised interview that bitcoin should not be classified as a currency, but rather as a property or asset.
Moiseev further stated that bitcoin was a high risk "financial pyramid" and that, in order to protect consumers, bitcoin exchange should be performed only by "qualified investors" on the Moscow Stock Exchange. As such, "ordinary people" would be prohibited from buying and selling the cryptocurrency.
"We suggest not to call it currencies, do not regulate it as currencies, regulate how ... other property, classify it as a financial asset and allow only classified investors to buy and sell them on the exchange," Moiseev stated according to RSN.
On the stock exchange, bitcoin would be subject to "Rosfinmonitoring" a decree issued by President Vladimir Putin in order to collect and analysis financial transactions for protection against fraud.
Moiseyev indicatedthe proposal is currently being discussed with the Moscow Stock Exchange and the Bank of Russia, the country's central bank, and that it could soon be passed onto government.
"I hope that we will soon submit this concept to the government, and in case of support we will write a draft of normative acts," he said.
Notably, Moiseyev's statements have provoked commentary from Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram Messenger app andVKontakte, a popular social mediasite.
As reported bySputniknews, Durovwrote on his VKontakte page that, with the arrival of bitcoin:
"For the first time in 70 years, the global financial system has a chance to escape from the hegemony of the U.S."
Yet, rather than allowing cryptocurrencies the chance to replace the dollar, "the Russian government is voicing ideas to ban and restrict [use of cryptocurrencies]," hesaid.
It seems this charge will only apply to civilians, though, and only if Moiseev's comments are adopted into financial regulations.
As such, Moiseev's remarks build on what has generally been thestrict approach to cryptocurrency regulation favored by the Ministry of Finance, the country's top financial regulator. In contrast, the Bank of Russia has generally been more supportive of the technology, though it remains to be seen which side will win out.
The statements in this article have been translated from Russian.
Alexei Moiseev image viaShutterstock.com
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].
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Russian Regulator: Bitcoin Should Be Limited to 'Qualified Investors' - CoinDesk
Bitcoin Meets Zcash: Developers Test Tool for Trustless Trades – CoinDesk
An in-progress blockchain project could one day help users trade bitcoin for zcash without a trusted third party.
Created by zcash developers Jay Graber and Ariel Gabizon,ZBXCATis a new command-line tool that developers can use to exchange the two cryptocurrencies.
Withtoday's bitcoin exchanges having a history of being vulnerable tohacks (leading to millions of dollars in customer losses), ZBXCAT uses a concept called "atomic swaps" to avoid the need to hold users' funds.
Say Alice has bitcoin and Bob has zcash, and they want to trade the two. Rather than temporarily entrusting their cryptocurrency to acentralized exchange, atomic swaps would let them tradedirectly across blockchains. To ensure there is no cheating, both users would need to send the cryptocurrencies to each other by a certain time or the trade will fail.
Gabizon told CoinDesk:
"Basically, it seems a useful thing to me: To be able to exchange bitcoin and zcash directly with someone I don't know without having to trust them. Especially, given recent technical problems some exchanges are having."
In its current state, ZBXCAT users need to download bitcoin and zcash full nodes (with their full transaction histories), and use the command line to instruct the network to make a trade.
However, with the toolstill not finalized, ZBXCAT's developers advise using "test" coins rather than the real thingfor the time being.
The projectis the latest in a line of similar ideas for experimental exchange-free trading.
Charlie Lee, the founder of litecoin, has previously said heis committed to atomic swaps, oncethe Lightning Network is activated on the cryptocurrency's network. TheMimbleWimble projectalso plans to usher incross-chain atomic swaps, as well as other features.
"I can't predict how it will be used exactly, I hope it will be integrated in other services in interesting and unexpected ways," Gabizon concluded.
Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Zerocoin Electric Coin Company, developer of zcash.
Welding image via Shutterstock
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].
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As bitcoin and rivals surge, so too have complaints to the CFPB – MarketWatch
Fixes the total number of complaints made to the CFPB in 2017.
As the price of bitcoin and its digital currency rivals surge, so too have complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Through August, there have been 277 complaints about virtual currencies lodged to the CFPB compared with just seven in 2016, according to student loan marketplace LendEDU.
That may be understating the complaints from consumers there have been another 288 complaints lodged against Coinbase, the leading bitcoin wallet.
The issues with virtual currencies are still a fraction of the 145,948 complaints made to the CFPB this year.
Consumer complaints do not necessarily mean that illegal activity has occurred, but regulators and researchers use the CFPBs database as an early warning sign of potential nefarious activity.
Bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.53% has surged 386% this year, and other digital currencies have surged in price as well.
Read: Value of all digital currencies surpasses $160 billion
The CFPB has said that consumers should be aware of potential issues with virtual currencies such as unclear costs, volatile exchange rates, the threat of hacking and scams, and that companies may not offer help or refunds for lost or stolen funds. It has not, however, taken any enforcement action.
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As bitcoin and rivals surge, so too have complaints to the CFPB - MarketWatch
This Swedish guy bet all his life savings on bitcoin and it made him 100 times richer – Business Insider Nordic
Four years ago, Swedish expert programmer Alexander Bottema went from deep skepticism to considering bitcoin as an innovation with similar implications as the internet itself. In an exclusive interview, he reveals what happened after he went all in on bitcoin, and shares how other investors can walk in his footsteps.
So did it make him a billionaire?
No, Im not a billionaire yet [in terms of Swedish crowns], says Alexander Bottema, laughing on the phone.
But my capital has grown by a factor of more than one hundred since I sold all my stocks and liquidated my savings in order to buy bitcoins in 2013.
By that time, one bitcoin was worth 30 dollars. Today, almost four years later, the virtual currency is valued at 4000 dollars.
How much savings he had at the time Bottema doesnt want to reveal, but its clear hes content with the investment: his holdings have remained untouched since that day in early 2013.
I consider it a retirement insurance. Im not thinking about buying any more, since I can never get the same return on investment again, he quips.
Alexander Bottema grew up in a small community near Stockholm. He started programming at nine years of age, using the familys Apple 2-computer.
The booming personal computer market made it an exciting time to grow up.
But programming wasnt enough for Alexander Bottema. He wanted to learn more about the theories behind computing. In 1991, he started studying computer science at the renown Uppsala University, where he would later continue as a PhD faculty.
Uppsala turned into Stockholm when he started working on data security and encryption for consultancy Upec Industriteknik. When the company was acquired, Alexander Bottema and his two colleagues started their own company.
Frontec wasnt interested in product development, which we were into at the time, so we decided to start Polytrust. We got financial support from two venture capital firms: Telia Business Innovation and IT Provider.
After Stockholm and Polytrust, Alexander Bottema moved to the U.S. to work for Mathworks, where he is still employed. The Massachussetts-based company provides data analysis and simulation for industrial purposes.
I rejected it as something uninteresting. Seeing that I had a long track record in data security, I was certain that it wouldnt be possible to build safe servers that are open, and envisioned a crash. The following year, I was sitting on the subway and read in the Metro newspaper how bitcoin had recovered after a crash. I couldnt understand how a currency that is built on trust could recover. That piqued my interest.
He downloaded the technical description and the program code for the currency, and used all his knowledge and experience in studying the material.
Alexander Bottemas jaw dropped. His deep skepticism was gone with the wind.
Once he was convinced of bitcoins excellence, he started calculating how much the currency could one day be worth. Like many others, Bottema used the gold market as comparison.
The allocated value of the gold market, where rich people put their money to avoid devaluations, is roughly 8,000 billion dollars. If you divide it by 21 million, which is the number of bitcoins that will be available from the year 2140 onwards, you get 380000 dollars per bitcoin. I ended up on values ranging between 50,000 and 100,000 dollars per bitcoin. I panicked, and bet all of my savings.
What is driving the value of bitcoin, according to Bottema, is the combination of a growing number of use cases, like micropayments, and a limited supply of the currency.
At the outset, he worried most about a ban against the currency but he doesnt consider it a threat any longer.
Isnt there a threat from competing cryptocurrencies?
The first one is the biggest. This is quite similar to the war between VHS and Betamax. Technically speaking, Betamax was better, but VHS was bigger. So even though I theoretically could invent an entirely new internet, it would be very hard to make it grow.
Do you not get worried whenever the currency's value plummets?
No, I know how the system works and I know what Ive invested in. Sure, the currency dips, but it has always recovered after some time. Bitcoins future looks bright.
Heres how you invest in bitcoin:
Create an account on an exchange, not an intermediary. This will give you the best price. The most accessible one for Swedes is Bitstamp.net.
All bitcoin exchanges are strictly supervised, which means you need to send copies of your ID so as to prevent money laundering.
Send over money to your account using a (European) Sepa-transfer.
Now you are eligible to buy bitcoins.
If youve bought the currency, and your exchange goes bankrupt, its important that your withdraw them.
Transfer them your own bitcoin wallet, for instance Ledger Waller or Blockchain.info.
Its important that you save the code of your wallet on a printed piece of paper or a USB-drive in case your computer would crash or disappear.
When you want to sell, just do the opposite.
Read the original article in Swedish on VA Finans.
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This Swedish guy bet all his life savings on bitcoin and it made him 100 times richer - Business Insider Nordic
Is Bitcoin the New Gold? – TheStreet.com
Gold has always been considered a safe haven asset.
Now Bitcoin is appearing to exhibit gold-like properties. Will Bitcoin replace gold as the new safe haven asset?
Anti Danilevski, CEO of KICKICO, a Russian blockchain platform for initial coin offerings, explains that during financialdifficulties, Bitcoin hasalready been performing in analogous ways to gold -- representing a calmharbor for investors.
"During the last year S&P 500 index was decreased, gold (GLD) increased by 14.4%, whereas Bitcoin increased by 74.9%," Danilevski said. "During the last five years, S&P 500 increased by 68.8%, gold decreased by 26.5%, whilst bitcoin grew by an impressive 24.9%."
Danilevski believes cryptocurrency is not only a good backup plan, but comparedtogold, it grows considerably more in its price with a growing market.
Taking into consideration the recent events such as the clash between North Korea and President Trump, we saw gold rise on the back of genuine fear of conflict.
"Despite this latest episode of hair pulling which was regarded as the closest threat of war between North Korea and the U.S. since 1994, this spike in gold, although adequate, wasn't mouthwatering," said James Trescothick, senior global strategist at easyMarkets. "Instead it was another asset that appealed to the masses looking for safety."
Trescothick saidin the past there has been the belief that investors should "put 10% of your wealth into gold and hope it goes down." This logicunderlines the well-known fact that when gold rises in value it indicates that other assets are performing terribly and fear is gripping the market.
Now Trescothick says it is time to put 10% of your wealth into Bitcoin and hope it doesn't crash. "In the middle of July Bitcoin was trading around $1985 per coin before continuing its rise higher and around the beginning of August it traded at $2789.58 per coin," he said. "And then as hostilities increased between North Korea and the U.S., it skyrocketed. First it broke the $3,000 mark before slicing through the $4,000 level with ease."
We saw gold react in a similar way moving from $1,258.80 an ounce at the beginning of August before moving $31 up as threats from both North Korea and Trump gripped the media. Both reacted in safe haven style, but it was the size of the move and the speed of rise in Bitcoin value that was impressive.
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Is Bitcoin the New Gold? - TheStreet.com
How To Gain Bitcoin Exposure Inside Of Your Traditional Brokerage Account – Seeking Alpha
Introduction
Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular have experienced enormous gains since the beginning of the year. While many people are interested in investing in this space, there are some concerns about investing in actual bitcoins or other electronic currencies. Some of these concerns include:
There are ways to gain bitcoin exposure through instruments that can be bought with your traditional brokerage. These instruments range in size and volatility.
As the prices of cryptocurrencies increase, there is more of a demand to mine them. Companies that produce instruments to mine these currencies will benefit from an increase in demand.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) - Nvidia is perhaps the largest company that has a direct relation to the price of cryptocurrencies at a market capitalization of almost $100 billion. Nvidia has actually said publicly that cryptocurrencies have benefited the company. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said crypto is "a very important market that will likely continue to grow over time."
NVDA has been very highly correlated with Bitcoin in 2017.
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) - AMD, another GPU producer, has benefited from the rise of cryptocurrencies. The popularity of mining cryptocurrencies, especially Ethereum, has increased demand for AMD's graphics cards. AMD's products have generally had the best reputation for mining cryptocurrencies.
Surprisingly, AMD and Bitcoin have had only a slightly positive correlation in 2017.
There are a handful of large companies that accept bitcoin as a payment for their products and services. It would make sense that as the price and popularity of bitcoin rises, companies that accept it as a payment would benefit. Some of these companies are Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Overstock (NASDAQ:OSTK), Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH), and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
There are various stocks trading in the OTC markets that are more directly related to bitcoin and electronic currencies. It is important to note that these stocks are very risky.
MGT Capital Investments (OTCPK:MGTI) - MGT Capital Investments was for the most part a cybersecurity company, but more recently it has invested in the cryptocurrency space. MGTI has taken an interest in mining both Bitcoin and Ethereum. On May 22nd, MGT Capital Investments announced a major expansion of its bitcoin mining operations. On June 23rd, MGTI launched a pilot program to mine Ethereum. On August 25th, the company announced that it would add over 1,000 more mining computers. MGT Capital Investments is set to be one of the largest bitcoin producers in North America.
A large portion of MGTI's price can be explained by movements in the price of bitcoin.
Bitcoin Services, Inc. (OTCPK:BTSC) - Bitcoin Services, Inc. offers various bitcoin services. There are three main operations of the company. The first operation is offering a bitcoin escrow service. The company also engages in bitcoin mining and the development of blockchain software.
BTSC is obviously very correlated with the price of bitcoin.
BTCS, Inc. (OTCQB:BTCS) - BTCS considers itself the first pure play U.S. public company focused on blockchain technologies. BTCS has stated that in 2017 its goal is to broaden its digital assets and focus on mining.
BTCS certainly is correlated with bitcoin, but includes a very high level of volatility. Note: Data is from March 13th forward.
Global Arena Holding (OTCPK:GAHC) - Global Arena Holding is a company focused on acquiring technologies, patents, and companies relating to blockchain technology. Global Arena Holding has two subsidiaries: GAHI Acquisition Corp. and Global Election Services.
GAHC has a very clear and strong correlation with the price of bitcoin.
There is currently a lack of exchange traded funds that track bitcoin. This may change in the very near future though.
VanEck Bitcoin Fund - VanEck has filed for a bitcoin ETF and, if approved, it would be the first of its kind. This is a big IF though, because the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF was rejected by the SEC earlier this year. VanEck may also have some competition when it comes to opening the first bitcoin ETF.
Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX:GBTC) - The investment trust holds bitcoins and can be traded on your typical broker. I would be wary of OTCQX:GBTC though, because of the fact it trades at a premium.
Bitcoin Futures - The Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE) recently announced that it would be introducing bitcoin derivatives.
The nature of bitcoin and the process of buying bitcoin are much different than traditional investments. This does not prevent traditional investors from gaining exposure to bitcoin in their brokerage accounts though. There are a handful of stocks available to investors that give different levels of exposure to bitcoin and have varying degrees of risk. Stocks like NVDA and AMD are larger companies that offer some exposure to cryptocurrencies while being relatively less risky. OTC stocks like MGTI, BTSC, BTCS, and GAHC offer the ability to leverage the price of bitcoin, but are extremely volatile and risky.
Disclosure: I am/we are long BTSC, MGTI.
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.
Additional disclosure: The OTC stocks mentioned in the article are very volatile and risky due to the nature of OTC markets. Investors should take special consideration before investing in these stocks.The graphs in this article were generated using Excel with the data coming from Quandl and Yahoo Finance.
Editor's Note: This article covers one or more stocks trading at less than $1 per share and/or with less than a $100 million market cap. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.
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How To Gain Bitcoin Exposure Inside Of Your Traditional Brokerage Account - Seeking Alpha
Value of all digital currencies hits record around $160 billion as … – MarketWatch
Bitcoin and Ether cryptocurrencies rose Monday, helping digital currencies broadly to an all-time valuation record.
The total value of the digital-currency universe tracked by data research site Coinmarketcap.com, including those linked to the Bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.50% Ethereum and Ripple blockchain networks, reached around $160 billion on the session, surpassing a previous record at $156.4 billion on Aug. 25.
Most recently, one bitcoin token was buying $4,397.32 off about 2.7% from its 52-week high at $4,522.13, according to MarketWatch data and research site Coindesk.com.
A single Ether token bought $342.71, about $40 off its mid-June all-time high, while Bitcoin Cash, a spinoff from bitcoin, was down 3.6% at $599.16
So-called cryptocurrencies tend to see both big intraday and interday price swings.
Growing valuations for cybercurrencies come as the decentralized platforms garner increased attention from average folks and businesses. The Chicago Board Options Exchange, which operates the largest options exchange, has teamed up with Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss twins to create bitcoin derivatives.
Read: Opinion: Stay away from bitcoin and ethereumthey are complete garbage
Moreover, beyond the concept of a digitally based currency, the blockchain has drawn attention as a utility from Wall Street investors. The blockchain is the digital ledger that tracks each bitcoin transaction and underpins the currency, and is considered by companies as a promising way to quickly document things like trading and other transactions.
Chris Burniske, a blockchain analyst at ARK Invest, in a tweet on Monday, said increased activity on blockchain networks has been part of the reason for recent gains in Ether and bitcoin and other digital units.
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Value of all digital currencies hits record around $160 billion as ... - MarketWatch
Why Motherboard Is Capitalizing ‘Bitcoin’ Again – Motherboard
This is a post about capitalization standards, but it's also about how we decide to normalize technology and when.
If you've been following Motherboard's cryptocurrency coverage over the years, you may have noticed some changes. Back in 2011 and 2012, we would alternately capitalize Bitcoin or write it all in lowercase, depending on the whim of whoever was doing the story. In 2015, we elected to capitalize Bitcoin when talking about the system or protocol, and lowercase denominations of the currency: So, "I love Bitcoin, and I own many bitcoins." In 2016, we decided to write about cryptocurrencies all in lowercase.
As of today, we're going back to our previous rule. From here on out, we will capitalize cryptocurrencies when referring to the protocol or systemBitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, etc.but lowercase the denominations: "I love Ethereum and own a lot of ether."
Our decision here is partly practical and partly philosophical. The main reason we decided to lowercase all cryptocurrencies was to replicate how the normalization of other technologies is reflected in writing. For a long time after the internet became popular, for example, publications would capitalize it as "Internet," and many still do. Now that the internet is an integral part of most of our personal and work lives, it just seems a bit silly to see it capitalized, doesn't it? It's as if the writer is talking about something alien and unfamiliar instead of a system we're all deeply embedded within. So, in a move that now seems wildly optimistic, we decided to get ahead of the curve with cryptocurrencies and de-capitalize them.
Recent events have played out in ways we couldn't have predicted. Bitcoin, for example, recently split off into two separate versions with nearly identical code and, most importantly, an identical transaction history up until the time of the split. With this newly introduced confusion, our previous capitalization policy thrust us into the realm of value judgements: Should the new version of Bitcoin, called Bitcoin Cash, be capitalized when Bitcoin proper is not? What kind of message does that send to our readers? Does one version "deserve" to be capitalized while the other does not? On the other hand, which implementation "deserves" to be treated with the kind of familiarity that the internet does, and why?
Leaving these questions aside, on a purely practical level, it just makes more sense to readers, in our estimation, to parse a sentence like, "Bitcoin Cash is an offshoot of Bitcoin," instead of, "bitcoin cash is an offshoot of bitcoin." So, that's one point on the side of capitalization.
The previously raised philosophical concerns also put us on the side of capitalization. With yet another Bitcoin split on the way in November, it's clear that the Bitcoin protocol (and community) is not as monolithic as we had presumed, and at the moment it's not as resilient as other technologies we de-capitalize, like the internet. The battle between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash is largely a battle between brands, and another entrant with a new name (no word on whether it will also try to claim the 'Bitcoin' moniker) is about to enter the arena.
We need to keep our articles readable. We also need to avoid the illusion of preference. Above all, we need to be careful about which technologies we normalize. For all these reasons, we're going to capitalize all cryptocurrencies-as-systems and de-capitalize their denominations. Litecoin, Dogecoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, etc.
In the bonkers world of cryptocurrencies, there have to be some rules.
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Why Motherboard Is Capitalizing 'Bitcoin' Again - Motherboard