1. Coinbase’s Licensed Exchange Sends Price Rocketing, But At What Cost?

On Monday, William Suberg reported on Coinbase’s regulated US-based exchange, an announcement which the company had spent 24 hours teasing and building up to.

“The exchange ‘will offer greater security for individuals and institutions to trade bitcoin,’ the Coinbase team stated, ‘and monitor real-time pricing of the cryptocurrency.’

“The benefits of the new status of Coinbase’s exchange are anticipated by the company to bring the attention from the establishment seen by many as key to gaining greater acceptance from the mass populace.”

2. Cointerra Files for Bankruptcy With Up to 999 Creditors Owed

On Thursday, Charlie Richards confirmed what had been rumored for a month now: Cointerra was in trouble.

“Mining computer designer and cloud mining operation Cointerra files for bankruptcy, leaving debts up to 50 million USD and potentially 999 creditors unpaid. The Bitcoin mining sector is now in dire straits due to the raising operating costs of mining combined with the recent price drop.”

3. Chinese Exchange Gets 'Goxed' for 1,000 Bitcoins, Company Responds

On Wednesday, William Suberg reported that Chinese exchange 796 had a thousand bitcoins stolen, and the company offered its own take on what happened.

“We have been constantly monitoring the hacking activities on our servers and 3 months back then we took the precautionary step to migrate our servers to a highly secured cloud site,” Nelson Yu, President of 796’s Americas Division, told Cointelegraph.

“Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the incident from happening last night. In the last 24 hours, our security team worked around the clock to trace back the codes and processes. At this moment, we have a pretty good idea of exactly how they did it. This was not a generalized attack. The hacker’s strategy was precisely calculated and well targeted to compromise a certain weakness on our server.”

4. Latest DarkWallet Release Enables cash Withdrawals from Thousands of Spanish ATM's

On Monday, Aaron van Wirdum reported that DarkWallet had released its eighth alpha version, and this version would allow users to withdraw cash from ATMs in Spain.

“In order to realize the new cash-for-bitcoin service, the DarkWallet team has established an informal partnership with the Spanish e-money converter Chip Chap, enabling users to withdraw cash money at the thousands of ATM's in Spain using the HalCash ATM service on the Telepay network. This option might be extended to other countries in a later stage, as HalCash is active in England, France and Mexico as well. Additionally, the Chip Chap partnership will allow for more collaborations in the near future, including a DarkWallet mobile employment.”

5. Colorado Bitcoin Trader Arrested, Could Face 5 Years in Prison

On Wednesday, William Suberg reported on about a bitcoin trader in the United States who is facing prison for “operating without a money transmitting license.”

“As they say in an indictment submitted to the Federal District Court of Colorado, [Burt] Wagner was ‘in the transport and transmission of funds that were known to the defendant to have been derived from a criminal offense and were intended to be used to promote and support unlawful activity.’”

Elsewhere

  • “Cut off from the Internet, young Cubans have quietly linked thousands of computers into a hidden network that stretches miles across Havana, letting them chat with friends, play games and download hit movies in a mini-replica of the online world that most can't access.” [Yahoo! / AP News]
  • If you’re on the fence about which team to pull for in the Super Bowl, remember that Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman is accepting bitcoins for the merch he is selling on his site, RichardSherman25.com:

Richard Sherman Store

Market activity

After bitcoin kept climbing all last week against the US dollar, hovering above US$300 for a while on Monday, it spent this past week tumbling back down. By Saturday morning, one bitcoin was trading at just less than US$230.

The high price early in the week coincided with another spike in the number of Bitcoin transactions, more than 105,000, which would have been an all-time network high just a few weeks ago. These weekly six-figure peaks are a strong indication that more and more people are adopting Bitcoin.

As those transaction numbers peaked on Monday and Tuesday — as Coinbase teased and announced it big news — USD exchange trade volume peaked, too. Tuesday saw a big spike with more than US$15 million in exchange trade volume. Buy the rumor and sell the news, right?

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