In this video Luke Rudkowski interviews business consultant Gerald Celente on the upcoming future U.S economy and revolutionary trends for 2014. Gerald Celente is an American trend forecaster, publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance.
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At least one marijuana dispensary in Colorado has reportedly begun accepting bitcoin.
Colorado’s decision to legalize cannabis has been filling headlines for weeks, and the hype is still going strong.
Investors have been piling up in the marijuana market, ranging from reputable medicinal marijuana companies to highly speculative penny stocks.
The general public seems to be very interested indeed – outside some dispensaries the queues of pot lovers are incredibly large, resembling the lines frequently formed in front of Apple Stores following an iPhone launch.
However, there are a number of problems. Demand has been so strong that many dispensaries are having trouble getting enough marijuana to sell, although this is likely a temporary issue.
Is this the first Bitcoin brick-and-mortar run by children?
These two little itty-bitty and enterprising girls are showing an even wider Bitcoin acceptance by allowing payment at their Noe Valley, San Francisco coffee stand. Are people actually paying them in Bitcoin?
Mia & Taylor’s Coffee Shop accepts the payment with a blown-up QR code. Coffee, lemonade and cookies are sold for around a buck – broken cookies are free. Awww…
A Tweet targeted to a Noe Valley event page got picked up from there. But actually, the image was taken and posted by Reddit user DorkusPrime which also went viral. The commenters there seem to believe they will soon be shut down by the police – yikes!
They’ve received 33 transactions which some, of course, came in from the Reddit users who decoded their Bitcoin address. A week ago, they had gathered the equivalent of $70 in Bitcoin. (source)
The value of Bitcoin has seen some ups and downs, but for a few reasons, it might be here to stay. Larger businesses are responding to consumer interest in the totally decentralized form of payment. So from lemonade stands to top-dog corps – Bitcoin is now serving everywhere.
First it was China hinting that where Silk Road failed in monetizing, pardon the pun, BitCoin, the world’s most populous nation could soon take the lead. Then, none other than private equity titan Fortress said it had great expectations for the digital currency. Now, it is eBay’s turn to announce that it is preparing to expand the range of digital currencies it accepts, adding that “its payment unit PayPal may one day incorporate BitCoin.” But not just yet. FT reports that according to eBay CEO John Donahoe, “digital currency is going to be a very powerful thing. (Read more…)”
The ecommerce group, which has more than 124m active users, is initially focusing on incorporating reward points from retailers’ loyalty schemes into its PayPal wallet.
“We are building the container so any retailer could put their loyalty points into the PayPal wallet,” Mr Donahoe said.
“There is a limit to how many cards you will carry, or remembering what points you have or don’t have,” he said. “But in a digital wallet, you can put 50 different loyalty cards.”
Mr Donahoe said Ebay was not expanding the PayPal wallet to include Bitcoins, “but we are watching it”.
“That same technology could accept other digital currencies,” he said.
While traditional retailers have so far balked at even the vaguest idea of considering allowing BitCoin as a viable payment method, all that would take to start a seismic shift in perception would be one angel idea “investor” to show that it can be done. That someone may well be eBay, which in a radical attempt to curry favor with “fringe” buyers and sellers, could open up its ecommerce platform, which started as an auction side for small traders, but may well become something far bigger.
eBay’s efforts raise the possibility that virtual currencies such as Bitcoin may in time move beyond a niche role in online commerce. Some enthusiasts believe Bitcoin and other currencies that exist outside the traditional banking system represent the future of online payments.
The work to expand the PayPal wallet underlines the emergence of virtual payment systems as the latest front in the battle between the global technology giants, including Google and Apple, to increase consumer reliance on their products.
Corporate initiatives have sought to drum up interest in digital wallets for use online and on the high street. Companies from mobile and technology groups to banks and retailers are racing to use new mobile wallets to upend the payments business.
Most of these efforts have focused on new ways of paying with traditional currencies such as the pound and the dollar, rather than with niche mediums of exchange such as loyalty points or Bitcoin.
Bitcoin transactions are conducted through a peer-to-peer network of computers, outside the traditional banking system and largely beyond the control of governments and monetary authorities. The digital currency is accepted by very few retailers at present.
Paradoxically, the more accepted BitCoin becomes in the conventional marketplace, the more subject to various forms of mandatory regulation, supervision and enforcement it, its purchases, and its users will be. So will BitCoin ultimately become a victim of its own success? That remains to be seen, although what we do know is that neither eBay nor anyone else tightly embedded within the monetary fiat framework, is even close to contemplating expanding the Petrodollar cycle to include gold or other precious metals as viable legal (or illegal) tender.
There is a Skype trojan going around that is turning PCs into Bitcoin miners. So far, victims are mostly located in countries like Italy, Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, and a few others. Bitcoin Mining is a another way for users to acquire Bitcoin’s currency by “making computer hardware do mathematical calculations for the Bitcoin network to confirm transactions and increase security.”
The trojan is going around via a Skype instant message. The translated message says, “This is my favorite picture of you”, and provides a shortened link. The trojan is spreading quickly, with an average 2000 clicks per hour. Kaspersky has identified the trojan as “Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt”, and the process it runs as bitcoin-miner.exe. The malware connects to a C2 server located in Germany with the IP address: 213.165.68.138:9000.
The malware immediately takes control of your computer and increases the victim’s CPU usage drastically. While the trojan’s primary use is for Bitcoin mining, it’s not its only capability. Bitcoin mining isn’t lucrative with just one PC, however, if there are many PCs infected and aimed towards a specific Bitcoin mining pool, it can be worthwhile.
This new trojan is speculated to have surfaced due to the meteoric rise in Bitcoin value. Late last month, it was reported that the value of a Bitcoin was $92, a number that has now reached about $140. The constant rise in value of Bitcoin is more than enough to drive many devious hackers to get creative. So in order to protect yourself from being infected, make sure to get an anti-virussoftware, and keep it up-to-date. Also be wary of suspicious Skype messages and shortened URLs. We’ll keep you updated if there are any resolutions to this issue.
CoinDesk
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