London-based Bitcoin Derivatives Platform Debuts

What does it take to launch a bitcoin derivatives platform? In the case of Cryto Facilities, a London-based broker that launched just such a platform yesterday, it takes a former senior trading architecture designer at BNP Paribas/Société Générale and a former executive director in credit quantitative modelling at Goldman Sachs with a PhD in financial engineering.

The platform initially hosts a forward contract on the USD price of bitcoin. The derivative serves to hedge against bitcoin volatility — or to benefit from future swings in the bitcoin price. The firm has developed an integrated risk management, margining and settlement framework tailored to the high volatility of bitcoin.

“Our forward is probably the simplest and most effective tool out there to protect yourself against bitcoin volatility,” said Jean-Christophe Laruelle, co-founder and COO. He’s the former trading architecture designer. “If you want to lock in the value of one bitcoin, you sell one forward – that’s it. At the same time our market is extremely robust and secure. There is no central counterparty and all portfolios are marked to our proprietary bitcoin price indices.”

Timo Schlaefer, co-founder and CEO — he’s the credit quant guy — says the platform is designed to appeal to sophisticated investors and is backed by a high-profile team of experienced professionals from top investment banks and regulatory advisors.

“The bitcoin space still lacks professional, reliable marketplaces, and this is what we provide,” Schlaefer said in a statemetn. “We apply the same standards in terms of risk management, compliance and reporting as you would see in the traditional finance space.”

Source : Insidebitcoins

PayBase creates an Alliance with XPY Technologies

PayBase, the online wallet created by GAWMiners, LLC will be working with XPY Technologies to create an advanced online PayCoin wallet service. The new online wallet service will be launching soon and have the ability to stake and offer enhanced features for PayCoin.

The management of GAW are working with senior management at XPY Technologies and are in the process of finalizing the features that holders of PayCoin have been expecting, such as gift cards, premier accounts, debit cards, and others.

GAW will continue to create value and use of PayCoin by developing key merchant relationships, leveraging those agreements to create more value for PayCoin holders. GAW will be launching a new product for users and holders of PayCoin. An announcement will be made separately.

“We are excited to work with XPY Technologies to bring more advanced features to PayCoin. The additional support will allow GAW to focus more of its resources on mass acceptance of XPY.” said Josh Garza of GAW, he went to on to say “The alliance between the two entities will bring together a wealth of resources to expedite PayCoin features and adoption.”


Source : Blog Paybase

Bitcoin Miner Aquifer Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Bitcoin mining company Aquifer LLC has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

According to court documents obtained by CoinDesk, Aquifer, also known as AQH, LLC, filed for Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California on 19th February.

The company claimed between $1m and $10m in assets, as well as between $1m and $10m in outstanding liabilities. The company has between one and 49 creditors, the filing stated.

Aquifer said in court documents that it expects to have enough funds on hand to repay unsecured creditors. The filing names a number of California-based vendors and service providers, as well as other creditors located in the United States.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Aquifer is one of several mining companies involved in MegaBigPower’s franchisee program. When the program was announced in the summer of 2014, Aquifer was described as a “strategic partner”. According to MBP, Aquifer was the recipient of more than 700 TH/s in mining power since the partnership began.

MBP owner Dave Carlson told CoinDesk that he was unaware of the bankruptcy filing and had been unable to communicate with the Aquifer team in the past month, adding that the hashing power the MBP mining pool had received from Aquifer dropped off roughly two weeks ago.

"My focus will be to attempt to recover my equipment from their location," he said.

A representative for Aquifer declined to comment.

The California bitcoin company has maintained a public profile in the past with appearances at recent bitcoin-focused events, including head of finance and operations Anthony Borough's participation on the mining panel at the North American Bitcoin Conference in January.

Aquifer is the second US-based bitcoin mining company to file for bankruptcy in 2015. Last month, CoinTerra filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection amid a deterioration of its finances and a lawsuit filed by C7 Data Centers of Utah.

Aquifer’s bankruptcy filing can be found below:

Aquifer LLC Chapter 11 Filing


Source : Coindesk

Chinese Exchange BTER Can’t Repay Customers After 7170 BTC Stolen

No longer operative China-based cryptocurrency exchange BTER is unable to repay all its clients, following an alleged $1.75m loss.

On February 15, the Chinese exchange stopped functioning publishing a statement via its website which claimed that 7,170 BTC had disappeared from its cold wallet.

The announcement has been published when a number of the BTER customers paid attention to some elite transactions moving from Bter’s cold wallet to a random Bitcoin wallet address. After their successful completion, the amount was further transacted to another wallet.

The thread on Reddit reads that some users are convinced that the hack was an insider job. User SmoothSloth says that “it is nearly impossible for a hack of this size to occur given the advent of Multi Signature and Multi Factor Authentication.”

“Like most hacks that have occurred since Mt. Gox, it is a result of criminal negligence.”

BTER has reported the theft to the local authorities and has been working with investigators to retrieve the stolen digital currency.

Also, the exchange has been preparing for the withdrawals; on its Weibo page the company stated that the first coins available for withdrawal would be NXT, counterparty (XCP), and recently added tilecoin (XTC).

We are preparing for the withdrawals. CNY, USD and NXT withdrawals will be handled first.
— Bter.com Exchange (@btercom) February 21, 2015

Though, the company suggested that it was looking to liquidate assets, including BTER.com domain, to compensate customers. Unfortunately, it’s still unclear whether the company’s customers are going to be repayed or not.

We are seeking all ways to compensate our users including selling http://t.co/nsX4sStHiR (Debits & funds not included): admin@mail.bter.com
— Bter.com Exchange (@btercom) February 18, 2015

Last year, BTER lost 51,670,000 Nextcoins, worth about $1.65 million at the time, in another hacking attack. It’s worth mentioning that the hacker gave back some of the stolen funds after negotiations.

Concerning a recent hacking, the company announced a 720 BTC reward to anyone who can recover the bitcoins having tracked down the thief.  Actually, it can be difficult to recover the funds in that way, as “several blockchain explorers have revealed that the bitcoins have likely already been sent through anonymization services, called Bitcoin mixers,” reports Bitcoinist.net. Still, according to the company’s statements, the bounty for vigilante hackers willing to “chase back” the stolen funds, remains on the table. In addition, the company claims to have received a lot of useful information from its users.

BTER also noted that the company keeps monitoring the movement of the stolen funds via the blockchain.

Source : Coinspeaker

 

Dell Expands Payment Bitcoin In UK And Canada

Cryptocoinews - It just a few short months ago that Dell announced it would begin accepting bitcoin for purchases on the Dell.com online shop.

When Dell initially announced it would begin accepting bitcoin, it was certainly the largest retailers to do so with annual sales just shy of $60 billion usd. The addition of bitcoin on the Dell sales system was lauded by a lot of and Dell has proven to have success. Laura Thomas of the Dell Corporate Communications team stated,

We are seeing purchases across our full product and customer spectrum – from software and peripherals to our business PCs and even our largest transaction to date – north of $50,000 for a highly configured PowerEdge server system.

When bitcoin purchasing rolled out, it was restricted just U.S.-based customers–much to the lament of our friends in Canada. Today, which is changing.

Dell has announced it will now begin accepting bitcoin for purchases from customers in Canada and the United kingdom. Paul J. Wash, CIO of Dell, said,

Through the expansion of Bitcoin, we’re enabling new levels of convenience for our customers, making it easier for them to do business with Dell.

Company has enabled bitcoin purchasing for Canadian and UK customers immediately via Coinbase.

The Bitcoin Jet, Or, There are numerous Cryptocurrency Go Mainstream?

DIGITAL CURRENCIES ACCEPTED HERE proclaims the plaque at my local froyo place, emblazoned with the Bitcoin logo: but when I ask how I would pay with Bitcoin, the Australian woman behind the counter shrugs and says, “I think we have a tablet somewhere with instructions on the back? …Nobody’s ever tried to pay me with it.”

Meanwhile, over on CNN, Morgan Spurlock tried to live for a week on Bitcoin, and learns that “while java can be difficult to get, drugs, guns, various documents or perhaps a hit man are available individuals with the bitcoin.”

Do I sound dismissive? I don’t mean become. Bitcoin is rage benefit. As Michael Casey and Paul Vigna put it, it “is much exceeding a foreign money. It is a radically new, decentralized system for managing method societies exchange value.”

Akin to more than its share of doubters, but to quote Larry Summers: “It seems if you ask me that persons who confidently reject all of the innovation here [in new payment and monetary systems] are in the wrong side of report.”

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MYCOIN BITCOIN SCAM – THE SEQUEL TO A BITCOIN NIGHTMARE

As documented in some of the clients who lost funds in this particular latest MyCoin scandal, it appears that the company operated a Ponzi scheme.

MyCoin clients were promised huge returns on investment, more than an ROI of HK$ 1 million for a mining contract worth HK$ 400,000. Clients were also promised additional prizes such as cars or cash if investors recruited others.

In December 2014, the company changed its terms of service, prohibiting clients from withdrawing their funds. Clients were also promised their funds back on condition the player recruit new clients for that company. In January 2015, the company announced they had closed for renovations.

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