The price of Bitcoin surged past $11,000 today -- less than 24 hours after surging past $10,000.

Ars Technica points out Bitcoin's price has tripled in less than six months, "after crashing from an all-time high around $19,500 in December 2017." And as the price of Ethereum rose above $300 for the first time in nearly a year, Mashable writes that the total value of all cryptocurrencies is now over $300 billion, and suggests the new price milestones may indicate a broader awareness: The $10,000 and the $300 price levels for Bitcoin and Ethereum, respectively, are important psychological barriers, and not only because they're nice and round. Last time, those levels were when the 'cab driver' effect was in full swing: Everyone was talking about Bitcoin; Coinbase was adding hundreds of thousands of users on a weekly basis. People who'd never even considered stocks were suddenly stocking up on Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.
"Details about Facebook's long-awaited cryptocurrency brought significant attention to the industry as a whole," reports the Street, "and created anticipation that markets could move higher." Not only will Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra, introduce the platform's 2.5 billion users to cryptocurrencies, but the project doesn't take direct aim at bitcoin. Rather than striving to supplant the first and still-most-popular digital currency, Libra caters to the 1.7 billion unbanked around the world by striving to provide a fast, affordable and reliable way to send and receive money...

There is growing evidence that investors view bitcoin has a hedge against global instability, and several factors are creating FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in traditional financial markets.
To that point, Forbes reports that "Bitcoin's growing reputation as a 'digital gold' could mean it becomes treated as a safe-haven asset in times of crisis, and the U.K.'s looming Brexit might demonstrate that." Nigel Green, chief executive of the financial advisory group deVere, tells them that "One such way that many are looking to diversify their portfolios and hedge against legitimate risks posed by Brexit is by investing in crypto assets, such as bitcoin."

U.S. live video streaming company YouNow on Wednesday filed with the SEC a public offering circular to distribute its own digital currency called Props. Reuters reports: The company said it does not intend to raise funds or sell the tokens at the public offering. Props is an open-source project built to reward application users and content creators with a financial stake in the network they contribute to. YouNow, with 47 million registered users, started the Props project in 2017. Instead of being sold, Props tokens can only be earned by app developers, users, and validators that will contribute to the Props network. YouNow, which created the first app in the Props network called the Props live video app, intends to distribute a significant portion of its own tokens to millions of its users. Props tokens under this offering will be issued on a continuous basis.

YouNow's offering will be done through the SEC's Regulation A+ exemption, according to YouNow's filing, which is available on the SEC website. Under the terms of the offering, a total of 178 million tokens will be distributed. The Regulation A+ exemption enables small companies to offer and sell securities to U.S. investors via two tiers, either for $20 million or $50 million, each over a 12-month period. Like an initial public offering, Reg A+ allows companies to offer shares to the general public and not just accredited investors. In its filing, YouNow said it is creating consumer-facing digital media apps called Props Apps, which will operate as traditional applications that may be downloaded and accessed by users in a manner similar to any regular apps.

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Kik for illegally raising $100 million through a 2017 digital-token sale, in one of its highest profile cases targeting a company for not registering an offering with the regulator. From a report: After losing money for years on its sole product, an online-messaging application, Kik raised more than $55 million from U.S. investors by selling a digital token called Kin without the proper disclosures, the SEC said in a Tuesday court filing. The agency is seeking unspecified monetary penalties. "Companies do not face a binary choice between innovation and compliance with the federal securities laws," said Steven Peikin, co-head of the SEC's enforcement division. Kik was among the biggest initial coin offerings in the past two years and has prominent backers. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson defended the Kin digital currency in a blog post, saying it is not a security.

Coinhive, an in-browser Monero cryptocurrency miner famous for being abused by malware gangs, announced this week its intention to shut down all operations next month, on March 8, 2019. From a report: The service cited multiple reasons for its decision in a blog post published yesterday. "The drop in hash rate (over 50%) after the last Monero hard fork hit us hard," the company said. "So did the 'crash' of the crypto currency market with the value of XMR depreciating over 85% within a year." "This and the announced hard fork and algorithm update of the Monero network on March 9 has lead us to the conclusion that we need to discontinue Coinhive," the company said. Coinhive said all in-browser Monero mining will stop working after March 8, and registered users will have until April 30 to withdraw funds from their accounts. The service, which launched in mid-September 2017, promoted itself as an alternative to classic banner ads. In its heyday, the site was making around $250,000 per month, according to some estimates.

BitTorrent and TRON have an ambitious plan to improve the BitTorrent protocol. Not only will users be financially rewarded for seeding, but they can also pay for faster access. While this may sound good to some, we wonder how this rhymes with BitTorrent's fight for Net Neutrality and its advocacy against paid prioritization. From a report: We ask this question because BitTorrent has been a fierce proponent of an open Internet. It has been a frontrunner in advocating for Net Neutrality, repeatedly criticizing paid traffic prioritization and so-called "fast lanes." BitTorrent went as far as creating the dedicated "internetbetter" website, avenging FCC's plans to meddle with the 'Open Internet,' advertising its campaign on a massive billboard. "The FCC's proposed changes to Net Neutrality would create a preferential fast lane for designated traffic," BitTorrent wrote at the time. "Those with the deep pockets to pay for this fast lane will have the ability to access and distribute content at higher speeds. Those who lack the purchasing power will be disadvantaged. This moves us towards an Internet of discrimination." These efforts didn't prevent the Net Neutrality rules from being repealed in the US, but it appears that BitTorrent's own plans may not be in line with an 'open' Internet either.

Long-time Slashdot reader foxalopex writes: It looks like Nvidia is going to be hit with a class action for investors who lost big when their stock price crashed more than 50% due to an overstock of GPU cards that were produced for the crypto-currency craze back in 2018. The suit claims investors were told Nvidia had control of the situation until it crashed worse than even Nvidia had anticipated.
"The Company's public statements were false and materially misleading," argues the complaint from a Los Angeles law firm, seeking investors who purchased shares in NVIDIA between August 10, 2017 and November 15, 2018.

It was on November 15 that NVIDIA issued a statement that "excess channel inventory post the crypto-currency boom...will be corrected." Citing new products for machine learning, film rendering, and cloud computing, they added that "Our market position and growth opportunities are stronger than ever."

Longtime BitTorrent executive and recent CEO Rogelio Choy left the company just 6 months after its acquisition by blockchain entrepreneur Justin Sun. Coincidentally, Choy's departure comes just as BitTorrent is doubling down on blockchain tech: The company announced Thursday that it is adding a crypto-currency to its popular uTorrent client.

From a report: Choy had been BitTorrent's chief operating officer from 2012 to 2015. After a 2-year stint at an on on-demand startup, he rejoined the company in 2017 as its CEO. His departure was confirmed by a company spokesperson Thursday, who said that he "decided to pursue other opportunities." One possible point of contention is BitTorrent's increased focus on crypto-currencies: The company announced Thursday that it was adding a crypto token to its popular uTorrent Windows client. The token will initially allow uTorrent users to achieve faster download speeds. The exact reasons for his departure are unknown at this time, but a source close to the company suggested that there had been disagreements about the direction of the company.

A Bloomberg columnist asks whether this week's rise in bitcoin's price is a turning point -- or just a "dead cat bounce"? After hitting a year's low of about $3,143, down about 80 percent from January highs, Bitcoin has risen 27 percent this week. Short-sellers are closing their positions, while fans smell fresh opportunity. Even more eye-watering market moves are happening elsewhere in the digital currency's ecosystem. Bitcoin Cash, a spin-off intended to be more usable as a payments mechanism, has almost tripled this week from about $80 to $225. That this is happening at the same time as a U.S. stock-market selloff will no doubt warm the hearts of crypto-evangelists, who believe their currencies offer genuine alternatives for where to put money in times of trouble....

A cursory glance at the price of Bitcoin Cash over the past year shows that it has fallen about 95 percent from its December 2017 record. So, anyone refusing to crystallize their losses this year has seen their 98-percent loss narrow over the past few days to, well, 95 percent. Celebrating now is like the Monty Python knight calling it a draw after losing all his limbs. It's not entirely clear either what kind of investor has the appetite, let alone the resources, to make meaningful bets on digital currencies today after a boom-and-bust cycle driven entirely by speculative hype rather than the adoption of Bitcoin in the real world. The long-awaited wave of money from Wall Street looks as far away as ever. So we're probably getting back to more natural territory for crypto: True believers and small-time gamblers.
Their conclusion? "One still can't rule out that these particular crypto-cats are dead."

With the price of bitcoin down 80% from its peak a year ago, and the larger cryptocurrency market in systemic collapse, has "peak crypto" come and gone? From a column: Perhaps, but don't expect to see true believers lining up to have their cryptocurrency tattoos removed just yet. At a recent conference I attended, the overwhelming sentiment was that market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies could explode over the next five years, rising to $5-10tn. For those who watched the price of bitcoin go from $13 in December 2012 to roughly $4,000 today, this year's drop from $20,000 was no reason to panic.

It is tempting to say, "Of course the price is collapsing." Regulators are gradually waking up to the fact that they cannot countenance large expensive-to-trace transaction technologies that facilitate tax evasion and criminal activity. At the same time, central banks from Sweden to China are realising that they, too, can issue digital currencies. As I emphasised in my 2016 book on the past, present, and future of currency, when it comes to new forms of money, the private sector may innovate, but in due time the government regulates and appropriates.

But as I also pointed out back then, just because the long-term value of bitcoin is more likely to be $100 than $100,000 does not necessarily mean that it definitely should be worth zero. The right way to think about cryptocurrency coins is as lottery tickets that pay off in a dystopian future where they are used in rogue and failed states, or perhaps in countries where citizens have already lost all semblance of privacy. It is no coincidence that dysfunctional Venezuela is the first issuer of a state-backed cryptocurrency (the "petro").

Starting this week, businesses in Ohio will be able to pay taxes in bitcoin through a new platform, OhioCrypto.com, a first in the US. From a report: For many enthusiasts, part of the appeal of crypto has been the very fact that these currencies are not backed by governments. That makes it harder for politicians to manipulate currencies to their own ends, they say. But for the same reason, states have sought to sideline cryptocurrencies, comfortable to dismiss bitcoin as a passing fad. So Ohio, and its treasurer Josh Mandel, see embracing them as a way to signal that the state is tech-savvy and forward-thinking. "I do see [bitcoin] as a legitimate form of currency," Mandel told (paywall) the Wall Street Journal.

"A Chinese headmaster has been fired after a secret stack of crypto-currency mining machines was found connected to his school's electricity supply," writes the BBC. An anonymous reader quotes their report: Teachers at the school in Hunan became suspicious of a whirring noise that continued day and night, local media report. This led to the discovery of the machines, which were mining the crypto-currency Ethereum. They racked up an electricity bill of 14,700 yuan [£1,600, or about $2,100]...

The headmaster had originally spent 10,000 yuan on a single machine for use at home, but allegedly decided to move it to the school after he saw how much electricity it consumed... A total of eight mining machines were installed in the Hunan school's computer room between summer 2017 and summer 2018... The deputy headmaster also became involved in the scheme and allegedly acquired a ninth machine for himself in January, which was also installed at the school. The computer network in the building became overloaded as a result of the mining activity, according to reports, and this "interfered" with teaching.
All the money earned through the mining operation has now been claimed by the local official responsible for "discipline inspection."

Zorro shares a report from BloombergQuint: The Great Crypto Crash of 2018 looks more and more like one for the record books. As virtual currencies plumbed new depths on Wednesday, the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index extended its collapse from a January high to 80 percent. The tumble has now surpassed the Nasdaq Composite Index's 78 percent peak-to-trough decline after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Like their predecessors during the Internet-stock boom almost two decades ago, cryptocurrency investors who bet big on a seemingly revolutionary technology are suffering a painful reality check, particularly those in many secondary tokens, so-called alt-coins.

"It just shows what a massive, speculative bubble the whole crypto thing was -- as many of us at the time warned," said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst in London for Markets.com, a foreign-exchange trading platform. "It's a very likely a winner takes all market -- Bitcoin currently most likely." Wednesday's losses were led by Ether, the second-largest virtual currency. It fell 6 percent to $171.15 at 7:50 a.m. in New York, extending this month's retreat to 40 percent. Bitcoin was little changed, while the MVIS CryptoCompare index fell 3.8 percent. The value of all virtual currencies tracked by CoinMarketCap.com sank to $187 billion, a 10-month low. "Crypto bulls dismiss negative comparisons to the dot-com era by pointing to the Nasdaq Composite's recovery to fresh highs 15 years later, and to the internet's enormous impact on society," reports BloombergQuint. "They also note that Bitcoin has rebounded from past crashes of similar magnitude. But even if the optimists prove right and cryptocurrencies eventually transform the world, this year's selloff has underscored that progress is unlikely to be smooth."

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is warning the Republic of the Marshall Islands to "seriously reconsider" the idea of adopting a digital currency as a second form of legal tender. As it stands, the U.S. dollar is the only legal tender in the islands. The BBC reports: A law to adopt a digital currency named "Sovereign" alongside the dollar was passed in February. The first virtual coins are due to be issued to members of the public via an initial coin offering (ICO) later this year. However, IMF directors said the potential benefits of the move were much smaller than the potential costs of "economic, reputational and governance risks." "[Marshall Island] authorities should seriously reconsider the issuance of the digital currency as legal tender," wrote the directors in their report, which was first spotted by Coindesk.

There is just one domestic commercial bank in the country and it is at risk of losing its only correspondent banking relationship with another bank in the U.S. That relationship allows the Islands to transfer dollars in and out of the country. It highlighted the Marshall Islands' dependence on foreign aid, and the fact that the country is vulnerable to natural disasters as well as sea level rise linked to climate change. Adopting a digital currency as an official form of legal tender would threaten both financial integrity and the nation's key relationship with the U.S. bank. The result could be disruption to foreign aid, according to the IMF.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The cryptocurrency bear market plumbed a fresh 10-month low on Monday as Bitcoin's biggest rival tumbled and U.S. regulators suspended trading in two securities linked to digital assets. Ether, the second-largest virtual currency, slumped 11 percent from its level at 5 p.m. New York time on Friday, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Bitcoin declined 2.4 percent, while the market capitalization of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com shrank to about $197 billion -- down almost $640 billion from its January peak. Cryptocurrencies have declined for five of the past six weeks amid concern that a broader adoption of digital assets will take longer than some had anticipated. That worry was underscored over the weekend after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily suspended trading in two exchange-traded notes linked to cryptocurrencies and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin told Bloomberg that the days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry have likely come and gone.

Today, New York approved the first digital currencies that are tied to the US dollar, called "stablecoins." From a report: These cryptocurrencies avoid the price volatility of their brethren by being pegged to stable assets. The digital currencies in question, from Gemini Trust Company and Paxos Trust Company, are available to trade on their respective exchanges. The Winklevoss twins, who rose to fame with a lawsuit suing Mark Zuckerberg for stealing the idea for Facebook from them, have become major players in the cryptocurrency world. They are behind Gemini Trust Company. The currency is pegged to the US dollar on a one-to-one basis; the company will hold US currency that corresponds with all issued Gemini dollars at a bank eligible for the FDIC's pass through insurance.

"Nvidia's nine-month crypto gold rush is over," reports the Los Angeles Times. An anonymous reader quotes their report: "Our core platforms exceeded our expectations, even as crypto largely disappeared," founder and Chief Executive Jensen Huang said Thursday on a conference call. "We're projecting no cryptomining going forward...." Nvidia said it had expected about $100 million in sales of chips bought by currency miners in the fiscal second quarter. Instead, the total was $18 million in the period, and that revenue is likely to disappear entirely in future quarters, the company said.

Investors are expressing their concern at the sudden collapse of what had looked like a billion-dollar business. Three months ago, Nvidia said it generated $289 million in sales from cryptocurrency miners, but warned that demand was declining rapidly and might fall by as much as two-thirds. Even that prediction was too optimistic.

Several readers have shared a report: Bitcoin touched below $6,000 and dozens of smaller digital tokens including Ether retreated as this month's sell-off in cryptocurrencies showed few signs of letting up. The largest digital currency fell as much as 6.2 percent to $5,887, the lowest level since June, before paring some of the drop, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Ether sank as much as 13 percent, while all but one of the 100 biggest cryptocurrencies tracked by Coinmarketcap.com recorded declines over the past 24 hours. The total market capitalization of virtual currencies dropped to $193 billion. Thatâ(TM)s down from a peak of about $835 billion in January.

The race is on to become the go-to destination for cryptocurrency companies that are looking for shelter from regulatory uncertainty in the United States and Asia, the New York Times reports. From the report: In Malta, the government passed three laws on July 4 so companies can easily issue new cryptocurrencies and trade existing ones. In Bermuda this year, the legislature passed a law that lets start-ups doing initial coin offerings apply to the minister of finance for speedy approval. "We are 65,000 people, and 20 square miles, but we have a very advanced economy," the premier of Bermuda, E. David Burt, said in an interview at a cryptocurrency conference in May in New York, where he was trying to pitch companies on the island's charms. "We want to position Bermuda as the incubator for this industry."

The competition for cryptocurrency companies is part of a broader rush by governments to figure out how to approach a new industry that took on outsize prominence over the last year. Becoming a crypto center has many potential upsides, including jobs and tax revenue. But the drive to be a crypto nexus also comes with significant risk. Hackings and scams have followed the industry everywhere it has gone. They have been aided by the underlying technology introduced by Bitcoin, known as the blockchain, which was built to make it possible to send money without requiring approval from government agencies or existing financial institutions.

MojoKid writes: In recent months, the cryptocurrency industry has taken a sharp downturn in valuations of virtually all major currencies, from Bitcoin to Ethereum. As a result, cryptocurrency mining itself has become significantly less lucrative for the average miner. In addition, demand on GPUs from the major OEM suppliers like NVIDIA and AMD, has fallen off dramatically as well. Cryptocurrency miner demand for graphics cards has fallen so much so, that pricing of board partner brands like EVGA, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and others, has returned basically to MSRP levels. This is compared to the sharp price gouging that was going on earlier in 2018 and late last year, when demand was far out-stripping supply. In fact, reports are emerging now that another approximate 20 percent price drop could be coming to GPUs this month, especially as NVIDIA is expected to launch its next generation gaming graphics card very soon. Whether or not this is indicative of some sort of cryptocurrency bubble burst remains to be seen. However, for now, gamers and PC enthusiasts are likely breathing a sigh of relief, as better supply/demand dynamics are clearly in sight.

OpenSourceAllTheWay writes: The Economist's 1843 magazine details one middle-aged writer's (Andrew Smith) quest to learn to code for the first time, after becoming interested in the "alien" logic mechanisms that power completely new phenomena like crypto-currency and effectively make the modern world function in the 21st Century. The writer discovers that there are over 1,700 actively used computer programming languages to choose from, and that every programmer that he asks "Where should someone like me start with coding?" contradicts the next in his or her recommendation. One seasoned programmer tells him that programmers discussing what language is best is the equivalent of watching "religious wars." The writer is stunned by how many of these languages were created by unpaid individuals who often built them for "glory and the hell of it." He is also amazed by how many people help each other with coding problems on the internet every day, and the computer programmer culture that non-technical people are oblivious of.

Eventually the writer finds a chart of the most popular programming languages online, and discovers that these are Python, Javascript, and C++. The syntax of each of these languages looks indecipherable to him. The writer, with some help from online tutorials, then learns how to write a basic Python program that looks for keywords in a Twitter feed. The article is interesting in that it shows what the "alien world of coding" looks like to people who are not already computer nerds and in fact know very little about how computer software works. There are many interesting observations on coding/computing culture in the article, seen through the lens of someone who is not a computer nerd and who has not spent the last two decades hanging out on Slashdot or Stackoverflow.