An anonymous reader writes "Cody Wilson details his conflict with the State Department over 3-D printable guns in this new interview with ReasonTV. In this video, he discusses how 3-D printing will render gun control laws obsolete and unenforceable; why Dark Wallet, his new crypto-currency, is much more subversive than Bitcoin; his legal defense, headed by Alan Gura (attorney in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago); and his forthcoming book about anarchy and the future."

kierny writes "Today, Bitcoin, tomorrow, the dollar? Former Central Intelligence Agency CTO Gus Hunt says governments will learn from today's crypto currencies and use them to fashion future government-protected monetary systems. But along the way, expect first-movers such as Bitcoin to fall, in a repeat of the fate of AltaVista, Napster, and other early innovators. But the prospect of fashioning a better, more stable crypto currency system — and the likelihood that Bitcoin may one day burn — is good news for anyone who cares about crypto currencies, as well as the future and reliability of our monetary systems."

Nerval's Lobster writes "Newsweek's Leah McGrath Goodman spent months tracking down the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, "Satoshi Nakamoto," a name that everybody seemed to believe was a pseudonym for either a single individual or a shadowy collective of programmers. If Satoshi Nakamoto, former government contractor and model-train enthusiast, is actually "Satoshi Nakamoto," Bitcoin founder, then he's sitting atop hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto-currency. Does the article's exhaustive listing of Nakamoto's personal details place his security at risk? Many in the Bitcoin community think so, and poured onto the Web to express that opinion. The Newsweek article has raised some interesting questions about the need for thorough journalism versus peoples' right to privacy. For example, should Goodman have posted an image of Nakamoto's house and car, even though information about both would probably be relatively simple to find online, anyway?"

Nerval's Lobster writes "Amazon has expanded support for its Amazon Coins from Kindle Fire tablets to Google Android mobile devices.In its press release, Amazon positioned its e-currency as the ultimate in convenience for customers who don't want their credit-card statements riddled with lots of micro-purchases from Amazon's App Store. Expanding the currency's reach is also a potential win for Amazon, which wants to create an end-to-end ecosystem for app developers. But Amazon Coins' existence could alienate the same demographic that made Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies such a hit. The company tethers the Coins to a user identity, and likely keeps significant records on its crypto-currency ecosystem: who buys what when. That concept is anathema to those online denizens who embraced Bitcoin as a way to make purchases without needing to reveal a real-world identity, or deal with a currency tethered to a central repository; genuine crypto-currency can be used to purchase pretty much anything from a purveyor willing to take it, including—in the case of Silk Road and other online bazaars—drugs and weapons. Indeed, Amazon Coins has more to do with a corporate 'currency' like the now-defunct Microsoft Points than an actual crypto-currency like Bitcoin. But that hasn't stopped some people from getting confused about it."

This site's "Your Rights Online" section, sadly, has never suffered for material. The revelations we've seen over the last year-and-change, though, of widespread spying on U.S. citizens, government spying in the E.U. on international conferences, the UK's use of malware against citizens, and the use of modern technology to oppress government protesters in the middle east and elsewhere shows how persistent it is. It's been a banner year on that front, and the banner says "You are being spied on, online and off." A broad coalition of organizations is calling today "The Day We Fight Back" against the growing culture of heads-they-win, tails-you-lose surveillance, but all involved know this is not a one-day struggle. (Read more, below.)

mask.of.sanity writes "Russia has banned digital currency Bitcoin under existing laws and dubbed use of the crypto-currency as 'suspicious'. The Central Bank of Russia considers Bitcoin as a form of 'money substitute' or 'money surrogate' (statement in Russian) which is restricted under Russian law. However, unlike use of restricted foreign currencies, Bitcoin has been outright banned. The US Library of Congress has issued a report examining the regulatory approaches national financial authorities have taken to the currency."

Nerval's Lobster writes "A bunch of anonymous developers are working on 'Coinye West,' a crypto-currency named after rapper Kanye West. Coinye West isn't an official production of Kanye West, and the developers are staying anonymous because they probably fear the inevitable copyright lawsuits. (Of course, if the currency hits the online market and proves a success, it's always possible the real Kanye West would drop any suit in exchange for a massive amount of Coinye West coins—every hip-hop artist on the planet might claim to drive a Maybach, but how many can claim a currency?) 'DROPPING JANUARY 11, 2014. 11 PM EST,' read a note on Coinyewest.com. 'No premine, no screwed up fake "fair" launches, shyster devs, muted channels, and f**ked up wallets,' it helpfully added. 'We will be releasing password protected, encrypted archives containing binaries and source for the wallet and daemon BEFORE LAUNCH, with the passwords to be released at the specified time.' Just to emphasize the supposed fairness of this particular crypto-currency, the note repeated: 'We will work with multiple pools to orchestrate a PROPER and FAIR release.' A chat room is available at irc.freenode.net. Technical details for the crypto-currency include: Algorithm: Scrypt; max Coins: 133,333,333,333; block time: 90 seconds; difficulty Re-Target Time: 12 hours; block Rewards: 666,666 COYE; every 100k blocks, the payout halves. In the future, will every major celebrity will have a crypto-currency named after him or her? And how long until Jay-Z decides to launch something similar?"

An anonymous reader writes in with this story about some questionable numbers reported from bitcoin exchange OKCoin. "Top Chinese bitcoin exchange OKCoin has been accused of publishing fake trading data, artificially inflating the number of currency transactions it is handling. Once China's second-largest bitcoin exchange, OKCoin is claimed to have published unrealistically high trading volumes in the wake of the Chinese central bank imposing a ban on financial institutions handling the crypto-currency. The ban saw several exchanges halt all incoming deposits, but OKCoin's trading data failed to show the dip experienced by fellow exchanges."

An anonymous reader writes with news of the latest major fluctuation in the price people are willing to pay for Bitcoins. From the article: "China's ban on its financial institutions handling bitcoin causes world's largest exchange to cease trading, halving the value of the currency from $1,000 to less than $500 in a matter of days. The country's central bank took a hard line on Bitcoin in early December when it banned financial institutions from handling the decentralized crypto-currency, and as a result BTC China, the world's largest bitcoin exchange, has stopped accepting deposits from its users." Just watch that line trend downward.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Bank of America has issued a research report suggesting that the crypto-currency Bitcoin could become 'a major means of payment for e-commerce' on its way to emerging as 'a serious competitor to traditional money transfer providers.' The bank attaches a 'maximum market capitalization' of Bitcoin at roughly $1,300, based on its position as a 'major player in both e-commerce and money transfer' as well as 'a significant store of value with a reputation close to silver.' Bitcoin has come close to exceeding that theoretical ceiling in recent weeks, although its valuation dove today after the People's Bank of China decided to declare it a volatile 'currency' without real legal status; that financial institution is also concerned about its use in money laundering and black markets. Bank of America sees Bitcoins' advantages as low transaction costs, its finite supply (which will protect its value), and its increasing attractiveness as an alternative to 'traditional' cash. As with the People's Bank of China, however, the bank sees the currency's extreme volatility and lack of legal backing as a bad thing, and frowns at the possibility that regulators could step in and increase transaction costs. 'A 50 minute wait before payment receipt confirmation is received will prohibit wider use,' the report adds. 'This is less of an issue for two parties that know each other because they trust the other will not double spend, but when dealing with an anonymous counterparty this creates a high level of unhedgeable risk.' Without a 'central counterparty' to verify transactions and thus mitigate that risk, Bitcoin could fail to break into wider use."

BitVulture writes "Richard Stallman took time to air his views on the crypto-currency that has become virtually as valuable as gold. In an interview with Russian media giant RT, Stallman praised Bitcoin for allowing people to 'send money to someone without getting the permission of a payment company'. But he also warned against a major weakness of Bitcoin and called for the development of 'a system for truly anonymous payment' online."

hypnosec writes "Germany has declared Bitcoin as a 'unit of account', which makes the virtual currency a kind of 'private money' and the process of Bitcoin mining has been deemed 'private money creation.' The recognition as 'unit of account' makes Bitcoin eligible for use in "multilateral clearing circles" and because of this citizens are liable to pay capital gains tax, if they profit from the crypto-currency by sale or purchase within a period of one year – the same as they would have to in case they profit by selling stock, bonds or other form of security. The question here is how the finance ministry would come to know of a person's Bitcoin holding as it is a decentralized currency with no governing body to keep count on the number of Bitcoins a person has. The German government expects that citizens declare their Bitcoin while filing their annual tax return."

Last week, you asked questions (many rather pointed!) of Amir Taaki, co-founder of Bitcoin Consultancy, which develops Bitcoin related services, exchanges and Bitcoin itself. (They also own Britcoin.co.uk.) Says Taaki: "When creating video games I spent much time imagining tools to make artists lives easier, and how we could keep funding developers to write free software. One contribution of mine to the community was a site where developers could get funded for developing features and I'd love nothing more than to pay people to write free software." With regard to Bitcoin, similarly, "We need fulltime developers thinking about the problems and solutions needed to keep this system running. We aim to get all the creative thinkers from the community and provide a mechanism for enabling their work." Below find his answers to the questions readers raised.

Teppy writes "How's this for a disruptive technology? Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, network-based digital currency with no central bank, and no transaction fees. Using a proof-of-work concept, nodes burn CPU cycles searching for bundles of coins, broadcasting their findings to the network. Analysis of energy usage indicates that the market value of Bitcoins is already above the value of the energy needed to generate them, indicating healthy demand. The community is hopeful the currency will remain outside the reach of any government." Here are the FAQ, a paper describing Bitcoin in more technical detail (PDF), and the Wikipedia article. Note: a commercial service called BitCoin Ltd., in pre-alpha at bitcoin.com, bears no relation to the open source digital currency.
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Related: Crypto Tools

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Last monday, you were given the chance to Ask Questions of the Libertarian Party's US Presidential nominee, Michael Badnarik. Today we present to you 15 of the most highly rated comments, and the answers from the man himself. Thanks to Mr. Badnarik for taking the time to talk to us. His answers are yours with just a click of the mouse below...

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