DGC – Page 12 – — Covering digital currencies, precious metals and online payments

More places to spend your Bitcoins

Julia Dixon on February 11, 2013

Hungry? Need more cell phone minuets? Now you can order pizza and top up your phone with your bitcoins.

PizzaForCoins.com functions as a Pizza/Bitcoin middleman. You order and pay via their website and they complete the order for you. “Going back to the infamous 10,000btc for pizza back in 2010, we’re offering a system for ordering pizzas with your bitcoins!”

Currently the service only works with Domino’s however; plans are in the words to add Pizza Hut and Papa John’s.

BitcoinWireless.com allows you to top up your cellphone credit using Bitcoin.

To use this service you need to enter your country, service provider, email address and phone number. After making a Bitcoin payment to the address generated by the site you receive an email containing the pin number or other instructions from the service provider allowing you to use the newly purchased credit. Currently the service works with 280 carriers in 112 countries.

GoldMoney: QE for dummies

Julia Dixon on February 9, 2013

The Banking/Monetary system is both staggeringly simple, they push a button to create new money, and ridiculously complex, fractional reserve ratios, treasury bonds, interest rates, open market operations, M1, M2, etc.

In a new GoldMoney post PeakProsperity.com’s Chris Martenson helps to explain one part of this bizarre system, Quantitative Easing.

“Despite its sophisticated-sounding name, QE is nothing more complicated than the Fed buying ‘assets’ from commercial banks and other private financial institutions. I put assets in quotes because the Fed does not buy things like land, Stradivarius violins, diamonds, gold, or silver from these institutions, but rather various forms of debt.”

Erik Voorhees on why Bitcoin and Amazon Coins have nothing in common

Julia Dixon on February 7, 2013

In a “rant” posted to the Bitcoin forum, Erik explains why Bitcoin and Amazon Coins, Amazon’s new ‘virtual currency’, are “as different as bumble bees and blueberry muffins.”

GoldMoney: Why price inflation will take off

Julia Dixon on February 5, 2013

Alasdair Macleod explains how “preference for money” impacts price levels and what role a shift in preferences will play in a ‘virtually certain’ new banking crisis.

“We are all aware, through application of logic if nothing else, that if you increase the quantity of money, prices will increase as that extra money is spent. What is less appreciated is that prices can change dramatically due to shifts in preference for money over goods.”

The new Ripple, a decentralized exchange, a payment system, and a currency all its own

Julia Dixon on February 5, 2013

Out very soon, the new version of Ripple has has undergone a dramatic renovation.

Ripple was created by Ryan Fugger in 2006 as a trust network where people can grant each other credit, and anyone can ‘be their own bank’. The project has since been acquired by a team of developers including Mt. Gox creator Jed McCaleb. Ryan’s trust network is still there, but it is now one feature of a much expanded system.

The new features of the soon to be open source software include the possibility for a decentralized currency exchange, a p2p transaction network, “Gateways” for bringing other currencies into the system, and Ripples (XRP), a new digital currency.

Matonis: Government Ban On Bitcoin Would Fail Miserably

Julia Dixon on January 29, 2013

Jon argues that Bitcoin was designed to operate ‘underground’ and that any ban would only draw a large amount of attention to the currency serving to strengthen it. “The demand for an item, in this case digital cash with user-defined levels of privacy, does not simply evaporate in the face of a jurisdictional ban.”

After all, since when has banning things actually worked??

Bloomberg: Bitcoin’s Gains May Fuel Central Bank Concerns

Julia Dixon on January 29, 2013

In their ‘Chart of the Day’ post Bloomberg notes that “An increase in the value of bitcoin, the world’s largest online currency, may fuel concerns that virtual money could undermine the role of central banks.”

Coding in my Sleep: Dwolla Begins PayPal-Style Account Suspensions

Julia Dixon on January 25, 2013

Dwolla is a popular method of moving funds between USD and Bitcoin largely because they “claimed zero chance of chargebacks and appeared to be a small business run by decent people who weren’t necessarily Bitcoin-friendly but at least didn’t seem to be Bitcoin hostile.”

However it seems that Dwolla is going the way of PayPal and has now begun suspending accounts do to ‘suspicious activity’, especially the accounts of user who it suspects are acting as a virtual currency exchange, forbidden in it user agreement. And it seems this move may be due to regulatory pressure.

Central banks could be pressured into competitive devaluations

Julia Dixon on January 24, 2013

Reuters is reporting that the Bendesbank chief, Jen Weidmann, is concerned that central banks are being pressured to pursue more aggressive monetary policies that could risk a “currency war”.

Iowa now accepting some tax payments via Dwolla

Julia Dixon on January 24, 2013

According to Fast Company, Iowa has begun accepting some tax payments via Dwolla. The cigarette stamp tax, which generates around $100 million for Iowa, will be the first tax that Iowans will be able to pay via Dwolla. However the Governor, Terry Brandstand, says he’d consider expanding Dwolla payments to other fees and taxes in the future as well.