Coinbase Raises $25 Million From Andreessen Horowitz

“In order to keep up with the growing consumer and merchant demand for Bitcoin, we must scale. And in order to do that, we are pleased to announce that today we have secured a series B funding round totaling $25M, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital. With this funding, Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon will join our board, along with Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson.  This investment represents the largest fundraise in Bitcoin to date (bringing our total raised to $31M).  We see it as a key moment to show the opportunity of Bitcoin and the dramatic impact it will have on the global economy.”

http://blog.coinbase.com/post/69775463031/coinbase-raises-25-million-from-andreessen-horowitz

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Ernst & Young: ‘Bitcoin has the potential to be a game-changer’

“Bitcoin ‘has the potential to be a game-changer’, a director at Big Four accountant EY has said, in the latest sign the City is paying close attention to the controversial digital currency.  Colin Pickard said Bitcoin could bring substantial benefits to the financial services industry by cutting down the costs of cross-border transactions.  He added, that unless governments start regulating it, the currency may never ‘take off’, as it still faces serious hurdles. However Mr Pickard and others at EY, who have been following Bitcoin closely for the last year or so, said it is beset by myths, and that it would be wrong to think of the digital currency as truly anonymous or particularly vulnerable to hacks.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/10511866/EY-Bitcoin-has-the-potential-to-be-a-game-changer.html

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Fidelity now allows clients to put bitcoins in IRAs

“Fidelity has partnered with SecondMarket’s Bitcoin Investment Trust to allow its clients to save for their retirement by putting the virtual currency in self-directed IRAs.  The Bitcoin Investment Trust is an open-ended trust that launched in late September and only invests in the virtual currency. The trust, which is only open to accredited investors, had $62.6 million in assets under management as of Tuesday.  MarketWatch previously reported that SecondMarket had teamed up with self-directed IRA providers PENSCO, Entrust and Equity Institutional  to allow investors to save for retirement with bitcoin. Fidelity is the largest and most well-known company that SecondMarket has teamed up with for this.”

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/12/11/fidelity-now-allows-clients-to-put-bitcoins-in-iras/

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SecondMarket CEO: Wall Street Will Put ‘Hundreds of Millions’ Into Bitcoin

“Silbert says the BIT is in conversations with ‘several major banks’ and he expects the trust to be an approved product on their wealth-management platforms within the first half of 2014.  The second wave will be hedge funds and other institutional investors. ‘The principals that work at all those firms are starting to invest personally in the BIT,’ Silbert says. Anecdotally, he adds, it’s clear they are investing in the Bitcoin market through other platforms as well. With traders, portfolio managers and executives all gaining interest, it appears to be only a matter of time before their firms follow suit and take a position in the digital currency.  The third wave will be Wall Street banks themselves.”

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230346

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Bitcoin fund raises $65 million after first two months, founder says

“A fund established to offer investors exposure to Bitcoin is holding around $65 million in the digital currency after two months in operation, its creator, SecondMarket Chief Executive Officer Barry Silbert, said on Wednesday.  Silbert told a group of journalists at his company’s New York headquarters the fund, named the Bitcoin Investment Trust, has 90 investors, among them hedge fund traders and private family investment firms.  The BIT is structured like an electronically traded fund and modeled, according to Silbert, after one of the most prominent gold ETFs, but it is not publicly traded and will not be for several more years. SecondMarket launched the fund at the end of September.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/11/us-etf-bitcoin-secondmarket-idUSBRE9BA15520131211

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Bitcoin: Objections and Replies

“Erik Voorhees joins Tom to discuss recent developments surrounding Bitcoin, and replies to objections to Bitcoin. Check out Erik’s article ‘Bitcoin: The Libertarian Introduction,’ and follow him on Twitter.”

http://www.schiffradio.com/pg/jsp/verticals/archive.jsp?dispid=310&pid=63335

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JPMorgan Said to Have No Plans for Currency Challenging Bitcoin

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) has no plans to introduce a competing product to Bitcoin, the digital money created as an alternative to currencies controlled by nations and banks, according to a person familiar with the matter.  JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, doesn’t have anything in development nor does it plan to produce virtual currencies to compete with Bitcoin, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the New York-based company’s strategy isn’t public. The Financial Times reported earlier today that the lender filed a U.S. patent application for a system that, like Bitcoin, allows users to make electronic payments anonymously and without fees.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-11/jpmorgan-said-to-have-no-plans-for-currency-challenging-bitcoin.html

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Obama Amends the Constitution By Statute

mcelroy1

“The PPACA authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make a proposal if the IPAB board does not do so by a set date. As with the board, if Congress does not provide an alternative to that proposal, then the Secretary is authorized to implement it unilaterally, and with appropriated funds if necessary. (Presumably, the funds would come from Medicare.) In short, a panel of 15 experts will assume the unprecedented power of making federal law and changing laws previously enacted by Congress. Or one woman will: Secretary of HHS Kathleen Sebelius.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/34815/Wendy-McElroy-Obama-Amends-the-Constitution-By-Statute/

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From Obamacare to Single Payer – We Told You So

the-daily-bell-top-logo61

“An Internet facility that was supposed to deal with one-sixth of the US economy was produced without security and presented to the public without a thorough run-through.  This kind of incompetence is well beyond the norm even for the US federal government. President Obama himself nixed any possibility of extending the deadline, so obviously the timing was more important than performance. Or perhaps the excessive haste merely provided a kind of cover for the real intention, which was to produce a fatally flawed system. Perhaps the idea – as we speculated previously – is that the system is to offer evidence that quasi-market systems simply do not work. Enter single payer.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/34832/From-Obamacare-to-Single-Payer–We-Told-You-So/

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Bill Bonner: Don’t Invest Here in 2014…

“‘Prices are very unreliable. So, we just look at what surprises might come… and what impact they will have on us. I mean, I know I will be surprised. So I want a surprise that I will like. And the way you get that is by making sure you always have more upside than downside.  You look at the US stock market now and what you see is millions of people who are all sure that the market is going up… as long as the Fed continues to add money to the system. When the Fed stops, they think they are going to get out.  But when everyone wants to sell, who will they sell to? So, in our view the surprise is likely to be on the downside… and it will be much more painful than a surprise to the upside.'”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/dont-invest-here-in-2014/

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