Archive for the ‘Crypto News’ Category

Chinese Bank Rumors Cause Panic Sale and BTC Price is Going Down

27, Mar 2014

bitcoin-exchange-rate-going-down-again

Today the Bitcoin exchange rate started going down again and the reason seems to be some new rumors that the Chinese national bank is going to prohibit the trading of Bitcoins and other cryptos by not allowing banks to service the payments for crypto currency exchanges by ordering all Chinese banks and payment processors to close accounts of Chinese Bitcoin exchanges by 15th or April. It seems that this is still just a rumor as there is no official information, though some news services in China are apparently reporting the news and the result is as expected – panic sale. Some of the big Chinese crypto exchanges have reported that they are not aware of any official announcement and it is all just a rumor, but the information in question could just be sent to banks directly, though at the end of last year the central bank has issued official warning about trading of Bitcoins and this has caused panic and significant drop in the price of BTC that had previously hit a record high price. It seems that soon enough we’ll see if this time it was all just a hoax if the price starts to recover back to the normal level or we’ll get to see an official announcement…

Vircurex Crypto Exchange’s Existence Threatened

23, Mar 2014

vircurex-exchange-logo

If you are using the Vircurex crypto currency exchange and have some coins in there you might be interested to read this news coming from their website. Due to the previous problems that the exchange had in the past they say that they have to either close the site with significant unrecoverable losses for all or to work out a solution that allows the exchange to continue to operate and gradually pay back the losses to the users. They have decided on a plan to do so in order to continue to operate and be able to pay back what they owe to all of the users, details of their plan to do so are listed below:

In preparation of the following, we have with immediate effect stopped the possibilities to withdraw BTC, LTC, FTC and TRC. All incoming deposits will also not be credited to the users accounts for the time being.

On 24th March 2014 we will be freezing the current BTC, LTC, TRC and FTC accounts, then perform the below distribution of the available coins and reenable deposits and withdrawals. This action will also require us to delete all open sell orders for BTC, LTC, FTC and TRC.

As you may very well be aware, we had two incidents last year that lead to a loss of a significant number of BTC, LTC, FTC, TRC. We had communicated at that time that we will be covering those losses from our income, which we have done so far. We had enough coin balances in our cold wallet to upkeep our platform and the positive cashflow enabled us to gradually refill the wallets.

Unfortunately we had large fund withdrawals in the last weeks which have lead to a complete depletion of our cold wallet balance and we are now facing the option of either closing the site with significant unrecoverable losses for all or to work out a solution that allows the exchange to continue to operate and gradually pay back the losses.

We have obviously chosen the later and hence are going to do the following:
1. We will introduce an additional balance type called “Frozen Funds”. Funds in this balance type cannot be used to trade or withdraw. Those are the balances that the exchange will gradually pay back and hence transfer back to the available balance over time.
2. We will move all current balances for BTC, LTC, TRC and FTC to the “Frozen Balance”, i.e. your balance will be set to 0.
3. We’ll take the current available cold storage balance and distribute it based on the below described distribution logic.
4. Monthly we will take the net profit of the exchange and credit back that amount distributed to the users based on the described distribution logic.

The freezing of the balances is a one-time action, it does not affect future deposits in any ways.

Distribution logic
50% of the amount will be distributed top down and the other 50% will be distributed bottom up.
Top down means: credit the amount from the largest account balance down to the smaller accounts Bottom up: credit the amount from the smallest account balance to the larger accounts.

Example
User 1: 5 BTC
User 2: 4 BTC
User 3: 3 BTC
User 4: 3 BTC
User 5: 3 BTC
User 6: 3 BTC
User 7: 1 BTC

Amount to distribute: 12 BTC:
Step 1: Top down distribute 6 BTC:

User 1: Credit 5 BTC
User 2: Credit 1 BTC, remaining frozen balance = 3 BTC

Step 2: Bottom up distribute 6 BTC:
User 7: Credit 1 BTC
User 6: Credit 3 BTC
User 5: Credit 2 BTC, remaining frozen balance = 1 BTC

This approach has the advantages that:
– all users will eventually receive their funds, though the timeframe depends on the monthly volume available
– new deposits and users are not penalized, thus supporting the ongoing operations of the platform
– fund withdrawals from the available funds are guaranteed, no surprises or unnecessary delays

We believe that this is the best way forward and hope for your support and understanding.

We do not like this kind of approach very much, but it is still better than going Gox like and just disappearing with the coins of the users. We have never liked very much the Vircurex exchange and though we have accounts there we are not actively using it anyway as there are other better exchanges available.

– Visit the page with the official announcement quoted above and published on the Vircurex website…

The Gridseed 19.2 MHS Scrypt ASIC Miner is Not Real… Yet

23, Mar 2014

gridseed-new-19-mhs-asic-miner

Do you remember the 19.2 MHS Scrypt and 520 GHS SHA-256 Dual Mode ASIC that we have reported about being available for pre-order form a Chinese seller. We have expressed our doubts about that product and it turns out it will not be available by the end of this month, though the seller claims it is something that Gridseed is currently working on. So we might actually see the product in some form available in a bit of time, but for now you can be rest assured it is not going to hit the market anytime soon. If we see the 19.2 GHS Scrypt mining ASIC in a few months however it might be a bit too late as other ASIC manufacturers are already promising shipping date for more powerful Scrypt miners to be out before the end of the year…

Below you can read the official quote from the seller as a response to the user interest in the 19.2 MHS miner that they have listed for pre-orders:

Dear customers,

Thank you so much for your interest in the super miner (520GH/19.2MH) shown at our store before, we decided to take it down before more information is available.

We got this product info from an agent of Gridseed. And we were told that the miner would be available at the end of March. So we put it at our store. Unexpectedly, it has generated a lot of interest and doubts alike in the mining circle. And we have received messages from a lot of customers, who are both interested and doubtful, which is very understandable, because the information was limited and no one has actually used this product yet.

And we have to clarify one fact: WE ARE NOT SCAMMERS. Firstly, we didn’t take any order of the product. None. Secondly, we have been receiving very positive feedbacks from our customers. Anyone who has worked with us knows that we are an honest store. Thirdly, it was not intended as a marketing ploy either. We saw new products coming, we put them at our store, that’s it.

So under these circumstances, with the attitude of being responsible to our customers, we decided to take it down until more information is available.

At the same time we are requesting for more info and wait until we know better.

Thank you so much.


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