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Bitcoin Tracker | Week 45

Another week, another bitcoin scandal. This week it’s the Moolah CEO whose exchange filed for bankruptcy and who is being sued for being a scammer.

Max Levchin says that bitcoin as an asset class is “ridiculous” and that the drop in value is the market correcting to accommodate its true value. Ouch! That value, at least this week now in the upper three-hundreds – up to $377.12 from $357.16 according to the PYMNTS.com Bitcoin Price index .

But on the bright side, the Bitcoin Sentiment Index is higher than last week at 97.29 after dipping down to 89. Investments and developments in bitcoin companies continued to gain ground, specifically in Asia. And, New York didn’t decide to regulate bitcoin to within an inch of its life, but does believe that that there is a need for oversight and regulation.

As always, if you have any news you’d like to share, please send it our way at contactus@pymnts.com.

On the Plus Side …

There may be a future for bitcoin startups in New York after all, when the superintendent of financial services for the state of New York, Benjamin Lawsky, said that the state will NOT be requiring digital currency software developers to have a license.

October 16, 2014 – New York regulation backed off a bit on Bitcoin, with financial services providers now required to have a BitLicense, but software developers, bitcoin miners and individual cryptocurrency users won’t need one.

October 16, 2014 – Bitcoin prices are expected to rally above $400 today during trading as the outlook for bitcoin grows increasingly bullish, relatively speaking.

October 16, 2014 – The WinkDex officially launched.

October 16, 2014 – Christian media is opening to the question of accepting and promoting bitcoin donations.

October 15, 2014 – A hardware bitcoin wallet that can fit in ones pocket was released, Trezor, which offers paper wallet-grade security without compromising the convenience of online wallets. Huh?

October 15, 2014 – A Japanese bitcoin exchange, raised 25 million yen ($236,000) from New York based Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. to fund overseas expansion. The exchange, BitFlyer, allows anyone with a Japanese bank account to buy and sell bitcoins. One of the first expansions may be into Singapore.

October 13, 2014 – Continuing the companies plan to insert itself into regulator conversation, Coinbase has hired John Collins, a former senior advisor to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to be the firm’s Head of Government Affairs.

October 13, 2014 – The slump in the gold market has prompted some Indian investors to look into bitcoin as an investment.

October 13, 2014 – A new bitcoin wallet, Coins.ph, is targeting the Philippines remittance market.

October 10, 2014 – Over 800 self service payment terminals in Romania will allow customers to buy bitcoin. The ZebraPay terminals will allow customers to buy bitcoin at 4% commission on prices from the Cointrader exchange.

On the Dark Side …

While PayPal may now accept bitcoin, one of the company’s founders didn’t have many positive things to say about the cryptocurrency this week. And while Apple Pay isn’t here yet, it has a growing opportunity to beat bitcoin at its own game, for a few reasons: customer experience, security and leaving incumbents in control.