This Week In Digital Currency | BTC:$378.70 (5.42%) | LTC:$4.26 (0.47%) | DOGE:$0.00038 (30.69%) | VTC:$0.057 (29.63%) | | NXT:$0.029 (3.33%) | PPC:$0.984 (33.06%) | BLK:$0.055 (1.79%) | DRK:$2.97 (0.20%) | Tweet Share +1 The price of Bitcoin has fallen 20% over the last two weeks, but a specific cause is not immediately apparent. Our thoughts from last week remain the same:



Michael Casey, of the Wall Street Journal, argues that Chinese investors are using Bitcoin mining to bypass capital controls . The investors then immediately sell their Bitcoin for dollars, leading to increased sell pressure and a declining price.



The price decline is most likely due to a combination of factors: sell pressure from miners covering their overhead costs, miners skirting capital controls, merchants instantly converting accepted Bitcoin for USD and investors selling either to cover their losses or due to a lack of faith in the currency. Bitcoin is still trying to reach a price equilibrium after the massive spike in price this year. Put simply, the price rose way too quickly, and now it needs to fall, until the demand between buyers and sellers levels out. Let's not forget that this time last year, the price of Bitcoin on Bitstamp was around $120, the ecosystem has come a long way since. Circle.com is now open for business! After months of invite-only operation, you can now simply register for Circle and begin using their service immediately. Unique to Circle is the ability to purchase Bitcoin with a credit card, making Bitcoin easily accessible to customers globally. After months of invite-only operation, you can now simply register for Circle and begin using their service immediately. Unique to Circle is the ability to purchase Bitcoin with a credit card, making Bitcoin easily accessible to customers globally.

On Tuesday, Paypal announced a new partnership with BitPay, Coinbase, and GoCoin to enable Bitcoin integration within their PayPal Payments Hub. The Payments Hub is a sub-product specifically for digital goods merchants such as online game providers. This is another step towards full Bitcoin integration within Paypal, after announcing integration for their subsidiary, Braintree, earlier in the month. The CEO of Square, Jack Dorsey, stated in an interview this week that his company is working on a new register that enables merchants to accept both Bitcoin and Apple Pay payments. Square is a point-of-sale and payments services company that currently enables merchants to accept credit cards with their own phone/tablet or with Square's register. Square has millions of businesses as customers, including Whole Foods and Starbucks. On Friday, ProPublica and This American Life released a whistleblower's account from inside the New York Federal Reserve. The report showcases how the Fed is completely entrenched in the banks they are supposed to be monitoring, unable to be effective at all.



Carmen Segarra joined the NY Fed in late 2011, as part of an expansion of Fed supervision, following the economic collapse of 2008. She was assigned to the Goldman Sachs task force where she began to notice push back from her superiors whenever she questioned Goldman's tactics. She soon discovered that Goldman didn't appear to be following proper anti-money laundering policies but despite having the evidence she was consistently shut down and eventually fired. Carmen secretly recorded conversations during these disputes, and you can hear them for yourself in the radio version of the report. Still News... Constantly Updated... Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky, on behalf of the New York State Department of Financial Services, announced that they have extended the Bitlicense public comment period 45 days to October 21st, 2014. On July 23rd, leaders throughout the industry wrote to the NYDFS and urged them to extend the review period.



We have compiled all public responses to the Bitlicense at our easy to follow Bitlicense Hub. It will be constantly updated as new responses are released. Let us know if we missed any.



The New York State Department of Financial Services' Bitlicense Guidelines are meant to be the model for future federal Bitcoin regulations and are now under a community review period

