Bitcoin

An anonymous cryptocurrency millionaire recently launched a fund to donate $86 million in Bitcoin to charity. One of the biggest donations so far is to MAPS, an organization working to turn MDMA into a legal PTSD treatment.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have promised a revolution in capital - but at what cost? The Bitcoin network alone is now burning a horrific 240 kilowatt-hours of electricity per transaction, using as much energy as the entire nation of Serbia, and heralding an environmental disaster.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin may seem to be the fad that keeps coming back around every ​year or so, but a new study finds they may be much bigger than previously thought. A landmark study finds cryptocurrencies are actively used by three times as many people compared to other estimates.

​​If you don't have access to a Swiss bank account, you will soon be able to keep your currency secure by instead buying some Bitcoin at any Swiss railway station.

In an effort to make bitcoin more attractive to a wider range of legitimate businesses, students at Trinity College Dublin are looking for ways to increase transparency in transactions without ditching the anonymity altogether and believe a "credit-check" database could be one answer.

As part of a move to expand into supercomputing and deal with the excess heat that is a byproduct of bitcoin mining, BitFury Group, a bitcoin infrastructure provider and transaction processing company, has purchased Allied Control, which makes cooling systems for supercomputing and data centers.

Microsoft has quietly announced that its customers can now use bitcoin to purchase certain products through third party payment processor BitPay, which also supports tech sales site TigerDirect and Virgin’s space flight offshoot Virgin Galactic.

Expedia.com has just announced that it will accept bitcoins as payment for online hotel bookings, joining the likes of Virgin Galactic, Overstock.com, and Atomic Mail in embracing the digital currency.

Bitcoin is having serious teething problems. Most of these problems are associated with bitcoin storage or conversion, and should settle down as the currency is more widely accepted. Assuming this happens, let's look at the strengths and weaknesses of a mature Bitcoin currency in a modern economy.

The value of a thing is what it will bring, or so says an old financial aphorism. It appears that the value of Bitcoins earlier in the month was such than 91.4 Bitcoins = one used Tesla Model S.

As Bitcoin turns four years old, we take a look at how a group of anonymous programmers have managed to create more than US$300 million out of thin air.