Author: Alexander Cordova

Bitcoin

KeepKey Wallet Starts Shipping

Alexander Cordova

The KeepKey hardware wallet has begun shipping today, after being officially announced on July 19 of this year (although the device itself had been in development for approximately one and a half years). KeepKey is the brainchild of Darin Stanchfield, Founder of the company, who began development on the project in 2014 after becoming frustrated with the lack of hardware wallet options available at the moment, as well as a mishap with a pre-order from an unnamed competitor. “I decided at that moment that instead of waiting for a device to be built by someone else, I was going to take up the initiative myself. And so the seed of the idea for KeepKey was born. My goal became to create a device that bridged the gap …

Bitcoin

Vietnamese Exchange VBTC Relaunches With New Partners

Alexander Cordova

Bitcoin Vietnam, a Vietnamese startup founded in 2013, announced two days ago the re-opening on VBTC. The exchange previously operated during a few months starting from July 2014 but closed its doors temporarily. “VBTC will allow us to handle Bitcoin remittance services towards Vietnam in a very fast and price­competitive way. In an ideal setup it will take you less than one hour to send funds to your beloved ones in Vietnam ­ from sending the Bitcoins to us until the recipient in Vietnam holds the cash in his hands. This is already possible today.” Dominik Weil, Co-Founder of Bitcoin Vietnam. The Vietnamese market is especially ripe when it comes to remittances — they’re ranked as one of the top-ten countries in the world …

Bitcoin

MercadoLibre Mexico Adds Bitcoin Payments

Alexander Cordova

If you’re not familiar with the name MercadoLibre, it’s basically South America’s version of Ebay. In fact, since 2001 — two years after it launched in Argentina — its main shareholder has been the US-based e-commerce titan itself. MercadoLibre was founded by Marcos Galperín — who still serves as CEO —, it currently employs over 3,000 people and operates in 12 South American countries aside from Argentina: Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Portugal, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. Today, MercadoLibre Mexico announced the integration of Bitcoin into its associated payments platform, MercadoPago (MercadoPago is to MercadoLibre what Paypal is to Ebay). Customers will now be able to pay using Bitcoin within MercadoLibre by choosing the option through the MercadoPago platform; this payment processor …

Bitcoin

Imperial College London Inaugurates Cryptocurrency Centre

Alexander Cordova

The Imperial College London announced the inauguration of the Centre for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering in their Summer of 2015 Engineering Newsletter. This decision comes shortly after the College hosted a Bitcoin forum, which determined a high level of interest amongst students and faculty. During the forum, Mike Hearn (Bitcoin Core developer) and Dr Will Knottenbelt spoke about cryptocurrencies and the benefits they could offer to both governments and individuals, including the popular blockchain technology. The Centre will focus its efforts on research grants aimed towards improving the blockchain technology as well as designing solutions for other fields building upon it. Dr Knottenbelt himself will serve as Director of the Centre, he’s a member of Department of Computing and currently teaches Applied Quantitative Analysis at the College. Last …