6 CommentsThe big conference Bitcoin London 2013 happened this Tuesday (2) in the British capital. Check out the major conclusions of the meeting.
1. Who likes Bitcoin the best: Europe or the USA?
The North-American regulators have been making Bitcoin’s life really difficult and the cryptocurrency startups are not happy. On the other hand, Europe still sees Bitcoin like a harmless unit, so the old continent might be a better place for some companies right now.
According to the experts in London, the United States has made one fatal mistake: it should not have classified Bitcoin as a currency so early in its development.
2. A new Bitcoin ATM machine arises
Bitcoin London hosted the launching of a new Bitcoin ATM machine, which allows users to convert bank notes into digital currency. The device, created and presented by the start-up Lamassu Bitcoin Ventures, lets users buy Bitcoins, but doesn’t allow the reverse transfer.
To use this new ATM machine, you will need to have a Bitcoin wallet number and, first, scan the QR code of your Bitcoin address. Then, you have to feed bank notes into the machine and they will be converted to cryptocurrency, at the current exchange rate, and deposited into their account. For now, it can still take several minutes to update an account.
3. Why Bitcoin would be perfect for Iceland
Iceland should adopt Bitcoin as its national currency, according to the economist Sveinn Valfells, who talked this Tuesday at Bitcoin London 2013. As stated by the expert, Iceland is an extremely wealthy nation with a damaged financial system. The country needs desperately of a new currency and the crypto-coin might be an ideal solution for the nation’s problems.
“It has far from adjusted from the 2008 crash. It has a large overhang of hot money, and bloated and expensive banks. It has also a history of not managing its currency so well. Bitcoin meets straightforward criteria: it’s getting close to the market cap of $1B needed for a comfortable margin and, in the matter of governance, it already has a structure so it’s getting there”, Sveinn Valfells explained.
4. Ripple has a new Bitcoin payment method
Bitcoin London 2013 was the stage for another big announcement. This one was made by OpenCoin, which revealed that Ripple users can now make payments to all Bitcoin addresses directly from the Ripple client. This means that Ripple users now have access to over 8,500 Bitcoin merchants and also to the entire Bitcoin economy. The innovation is called Bitcoin Bridge.
“This is both an important milestone for Ripple and a powerful demonstration of the promise of the Ripple system. Now, anyone can send Bitcoins without having to use a central exchange. At the same time, any merchant accepting Bitcoins now has the potential to accept any currency in the world”, said OpenCoin CEO Chris Larsen.
5. A lot of new start-ups
Bitcoin has proven its amazing expansion in London with the presentation of new start-ups from places like Argentina, Brazil, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
We are talking about names like the Israeli company Bits of Gold, which will launch its services this Autumn, and Lamassu, the company that developed the Bitcoin ATM machine that we already talked about and that will be launched this August. There was also time to Bex.io’s showcase, a project aiming to “help Bitcoin business entrepreneurs manage the technical side of the operation so they don’t need to worry about it”, the representative Yurii Rashkovskii said. Finally, the UK-based project Bitprice was also at the conference.
Wow, I’m a famous photographer now 🙂 But yeah you guys can use my picture, that is fine 🙂 http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1hhn8l/bitcoin_london_a_full_house_and_we_have_max/
Sorry – I should have asked beforehand.
I will add a credit link to the image – do you want a link to bittheodds.com?
Also – I would love to hear more about your bitcoin multiplayer game 🙂
Thanks Danny, that would be lovely, thank you! We can’t wait to release the game, worked very hard on it in the last 3 months! Thanks again and thank you for your coverage of the conference, it was great!