Bitcoin in the News : 2017-04 More++

In contrast to the price news -- 'Bitcoin Price Breaks All-Time High', etc. (see Bitcoin in the News : 2017-04 Price) -- April was a relatively quiet month for other bitcoin news. Of the more significant stories, another contrast appeared in the adoption of bitcoin by two of the planet's more important economies. While Japan moved forward...

• 2017-04-03: Japan Finally Recognizes Bitcoin After Long Battle (investopedia.com)
• 2017-04-06: By This Summer, Bitcoin Will Be Accepted at More Than 260,000 Stores in Japan (futurism.com)

...India moved backward in political circles and sideways elsewhere.

• 2017-04-05: ‘Bitcoin Should be Declared Illegal’ Demands Indian Politician (cryptocoinsnews.com) • 'Kirit Somaiya, a member of the Indian Parliament who belongs to the BJP, India’s conservative ruling party at the center, questioned if bitcoin is a "pyramid ponzi scheme"'
• 2017-04-08: Bitcoin Startups Fear No Ban in India, Say Technology Will Make Inroads (entrepreneur.com)

Other news included a typical story related to bitcoin's mysterious origins...

• 2017-04-13: Bitcoin: Self-Proclaimed Inventor's Firm Sold to Private Equity (fortune.com) • 'A company built around the research of Craig Wright, who has claimed to have invented the bitcoin cryptocurrency, has been sold to a private equity firm in a deal the company says is the biggest to date involving bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology.'

...and a couple of stories that enhance bitcoin's bad boy reputation:-

• 2017-04-11: Mirai botnet variant turns IoT devices into bitcoin mining slaves (theinquirer.net)
• 2017-04-15: Bitcoin Wallets Under Siege From 'Large Collider' Attack (fortune.com)

That last story leads back to the mysterious origins.

But some speculate the goal of the project is not to rob a whole lot of wallets, but instead to strike a mother lode from a long-lost wallet from bitcoin's early days: "About 10% of Bitcoins were created early, before 2012, and have never been traded. If somebody ever finds the key of the early lost Bitcoins, they'll have a huge payoff, over a billion dollars. Speculation is that either "Satoshi Nakamoto", whoever he is, is holding onto them for a big payoff, or somebody lost the private key for all those early Bitcoins."

With that in mind, it takes a business school professor to ask the question:-

• 2017-04-18: Can Bitcoin Be the Foundation of a Fairer Financial System? ([MIT] technologyreview.com)

If your answer is 'Yes!', then the next story is for you.

• 2017-04-22: The Need for Bitcoin Evangelists and How to Be One (themerkle.com)

Does having a bitcoin blog make me an evangelist? Short answer: 'No!'. Long answer: 'No, of course not!'.

Bitcoin in the News : 2017-04 Price

Just like last month, in Bitcoin in the News : 2017-03 Price, let's look at bitcoin price action for the month of April. The chart for the last 30 days shows a slow upward trend for the first few weeks, followed by a sharp rise near the end of the month.

Bitcoin Price Index

The main stories from Bitcoin price analysis (cointelegraph.com) for this period were:-

• 2017-04-21: Bitcoin Price Heads To Pre-ETF Highs, Exceeding $1,250 • 'Following a month of subdued value after the Winklevoss ETF rejection in March, a steady resurgence has been underway.'
• 2017-04-26: Bitcoin Price Breaks All-Time High, Hits $1,300: Potential Factors • 'Most analysts seem to believe that the recent surge in bitcoin price was caused by the SEC’s decision to re-examine the bitcoin ETF proposal of the Winklevoss twins.' [...] 'It is likely that the arbitrage in the US market caused by Bitfinex and other exchanges’ inability to process withdrawals and deposits in fiat money is causing bitcoin price to increase at a rapid rate.'
• 2017-04-29: Bitcoin Price Sets New All-Time High at $1,377: Main Factors • Ditto.

Arbitrage making the price rise -- how does that work? From the second link:-

Bitcoin price in the US, which holds 26.6 percent of the global Bitcoin exchange market share averaging at $1,315. On the other hand, Japan, the largest Bitcoin exchange market, is demonstrating an average price of $1,297. Competitors in the US Bitcoin exchange market including Bitstamp expressed their concerns over the current Bitfinex issue and its conflict with its intermediary banks.

The logic here isn't at all clear to me. Neither is the logic behind these predictions from the same source:-

• 2017-04-17: Bitcoin Price at $500,000 by 2030: African Projection • 'The advent of new services that use the digital currency for the purpose of sending money from one point to another has started eating into the roughly $4 bln per year cost that banks and other institutions make from international transfers to Africa.'
• 2017-04-27: Bitcoin Price Over $10,000 by 2021 If It Manages to Hold Market Share: Voorhees Prediction • 'The entirety of the token market, which as an asset class has surpassed $30 bln, would be worth more than $300 bln in the next four years.'

That's not bad for an asset that isn't backed by anything tangible.