Always use caution -- Scams abound!

Our members already know the importance of making sure that you're taking steps to protect your Bitcoin, however in this brave new world of digital crypto-currencies, scams are inevitably going to emerge to take advantage of the less prepared. Here is a good example of that. Jamie Russell of Wisconsin reports that he just was scammed out of $150,000 USD by a UK scam artist promising to provide physical Bitcoin Wallets to Russell in exchange for a small fee. Instead, the scammer took the Bitcoin and ran.

A Wisconsin man has lost $150,000 after attempting to exchange a stash of digital currency bitcoins for physical bitcoin tokens with a British scam artist. Jamie Russell, 34, was attempting to secure money he had made investing in bitcoin when a unit of the digital currency was trading for $5 (it’s trading today for well over $800 per bitcoin). He contacted a British man through the website bitcointalk.org and arranged to send him 201.7 virtual bitcoins in exchange for 190 physical bitcoin tokens. These tokens do exist, and are typically physical “coins” loaded with the encrypted digital currency. When the British man did not send him the physical tokens and cut off communication, Russell reported the theft to U.K. authorities, TwinCities.com reports. Russell does not expect to get his money back, even if the person who stole from him is prosecuted. Despite the fraud, Russell remains a bitcoin proponent. ”Everything I’ve done in the bitcoin realm has been with my eyes wide open,” he said

Read more: Bitcoin Scam Costs Wisconsin Man Jamie Russell $150,000 | TIME.com 

USPS May Find Unlikely Savior In Bitcoin

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg News’ Megan Hughes reports on the possibility of a Bitcoin exchange joining the financial services offered by the United States Postal Service on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop.”

Bitcoin Volatility and the New Normal

In recent weeks, something interesting has happened to the price of bitcoins: It hasn't changed very much. In December, Bitcoin prices gyrated wildly, but since the start of the year it's gradually gotten less volatile.

Bitcoin's declining volatility is part of a recurring cycle the Bitcoin economy has experienced repeatedly over the past three years. It starts when a wave of publicity attracts new Bitcoin speculators and pushes Bitcoin prices to unprecedented highs. That creates an unsustainable price bubble. The bubble pops, leading to plummeting prices and high volatility. But then the price gradually stabilizes, settling on a "new normal" price.

This pattern suggests that the extreme price volatility that has bedeviled Bitcoin since its inception is likely to prove a temporary phenomenon. Bitcoin prices become volatile when a wave of media attention attracts a swarm of new users. As the Bitcoin economy grows and matures, these growing pains will become less frequent and less severe.

Read more at WP

Gaming with Bitcoin

While there are sites out there to allow you to gamble your Bitcoin away, we're referring to gaming in another sense--the real world entertainment sense.

Liberty Games in the UK has introduced tech that allow pool tables and now arcade games to be paid for via Bitcoin!

Bitcoin Arcade Machine, by Liberty Games

New tech embracing Bitcoin means that it's gaining traction towards acceptance in mainstream markets.

http://www.libertygames.co.uk

Tiger Direct Processes $500,000 in Bitcoin Payments

If you're a member, you already know that in this half million in sales, there are likely to be a very large number of people who were misinformed/flat out duped into purchases of inferior Bitcoin mining equipment by Tiger Direct. While the equipment shown/sold on their Bitcoin page CAN be used to mine Bitcoin, it's far better put to use in other ways as we discuss with our members.

On Thursday, January 23, 2014, Tiger Direct announced they would start accepting bitcoin as an alternative payment method. While Tiger Direct isn’t the first major online retailer to start accepting bitcoins, they are the first major online electronics retailer to do so.
The Tiger Direct website offers over 200,000 products and is a popular shopping destination for PC users. According to Steven Leeds, the marketing chief at Tiger Direct, “With individuals building their own high-powered PCs with parts offered on our site to mine Bitcoins, it’s a logical fit.”
Tiger Direct has already started utilizing this acceptance as an opportunity to market their Bitcoin mining catalog. Tiger Direct has also partnered with AMD in order to offer a variety of mining-friendly graphic cards.
Since their Thursday announcement, Tiger Direct has processed more than $500,000 in Bitcoin payments. These total was spent on over 2500 separate orders. According to Tiger Direct, $250,000 of that was processed in the first 17 hours following their announcement. Overall, the company processes approximately $2 billion in purchases each year.
Read more at Josic