Bitcoin Tips on iOS Game

Bitcoin Tips on iOS Game

2015-01-08 12:22 AM | Ines Deas

Apple approved an iOS game which tips players in bitcoin.

A retro-styled iOS game has been approved Apple has approved and released it onto the iTunes store recently.

This game has created so much stir in the digital currency space because it tips players in real bitcoin.

Titled as SaruTobi, the game requires the players to swing a monkey from a vine. It entails building up momentum and then releasing the monkey to collect not only power-ups but also bitcoin tokens while moving though the air.

The game’s developer, Christian Moss, said in an interview, "SaruTobi is literally Japanese for 'Monkey Fly', and this is pretty much the premise of the game.

The user flings him across an 8-bit jungle collecting floating bitcoin along the way."

The developer shared that he was going to add typical Super Mario-type coins in the appl but came up with a better idea to use bitcoin later.

He explained further by saying, “I thought it would be a nice way to introduce bitcoin to people who are not familiar with it yet.”

There are 3 main goals for those who will play this iOS game. They are expected to attain the greatest distance, collect bitcoin tokens and collecting the letters 'SARUTOBI.'

The bitcoins earned can be spent on different in-app items while the letter can be used to unlock a special bitcoin 'boost' which can be spent on in-game items too.

Moss added that, “The bitcoin tips come from the game’s shared bitcoin wallet, called a ‘pot’, revenue generated by the game (from in-app purchases and ads) is converted into bitcoin and added to the pot.”

After a user plays the game for a certain period of time, he will be rewarded with a bitcoin tip. Users can easily view how much digital currency is in the pot. They can also choose to donate and keep the pot topped up. If there are more bitcoin, players will be tipped more.

The main attraction of the game is not to earn bitcoin tips but Moss thinks it is a great way of rewarding the players for playing the game.

He explained that bitcoin is ideal for international use and even called it a people’s currency. He wants users from all around the world to feel equally involved into the world of SaruTobi.

SaruTobi relies on micro-transactions to send bitcoin of small amounts, just like Coinding, Geocaching and other bitcoin games.

However, the key difference is that SaruTobi rewards players with bitcoin where most games want its users to spend their crypto currency.

Moss said, “I have come across a few concept games that use bitcoin micro-transactions, however nothing on the iOS app store.

I believe having a popular iOS app that incorporates bitcoin can go along way to helping it become mainstream.”

He also hinted that he is working on a new bitcoin mining game now. He mentioned that the game is in a very early stage of development but it will be similar to Micecraft as the users can dig and collect bitcoin.

By Ines Deas

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Tags : iOS Games Bitcoin Tips SaruTobi

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Bitcoin Boosters Want 2015 to Be the Cryptocurrency's Year

By John Dyer

January 8, 2015 | 11:20 am

Bitcoin enthusiasts hope 2015 will be the year when a critical mass of people start using the virtual currency — but to achieve their goals, they need to convince new users to overlook plummeting bitcoin values, unsolved heists, and other scandals that tarnished the crypto-cash's reputation in 2014.

"There were a lot of promises, a lot of hype about bitcoin," Mark Williams, a lecturer in finance at Boston University, told VICE News. "But we're at the point now that they have to demonstrate that they can deliver on their promises of cheaper, faster, and safer."

It's not clear if bitcoin can deliver. The currency's past year was bookended by embarrassing screw-ups that would give any investor pause.

Over $100K in bitcoin was stolen in a ridiculously low-tech heist. Read more here.

In early 2014, Mt. Gox in Japan — then the largest bitcoin exchange — announced that it had lost 850,000 bitcoins worth $450 million. Later, during bankruptcy proceedings, the exchange "found" another 200,000 bitcoins. Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles recently suggested that the missing funds were stolen as part of an inside job, further undermining confidence in his management.

On Tuesday, Slovenia's Bitstamp — the third-largest bitcoin exchange — announced that hackers had stolen 19,000 bitcoins worth $5.1 million. A few weeks before, a federal judge in New York sentenced the former vice chairman of the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation, Charlie Shrem, to jail for two years for facilitating $1 million in drug transactions through Silk Road, a black-market website.

Incidents like these helped drive down the value of bitcoins from around $1,150 at the end of 2013 to around $290 today — a drop of nearly 75 percent — as holders convert the money encrypted as computer data into US dollars, British pounds, and other hard currencies.

"The market is pricing in the risk of bitcoin," said Williams.

Unable to get dollars, Venezuelans turn to bitcoins. Read more here.

Despite those setbacks, advocates note that venture capitalists last year poured $335 million into companies that depend on bitcoin, more than triple the amount in 2013, according to CoinDesk, a website that tracks the virtual currency's value.

"We got off to a terrible start to the year," Patrick Murck, executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, told VICE News. "But in some ways, it was a shakeout. Some of the pioneers got rewarded in 2014 and some caught arrows."

He noted that more large businesses, including Dell, Expedia, and Microsoft, now accept bitcoin as payment.

"These are big tech brands saying, 'We think this is an interesting technology and we want to associate our names with it,' " said Murck. "That's important."

Cryptomarkets are gentrifying the drug trade, and that's probably a good thing. Read more here.

He also noted that Bitstamp stopped the breach in its security systems before the alleged cyberthieves could steal more. Unlike Mt. Gox, the exchange also has sufficient reserves to pay back customers who lost money.

"This breach represents a small fraction of Bitstamp's total bitcoin reserves, the overwhelming majority of which are held in secure offline cold storage systems," Bitstamp said in a statement. "We would like to reassure all Bitstamp customers that their balances held prior to our temporary suspension of services will not be affected and will be honored in full."

Murck thought the website was handling the crisis well, at least on the face of it. That gave him confidence.

"They managed to mitigate the losses. They actually caught it early, shut things down and kept all the customer funds safe," he said. "That might not have happened a year ago. If they hadn't learned the lessons of 2014, things could have been worse."

Follow John Dyer on Twitter: @johnjdyerjr

Photo via Flickr

TOPICS: crime & drugs, asia & pacific, americas, bitcoin, mt. gox, cryptocurrecy, mark karpeles, bitstamp, coindesk, bitcoin foundation, europe

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Economic Terrorism Against Russia Intensifies – Bullion Bulls Canada – Sprott Money News

January 6, 2015

The Russian ruble fell a further 7% Monday. What is the “reason” cited in the Corporate media for this latest, further plunge in its “value” (i.e. exchange rate)? An “economic report” which shows that Russia’s economy is shrinking. Here we see the pattern of the economic terrorism perpetrated by the One Bankexposed.

In 2010; the One Bank decided to destroy the economy of Greece. It did so for several reasons. It wanted to “make an example” of Greece for all the other European governments to see. This was deemed essential when (tiny) Iceland successfully broke-free of the control of this crime syndicate after the Crash of ‘08, and reclaimed its own sovereignty. It was not about to allow other European governments to follow that example, and begin to assert their own independence.

It also wanted to test its market-rigging capabilities from merely manipulating markets in order to destroy particular economic sectors, or corporations, to full-fledged economic terrorism: destroying nations(economically) with illegal market-rigging on a scale never before witnessed. Its modus operandi has been described in more detail previously, so the mechanics will only be summarized here.

In the case of the attack on Greece, because it shares a currency with other European nations; the One Bank could not use currency-manipulation as its tool of destruction (as it is presently doing against Russia). Instead, it launched its economic terrorism at the debt market of Greece.

As regular readers know; in fundamental terms the economy of Greece in 2010 was very similar to that of the United States – except obviously on a dramatically smaller scale. Like the U.S.; Greece was/is hopelessly insolvent. Like the U.S.; Greece had grossly over-invested in military spending and infrastructure, which was the primary means by which both nations became hopelessly insolvent.

But in 2010; the U.S. was (according to the Corporate media) already in the midst of “an economic recovery”: an exercise in economic mythology which is now six years long, and counting. Greece’s economy, on the other hand, with the same economic fundamentals as the U.S., suddenly took a nose-dive. Interest rates on Greece’s debts started to soar. As previously explained; it is no more difficult for the One Bank to manipulate interest rates than it is for these banksters to manipulate currencies. As Greece’s interest rate (on its gigantic debt) was pushed higher and higher, naturally this caused severe economic damage.

As the economic damage intensified; the Corporate media cited this economic damage as the “reason” for even further upward movement (manipulation) of Greek interest rates, doing still further economic damage. It was (literally) a vicious circle of crime. To put the criminal manipulation of Greece’s interest rates into perspective, if U.S. rates were driven/manipulated to a similar level; the U.S. would have to do the following merely to make interest payments on its debt:

a)  Increase all taxation by 50%

b)  Shut down the entire government (including mothballing the entire military)

Of course increasing all taxes by 50% and shutting down the entire government (for real, not anotherpretend “shut-down”) would do so much enormous, additional damage to the economy that even with those measures, it would be unable to continue to making interest payments on its debts for more than a few weeks. In short; if U.S. interest rates were ever manipulated to a similar level, it would experience an identical meltdown to Greece (except a hundred times larger). What happened with Greece was not “an economic collapse”, just pure economic terrorism.

With India, when the One Bank was desperate to blackmail India’s government into blocking gold-imports into that nation, it did use an attack on India’s currency. As India’s currency fell in value, we were told (by the Corporate media propaganda machine) that this was because of a rising “current account deficit”.

However, as with the vicious circle-of-crime directed against Greece; the lower the banksters drove the value of the Indian rupee with their illegal manipulation, the larger its current-account deficit grew, automatically. The evidence of the previous economic crime committed against India’s rupee was cited as the “reason” for more economic crime against India.

Supposedly, according to the propaganda machine; the real “culprit” for India’s current-account deficit was (surprise! surprise!) India’s gold imports. As soon as India’s government succumbed to blackmail, and blocked its gold imports, the rupee (magically) began to rise in value, and the “current-account crisis” dissipated.

Of course, as explained in previous commentaries; gold is a currency itself. Thus it is (was) mathematically/economically impossible for gold imports to contribute to a current-account deficit, since a current-account deficit is (essentially) a currency deficit. Obviously no nation can create a “currency deficit” for itself by importing a currency (gold).

Now, once again, we see the same pattern with the economic terrorism of the One Bank. It began with a sudden attack on the ruble, for more (fabricated) “reasons”, all conveniently supplied by the Corporate media. While a plunge in oil prices supposedly “devastated” Russia’s economy; in the U.S. – land of the mythological shale-oil “boom” – it claimed to have experienced its largest quarter of “economic growth” in 12 years.

However, after fabricating the original “reason” for the ruble’s decline, from that point onward (as with Greece, as with India) the economic terrorism itself became its own “reason” for further declines in the ruble. Obviously if the currency of any nation is (suddenly) cut in half in value this will cause an economic contraction.

The reality is that we are seeing nothing more with Russia’s “currency crisis” than a self-fulfilling prophesy (of economic terrorism). The more the One Bank attacks the ruble, the greater the damage to Russia’s economy, causing the drones of the Corporate media to claim that the ruble “deserves” to continue falling still lower.

Meanwhile, a comparison of the economic fundamentals of Russia and the U.S. make the existence of this economic terrorism crystal-clear. As recently noted by Simon Black; Russia’s financial system is ten times as strong as that of the U.S. (in terms of the reserve ratios of its banks). Furthermore, its national interest rate is at 17%, while the (ultra-fraudulent) U.S. interest rate is permanently frozen at 0%.

In any rational/legitimate world; the exchange rate of the two nation’s currencies would be precisely reversed. Indeed, as regular readers are already well aware; the U.S. government has already hyperinflatedits own currency. The chart below is unequivocal:

It shows a currency well past the point-of-no-return, in terms of triggering a hyperinflation spiral. With the U.S. dollar already fundamentally worthless, based on three different, objective metrics; every “fall in value” of any other currency versus the U.S. dollar is prima facie evidence of yet another currency crime by the One Bank.

As knowledgeable readers are well aware; even our blind/deaf/dumb financial regulators were recently forced to acknowledge the “disgusting” serial manipulation of currencies by the Big Banks (i.e. the One Bank). It is mind-numbingly obvious that in a global financial system ruled by a cabal of psychopathic currency-manipulators that every “currency crisis” experienced by a sovereign government today will be (at least) triggered by this crime syndicate – if not (illegally) manufactured in its entirety.

We’re not seeing “a currency crisis” in Russia’s economy. Rather, we are witnessing the most-extreme manifestation of economic terrorism yet perpetrated by the One Bank. And it’s continuing to get worse.

But it also must be noted that despite appearances, and the self-serving hype of the Corporate media; this Western financial crime syndicate is anything but omnipotent. Yes, it succeeded in destroying Greece’s economy, but that was after it failed to maintain its choke-hold on Iceland.

Its economic terrorism against India didn’t merely fail, it backfired. While having little long-term impact on India’s gold consumption (gold imports) thanks to rampant gold-smuggling; its currency blackmail against India’s government produced a series of unintended/undesirable consequences which were so unpalatable to the One Bank that it reversed itself, and allowed India’s government to normalize its gold market again.

Now, while the short-term damage to Russia’s economy is undeniable; we’re seeing indications that over the longer term that this, too, will be another failed exercise in economic terrorism by the One Bank. It begins with how this attack has caused Russia and China to forge even closer political and economic ties. China has essentially offered to back-stop Russia’s economy, and (with its large war-chest of U.S. dollar instruments) even the One Bank dare not launch its economic terrorism at that target.

We’re now also seeing Russia setting up a parallel electronic currency system, outside of the “SWIFT” electronic straitjacket which the One Bank uses to bully most of the nations of the world into economic compliance with the demands of these financial terrorists. If that new system succeeds (when it succeeds?) it will suddenly appear to be a very tempting financial “life-boat” which other nations may wish to embrace – to attempt to escape the One Bank’s economic choke-hold on their own economies.

The stakes here could not be more important. It is utterly imperative to the Rest of the World that Russia not be economically destroyed (and thus bludgeoned into submission) by these financial psychopaths. Conversely, it is of equal importance to the One Bank that its efforts to destroy Russia’s economy be successful.

Once a community (in this case the international community) sees someone stand up to the resident Bully – successfully – not only does it embolden other members of that community, it brings them together.United we stand. Divided we fall. Today, we are all “Russians”.

Sprott Money Ltd. General Use Disclaimer
Sprott Money Ltd., its owners and operators, content creators, presenters, and interviewees, offers no financial or investment advice. The content in this material is for information purposes only and is not an offer or solicitation for the sale of any financial product or service. Investors should seek financial advice regarding the suitability of any investment strategy based on their objectives, financial situation, investment horizon, and their particular needs from a registered financial advisor. Sprott Money Ltd. is not a registered securities or investment dealer. Sprott Money Ltd. products are not insured by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) or any other government insurer.

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Bitspark Enters Hong Kong's Remittance Market With Bitcoin-Powered Solution

Joon Ian Wong (@joonian) | Published on November 25, 2014 at 19:35 GMT

Joseph Joel Bayaua is employed as a private driver by a family in Hong Kong. He has worked in the special administrative region for four years.

When Bayaua sends part of his earnings back to his family in Santiago, a city of 132,000 people in the Philippines' northern Isabela province, he selects either a Western Union money transfer or an inter-bank transfer. He usually ends up choosing Western Union.

Bayaua explained:

"Both methods of sending money are basically the same. They just differ sometimes by the rate of their transfer fees, but I prefer Western Union over bank-to-bank transfer because it is more convenient for the recipient, for having numerous branches of Western Union back home."

Bayaua now has a new option for sending money home. A startup called Bitspark is aiming its bitcoin-enabled remittance service at people like Bayaua and the estimated 164,000 Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong.

Cheap remittances and diverse pick-up points

Bitspark promises lower transaction fees than banks and money transfer services, using bitcoin to cut costs. It's charging a 1% commission, which is significantly lower than the 3.5% it costs to send money to the Philippines from Singapore, a comparable remittance corridor that is tracked by the World Bank. The World Bank doesn't track the cost of remittances from Hong Kong to the Philippines.

Bitcoins's potential for slashing remittance costs has been hampered by the fact that receivers often have no easy way to convert the funds into fiat. Bitspark attempts to solve this by letting senders pay in cash and offering a range of diverse collection options for recipients.

The service has struck a deal with a Philippines remittance provider, Rebit, which handles conversion of bitcoin funds to pesos. The Rebit partnership means that Bitspark customers can send their funds to one of 20 banks in the Philippines, in addition to other popular collection spots like the Palawan chain of pawnshops.

"We wanted to develop a system where people don't have to really know and understand bitcoin to use it," Bitspark's chief executive George Harrap said.

Harrap described a remittance process that largely keeps bitcoin hidden from the customer's view. Customers walk in to the Bitspark booth, on the first floor of World-Wide House, a popular hangout spot for Filipino workers on their days off. They hand over the Hong Kong dollars they want to send and fill in a form telling Bitspark where to send the money to. They then receive periodic text messages from Bitspark updating them on the movement of their money.

Bitcoin powers the transfers

What customers don't see is Bitspark monitoring bitcoin prices in Hong Kong dollars and pesos to find a favourable rate. When it finds a suitable price, it converts the cash it's been handed into bitcoin and sends it to Rebit, which in turn converts the coins into pesos for collection. The funds have to be ready for collection within 24 hours.

Harrap said Bitspark guarantees the amount a recipient would collect, so there is no risk of volatile bitcoin prices eating into customer transactions.

"With cash-in, cash-out remittances, you don't need to know about bitcoin to use it. It just so happens to be the best rate around [so] people will use it. You don't need to explain [bitcoin] to them," he said.

Harrap wouldn't reveal how many transactions Bitspark has performed, saying only that his service has completed transfers for amounts ranging from HK$500–HK$10,000.

Adding more remittance corridors

Bitspark was selected for a Hong Kong government incubation programme in July. It gets up to HK$530,000 for being part of the programme, which is run by an organisation called Cyberport.

Harrap said he is raising more funding to expand into other remittance corridors. Mainland China and Indonesia are on top of his wishlist. According to Harrap, there is pent-up demand in China for a way to move money overseas, potentially skirting renminbi currency controls. Indonesians make up the second-largest group of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, with more than 150,000 Indonesians employed in the sector.

While Harrap has big plans for Bitspark in the remittance business, workers like Bayaua remain cautious about turning their hard-earned dollars into cryptocurrencies. But Bayaua's curiosity has been piqued.

"I just didn't have an interest [in bitcoin] before, but now I am getting more and more curious about it ... it is a big help for us low-wage earners for providing us a cheaper means to send money back home," he said.

Philippines image via Shutterstock

Hong KongPhilippinesRemittances

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Gold Dealer Amagi Metals Now Pays All Staff in Bitcoin

Sanne Wass (@sanne_wass) | Published on January 7, 2015 at 18:42 GMT

Precious metals dealer Amagi Metals announced it is now paying its entire staff in bitcoin via payroll service provider Bitwage.

The move forms part of the company's plan to 'divorce' the US dollar by 2017, where it will stop accepting the fiat currency as payment method.

Amagi Metals has worked with bitcoin for two years and, according to company data, 30-40% of its costumers currently pay with the digital currency.

Speaking to CoinDesk, CEO Stephen Macaskill said he wanted to find a company that could handle bitcoin payroll seamlessly and test it with his own paycheck. Later, he put the proposition to others at Amagi:

"I made a comment about it at a staff meeting and was surprised, and excited, to find out that everyone was really eager to go full steam ahead with this. So we made this as a voluntary option, and everyone jumped on board immediately!"

Every employee at Amagi Metals has set a percentage of their paycheck, both big and small, that they wish to be paid in bitcoin. To demonstrate his support, Macaskill will personally be paid roughly $40,000 of his salary in bitcoin this year.

Despite the challenges posed by operating a business with bitcoin, Macaskill expects a higher degree of stability in the long run. He said:

"Bitcoin volatility may have concerned me a year ago, but now there are so many different options to hedge bitcoin against fluctuations, that I'm not too concerned. I also think that if you're in it for the long run, it is inevitable that volatility will continue to drop as adoption grows."

A popular paycheck

Many other bitcoin-friendly companies have already adapted to a bitcoin payroll. At wallet provider Blockchain for instance, all workers are paid in the digital currency. A survey from Bitwage last year revealed that 47% of bitcoin companies are open to paying their employees in the digital currency.

One of Amagi's competitors, Bullion Bitcoin, has been paying all of its employees' salaries in bitcoin since the company was set up in 2013. Founder Adam Cleary told CoinDesk he welcomes Amagi Metal and other businesses to the community:

“It helps to contribute to build the bitcoin ecosystem if people are willing to treat bitcoin as a currency in its own right and to accept it as a mean of payment."

Bullion Bitcoin is an online exchange for physical gold bullion and bitcoin, and it deals with no fiat currencies. Cleary said that no employee has yet asked to have their salary paid in fiat money, and ended:

"Our staff think it's cool. We all believe in bitcoin here."

Featured image via Bullion Vault/Flickr

Amagi MetalsBitwageBullion Bitcoin

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Fed Sticks To Mid-2015 Rate Hike Script

'Patient' Fed Sticks To Mid-2015 Rate Hike Script

By ANDREA RIQUIER, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

 Posted 05:20 PM ET

Federal Reserve policymakers took note of an improving economy and fresh overseas risks as they met in December but seemed set on an interest rate... View Enlarged Image

Federal Reserve policymakers were reaching gingerly toward a normalization of interest rate policy in mid-2015 as the economy firmed in December, even as fresh risks arose, minutes released Wednesday revealed.

Economic growth had perked up to an even greater degree than originally expected, policymakers acknowledged, leading many to up their GDP forecasts at the Dec. 16-17 meeting.

Officials noted everything from "strong increases in manufacturing output" juicing industrial production to real personal consumption expenditures, which "appeared to be rising robustly."

Job growth was even seen as being vigorous enough to chip away at the "resource slack" in the labor market left behind by the Great Recession, long one of Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen's biggest concerns. "The unemployment rate was expected to decline gradually and to temporarily move slightly below the staff's estimate of its longer-run natural rate," the minutes noted.

Still, the Fed faced a different landscape than the one they'd met to discuss two months earlier. Geopolitics and listless foreign economies were concerns.

U.S. Hot, Rest Of World Not

"Many participants regarded the international situation as an important source of downside risks to domestic real activity and employment, particularly if declines in oil prices and the persistence of weak economic growth abroad had a substantial negative effect on global financial markets or if foreign policy responses were insufficient," the minutes read.

Inflation, which has run stubbornly lower than the central bank's target of about 2%, decelerated further, prompting committee members to cut forecasts.

On balance, however, policymakers saw ample reasons to move toward raising interest rates in mid-2015. "The Committee also expected that inflation would rise gradually toward 2 percent as the labor market improves further and the transitory effects of lower energy prices and other factors dissipate," according to the minutes.

Consumer expectations of inflation, often viewed as important as actual inflation, were seen as stable. Overseas downside risks were "nearly balanced by risks to the upside," the minutes read.

Participants revised down their expectations of how a strengthening dollar would impact GDP growth and exports. The dollar has hit new highs as central banks in Japan and the eurozone pledge fresh stimulus to revive their economies and investors weigh the likelihood of higher U.S. rates.

'Patient' For Now

Fed officials also appeared to agonize over precise language in their Dec. 17 public statement. As expected, they dropped language to keep interest rates near zero "for a considerable time." They replaced that with a pledge to be "patient," though three members dissented, for conflicting reasons. The minutes underscored that participants took "patient" to mean at least two more meetings before tightening started, a notion Yellen repeated in a later press conference.

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