More exchanges are hitching their wagon to the trust of the community in the wake of the insolvency of MtGox. Now Vault of Satoshi has submitted to a proof-of-solvency audit program to show users that the wallets hold what they say they hold. Financial officer for Juan Llanos Unidos Financial Services speaks in at TEDx about the adoption of virtual currencies. Bitcoin may find long-term stability through blockchain side-chains, more on this concept below. Irish political candidate Ossian Smyth is accepting bitcoins for his campaign.

Also Happy Easter, Bitcoin!

Bitcoin market value may have exceeded $500 last week, but it didn’t take long for it to dip back down again; however, it has stayed in relatively the same band between $480 and $500.

Vault of Satoshi proof-of-solvency audit underway

Canadian Bitcoin exchange site Vault of Satoshi has announced the launch of a fully publish proof of solvency audit. This means that users will be able to validate the balances of their wallets against the exchange’s wallet. This continues the trend of exchanges submitting to proof-of-reserves audits in the wake of the insolvency of MtGox, last month the Kraken bitcoin exchange also submitted a proof of solvency audit.

The announcement took the form of a Reddit post from Vault of Satoshi’s director of marketing, Adam Cochran:

Users can self validate both their balance and the overall reserves of the exchange by navigating to our security center and selecting “BTC Proof of Solvency”. From there, load the partial tree list, select “online tools” and copy paste in the relevant information to validate the holdings.

Validation will be set against Vault of Satoshi’s cold wallets, allowing users to make certain that should they seek to withdraw the BTC they expect to be stored on the exchange it is indeed available. Hot wallets will not be published as part of this program, for obvious security reasons. As a result the holdings may appear to have a 5-6% discrepancy.

Happy Easter

via Reddit.

Bitcoin side-chains: the ever-branching innovative power of the Bitcoin blockchain

All technologies can be built upon. In the case of Bitcoin, “the Bitcoin blockchain” isn’t simply a one-off engine that works only to drive the consumption and transfer of BTC. It’s also possible to copy, implement, and use the blockchain to produce alt-currencies or to enhance and extend the Bitcoin itself.

The technological wonder of Bitcoin isn’t simply in its capability to be used as a currency, but in the technology that makes its currency-like nature possible: the blockchain. The blockchain is the central shared ledger of all Bitcoin transactions that underpin the protocol that permits people to trade and transact BTC while tracking exact amounts and making certain that transactions are not fraudulent. Without it, Bitcoins couldn’t be uniquely held reserves and could not hold value.

In this week’s Dr. Bitcoin, SiliconANGLE founding editor Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins explains the unique property of the blockchain called side-chains.

[F]or all intents and purposes, side-chains would effectively be new blockchains that are backed by Bitcoins, in much the same way that fiat currencies used to be backed by gold. Theoretically, there could be thousands of side-chains which are “pegged” to Bitcoin, with each one having a different purpose, but with all of them benefiting from the resilience and scarcity that’s afforded by the main Bitcoin blockchain.

The Bitcoin implementation of the blockchain may not survive the coming decades as a currency, although it certainly appears to be doing well, but the blockchain has implications outside of just currency.

The biggest benefit of side-chains is that Bitcoin is currently winning the adoption game against other cryptocurrencies. The result is that the Bitcoin blockchain has a giant network of shared nodes that copy and verify it and therefore it has an already-extant network that innovators can go to in order to test and implement side-chain projects. No need to start their own alt-currency and attempt to get it adopted.

Using side-chains, Bitcoin would remain a core concept and other currencies/implementaions would use it to do things Bitcoin cannot do on its own. Such as signing contracts into the blockchain (using cryptography as proof of identity and proof of signature) and since the blockchain is shared that contract could be pulled by any party and verified.

TEDx Talk: Digital Currencies are coming

TEDxMidAtlantic hosted a talk by Juan Llanos, EVP Operations & Compliance Officer at Unidos Financial Services and a certified Anti-Money Laundering specialist, who spoke to audiences about digital currencies and banking infrastructures. His talk built a foundation in how some countries lack strong central banks and therefore suffer from massive currency issues.

via YouTube.

Bitcoin Weekly and other SiliconANGLE articles have looked at how Africa is a strong contender for virtual currencies through mobile and Internet, such as via a service like Kiopchi.

Irish politician joins ranks of bitcoin-accepting political campaigners

The first Irish politician to accept bitcoin donations for a campaign is running for office. Candidate Ossian Smyth with Ireland’s Dun Laoghaire Green Party is running for office and if you want to donate to him, his campaign has placed a “Bitcoin Accepted Here” button on his donate page.

Currently there isn’t much of a trend with politicians accepting bitcoins for political campaigns. This appears to be relegated mostly to political entities such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Amid the recent politicians to accept bitcoin there has been Texas Rep. Steve Stockman and the US’s Libertarian Party. As well as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott running for governor and accepting bitcoins.

One interesting use for Bitcoin as donations to political candidates is that while donation addresses are difficult to tie back to individual donators, it is possible to see donations in real time coming to said politician. Smyth’s campaign donation page acknowledges this by including a link to Blockchain.info citing the ability to watch donations come in.

So far, Smyth’s campaign has received 377.18 mBTC, a total of $183.4 USD in 15 transactions.