Looking to use your bitcoin like a debit card? Check out the Shift Card from Coinbase that lets you do exactly that, just announced this week, takes 4-7 days after registration to receive one.

If you’re an AMA junkie then this Bitcoin Weekly will be your cup of tea. Roger Ver’s Bitcoin.com forums are hosting a massive deluge of Ask Me Anything (AMA) threads this week and into December with such luminaries joining as Alena Vranova, co-founder of SatoshiLabs; Meinhard Benn, Founder and CEO of SatoshiPay; Eric Larchevêque, Co-Founder and CEO of Ledger; and many more.

Reports of DDoS attacks against Bitcoin exchanges on the rise with Kraken and Cryptsy checking in (and being knocked offline). Keep reading for further details.

Bitcoin market value is holding steadily in the $315-325 band with a bit of a drop from $335 around last week’s Bitcoin Weekly publication. The price has remained higher than the average of 2015 after the sharp market value spike that occurred during the end of October.

Black Friday: INCOMING!

A reminder: Bitcoin Black Friday is on its way so be sure to check out and sign up at BitcoinBlackFriday.com.

Deals will open up starting on Black Friday, November 27, 2015. Amid those retailers and services making deals available we can expect the participation of VPN provider Private Internet Access, Inc., domain name registrar Namecheap Inc., board game retailer Nestorgames, and many more. See SiliconANGLE’s article on Bitcoin Black Friday for more details.

Newcomer BitcoinBlackFriday.info has also entered the scene but little is known about the site.

Coinbase introduces the Shift Bitcoin VISA debit card

Bitcoin wallet leader Coinbase, Inc. just announced a team up with Shift Payments (Shift Financial, Inc.) to bring the Shift Card to life–the card will be a VISA debit card capable of debiting a user’s Coinbase bitcoin wallet like any other plastic.

According to the announcement on Coinbase’s blog the intent is to provide a bridge between everyday merchants and bitcoin holders. “Merchant adoption has come a long way over the past few years, but it’s still difficult for people to make regular purchases with bitcoin,” the company wrote. “Buying gas at a local gas station or groceries at a neighborhood grocery store with bitcoin has not been possible in most cities in the U.S.”

The card is available for any users in eligible states (which seems to match the states where the Coinbase USD wallet and Exchange are available) can follow a simple two-step signup process. First connect your Coinbase account and then order the card by providing your verified street address and paying the $10 setup fee (this is paid in bitcoins). Some additional verification may be required for certain participants.

When using the Shift Card users will not see any annual fees, bitcoin-to-dollar conversion fees or domestic transaction fees. However, Coinbase has mentioned that the no domestic transaction fee model will only be temporary and currently there is a 3 percent international transaction fee. ATM withdrawals will also be charged with a $2.50 fee ($3.50 for international withdrawals).

The daily ATM withdrawal limit is $200, and the opening daily spending limit is $1,000.

AMA with Alena Vranova, co-founder of SatoshiLabs

Alena Vranova, co-founder of SatoshiLabs s.r.o. maker of the TREZOR Bitcoin hardware wallet, held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) at the forums of Bitcoin.com on Tuesday, November 24.

Vranova received her education in Economic Diplomacy at the University College of International and Public Relations Prague and co-founded SatoshiLabs in 2013 and works as the director of business development. She oversees the development of the Trezor hardware wallet as well as other projects such as Slush’s Pool, the world’s first bitcoin mining pool, and CoinMap.org, a map of bitcoin-accepting venues across the world.

The Trezor hardware wallet provides a secure way to store a bitcoin wallet in such a way that it cannot be easily cracked or taken by attackers seeking to steal bitcoins. SiliconANGLE previously reviewed the hardware wallet hands on and found it reasonably secure and easy to use and it is priced at $99 (payable in bitcoins) making it fairly well priced for an early adopter.

During the AMA, Vranova mentioned that the myTrezor.com website (through which the Trezor interface runs) is not open source, however it is possible to run it offline with a Chrome extension. However, it is not possible to do bitcoin transactions while local–which requires back-end communication.

The same querent asked about developer options and Vranova mentioned that Trezor has a strong developer presence and open-source API.

“TREZOR Connect API is open-source though and we also work on an open-source backend using BitCore,” she said. “You can instead use Trezor with other clients such as Electrum, Multibit and as of today with Copay.” Check out TREZOR Apps page for more information.

The Trezor API supports numerous different actions that might be taken with a hardware wallet including login, export public key, sign transaction, and request payment.

When asked if SatoshiLabs has future plans for the Trezor wallet, Vranova said, “We have many plans, most of them are not publishable yet. Our main goals are to use today’s capabilities of Trezor for new areas, such as secure messaging, identity management, password management etc. The priority is still to have a super secure bitcoin wallet and luckily we can introduce many new features without compromising on the BTC wallet security.”

She also added, “As for the hardware, we are quite happy with the current scheme but we may introduce a larger screen and a few new details.”

Vranova sees the Trezor wallet as a strong product and mentioned that it is possibly the most ubiquitous hardware wallet, with sales in almost 100 countries, in spite of it not being the cheapest option on the market. On the security of the wallet, she mentioned (repeatedly) that she and her staff are proud users of the Trezor themselves to secure their bitcoins and that there have been no reports of any bitcoins stolen from a Trezor wallet to date.

She reiterated the security of the device by saying that the pitch for the wallet would be:

“Very simply: Trezor is most secure and easy to use hw wallet you can get.“

For the full online transcript of the AMA, visit forum.bitcoin.com and read up.

Bitcoin.com forums Ask Me Anything series ongoing

The Ask Me Anything with Alena Vranova is not the only executive AMA occuring on the Bitcoin.com forums currently, there’s an entire subforum on the site dedicated to the discussions and other executives are still lining up.

Today saw a few more join in including Brett Russell, Founder & CEO of BIGbtc Ltd, Bitcoin Integration Group; Dima Starodubcev, founder of cyber•Fund, serial crypto investor; and Matej Michalko, Founder of DECENT: A Blockchain Based Decentralised Digital Content Distribution Platform.

The past few days have also seen a storm of AMAs including Meinhard Benn, Founder and CEO of SatoshiPay Ltd, on Nov 24; Eric Larchevêque, Co-Founder and CEO of Ledger SAS, makers of hardware wallets, on Nov 23; Bobby Lee, founder and CEO of BTCC (BTCC Technology Limited), on Nov 22; and Martti Malmi, early bitcoin developer and the original founder of the Bitcointalk.org forums, on Nov 18.

And one interesting upcoming AMA happens to be Aaron Voisine, founder of breadwallet, first iPhone wallet that connects directly to the bitcoin network, happening on Dec 1.

Kraken hit by DDoS attack, received extortion letter, stiffens backbone

Bitcoin exchange Kraken (Payward, Inc.) last night announced that it suffered a DDoS attack as of midnight GMT. Futures Bitcoin Guide quickly picked up the story based on a tweet from Kraken headquarters and the fact that the front page of the exchange would not load.

The site is under DDoS at the moment. Extortion letter received. Obviously, not paying. Please bear with us.

— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) November 24, 2015

During the attack, Kraken also mentioned the site had received an extortion letter from the attackers. The staff refused to give in to the demands and instead sought to weather the attack. Approximately three hours later the attack ended (either extinguished or relinquished is unknown at this time).

I don't know what's worse–the DDoS or all the crazy ambulance chaser DDoS protection service spammers. Systems back to normal now.

— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) November 25, 2015

This is not the first time a Bitcoin exchange was targeted by a DDoS attack with the intent to disrupt its services–and it likely will not be the last. In 2013, the infamous Mt. Gox exchange was targeted by a massive DDoS attack knocking it offline when at the time Gox handed more than 70 percent of all bitcoin trade volume. Earlier this year in July, OKCoin, Huobi, Bitfinex (and a few other exchanges) were targeted by coordinated DDoS attacks designed to disrupt trading and cause a reaction in Bitcoin market prices.

BTC China enlisted the help of anti-DDoS firm Incapsula, Inc. for defense against daily high-volume attacks–the exchange is now listed as one of Incapsula’s case studies for its service.

Also DDoS: Cryptsy and others downed from massive attack

Altcoin exchange Cryptsy (Cryptsy International Ltd) also suffered a DDoS attack earlier today and last night that took the website offline–although it is loading as of writing, the exchange’s wallet service may still be down for some users.

Website offline due to denial of service attack. We are working to mitigate.

— Cryptsy (@cryptsy) November 25, 2015

CryptoCoinsNews ran the story of Cryptsy’s troubles as a public service announcement (PSA).

As a bitcoin exchange Cryptsy has seen more than its fair share of alleged scandal this year starting in October when Coin Fire reported the exchange had attracted investigations from several U.S. federal organizations. Then Cryptsy came under fire again later that month when The Merkle reported the company had “gone full Mt Gox,” in regards to customers having funds frozen.

However, it is beginning to look like the plight of Cryptsy and Kraken are not isolated events. In a post to the Bitcoin.com forums, aggregated tweets from other exchanges have mentioned DDoS attacks over the past week.

https://t.co/3eKbKWxum7 is currently inaccessible due to DDOS attack. All data and funds are safe, but we hare redirected traffic temporily

— Bitcoin Co. Ltd. (@BitcoinThai) November 17, 2015

We are currently under DDOS. Working on it.

— The Rock Trading Ltd (@TheRockTrading) November 17, 2015

As mentioned above, DDoS attacks are an apparent common weather pattern for some Bitcoin exchanges (all the way back to Mt Gox) but this uptick in attack reports may represent a shift in the seasons.

Featured image credit: Dawson/Bloomberg News