Witty headlines aside, the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving is coming up fast as well as the shopping holiday Black Friday. In the past, Black Friday has proven to be an interesting time for Bitcoin as it represents a moment for people to spend their coin and a chance for merchants who accept Bitcoin to advertise their wares and draw in buyers.

The market price of Bitcoin is sitting at $335.22, which is a little lower than where it sat last year around this time in the $370s.

The much anticipated 21 Bitcoin Computer shipped this week, on November 16. Developers and enthusiasts are already receiving their Bitcoin-mining Linux minicomputers. Keep reading for a set of unboxing photos.

Judge Judy had (a little) to say about Bitcoin on her popular courtroom-simulation TV show. The mining company BTCS appears to be out of money (according to an SEC filing). And finally Align Commerce, a company seeking to replace the legacy wire transfer system for international business payments, just raised $12.5 million in Series A to expand its operations.

Welcome to this week’s Bitcoin Weekly.

BitcoinBlackFriday.info is already up: grabbing deals from merchants and taking signups from bargain hunters.

Bitcoin Black Friday 2015 signups available

[Editor’s note: BitcoinBlackFriday.info was revealed to be a scam. Do not use this website or purchase from it.]

It’s a new year and a new Bitcoin Black Friday. Come around November 27, the vaunted U.S. shopping holiday Black Friday, BitcoinBlackFriday.info will publish the full list of deals available for people willing to spend Bitcoin. Although, interested parties can receive earlier deals on the Bitcoin Black Friday mailing list up until the big day by signing up on the website.

Business and merchant participants in the event are encouraged to visit the site right now in order to add their own deals to the Bitcoin Black Friday reveal. The easiest way to do this is to visit the website, scroll down, and find the yellow-orange “SUBMIT A NEW DEAL” button. It leads to a form merchants can fill out.

“Usually, this day gives us headaches, everybody is desperate to find out the best offers, servers work very slow so your chances to buy your desired product decrease significantly, but not anymore!” says the website. “Bitcoin Black Friday is the most important commerce event of the year for Bitcoin merchants and Bitcoin users seeking serious discounts. The event will take place on November 27th with over 2,000 merchants expected to take part in this year’s Bitcoin Black Friday.”

Early planned deals will appear for subscribers to the mailing list on November 20. A second way arrives November 24. And during the run-up to the final day there will be a buyer’s guide and then finally one last set of pre-offers on November 26 a day before the final list is released.

This new Bitcoin Black Friday has been founded by Thomas Silva and made its presence known on November 10.

In past years the go-to website for Black Friday has been Jon Holmquist’s BitcoinBlackFriday.com, which also has a page up for 2015, but has not done much apparent outreach to the press this year. Past years covered by SiliconANGLE saw numerous merchants flock to the Bitcoin Black Friday sales starting at 300 deals in 2012, reaching over 600 deals in 2013 and exceeding 6,000 merchants in 2014.

The 21 Bitcoin Computer — in the electronic “flesh.” Source: 21 Inc.

21 Bitcoin Computer now shipping

The 21 Bitcoin Computer began shipping Monday, November 16, at a price of $399.99 from Amazon.com. This interesting device, previously covered by SiliconANGLE, provides a foundation for a Bitcoin Internet of Things marketplace as well as a developer-centric model for similar applications.

21 Inc., the company behind the 21 Bitcoin Computer, emerged from stealth professing the intention of putting Bitcoin mining software into everyday IoT devices, such as toasters and lightbulbs. The 21 Bitcoin Computer is a Linux-capable microcomputer (similar to a Raspberry Pi) combined with a Bitcoin mining rig capable of pool mining a small amount of bitcoins in order to maintain applications running on the device.

21 says that, out of the box, the 21 Bitcoin Computer will be able to provide numerous bitcoin-enabled applications and includes tutorials on how to set them up. Such applications include a bitcoin-payable HTTP proxy, a simple iTunes-like bitcoin music store and exposing APIs that can be bought/accessed with bitcoin. With these tutorials (and there are more) and the Linux-capable processor on the 21 Bitcoin Computer, developers will be able to produce a large variety of marketable applications.

A full introductory tutorial resource is available from 21 for aspiring 21 Bitcoin Computer developers.

The 21 Bitcoin Computer ships with the ability to mine bitcoins on its own (mentioned above) and the company intends it to do so without bothering the developer–bitcoin mining is simply an innate capability of the machine. The computer and its software will be updated by 21 over time and a command can have the computer seek out and grab updates. The software will enable micropayments (both on- and off-chain) and an upcoming update will enable payment channels. The 21 Bitcoin Computer also uses peer-to-peer networking in order to access, identify and interact with other 21 Bitcoin Computers on that network for the purpose of forming the marketplace mentioned above. Finally, 21 has opened up a developer community hosted at slack.21.co.

21 Bitcoin Computer Unboxing on Reddit

A lucky user on Reddit ordered a 21 Bitcoin Computer and proceeded with the time-honored tradition of unboxing it and photographing each part of the process. Reddit user /u/ztnark has a brand new 21 Bitcoin Computer.

21 Bitcoin Computer Unboxing

The machine is small, sleek, black and the box contains everything needed to plug it in and get it running. One of the components of the computer is a WiFi adapter for rapid network deployment as well as a USB cable for connecting a computer to the device (for programming). It even has a 21 Inc. sticker so that owners can pimp their laptop or desktop tower with a trophy from the new find.

Screenshot from the Judge Judy show, 2015

Bitcoin makes it onto Judge Judy

Judge Judy, an arbitration-based court reality show, recently had a case tried that involved bitcoin. As reported by SiliconANGLE’s Duncan Riley, the plaintiff Dan Haahr claims that he was defrauded while buying truck over eBay, the defendant Marlon Koland, a Bitcoin trader, had his back account attached to the eBay account, which he claims was not his doing.

The entire situation appears to be somewhat complex and, if the claims are true, both men are the victims of a “man-in-the-middle” scam committed by a third party.

In spite of his protestations of innocence, Judge Judy found against Koland and cost him $2,000. Although, as Riley pointed out in his article, the show pays the amount for him and these judgements have no legal standing (other than the arbitration agreed to by the reality show participants).

From the appearance on Judge Judy, Judith Sheindlin (aka Judge Judy) herself made the point that while people are becoming more aware of Bitcoin it is still poorly understood.

“Mr. Koland says that he, too, was a victim,” the judge said during her statements. “He was trying to deal with something called Bitcoin, which I don’t’ understand. If you tried to explain it to me from today to tomorrow I still wouldn’t get it.”

No doubt many of Judge Judy’s watching audience are equally unaware of Bitcoin, but this does bring mention of the technology to an audience that 9.63 million average viewers in 2012.

BTCS mining outfit is almost out of money

Bitcoin mining company BTCS, Inc. is in dire straits according to its financials as reported in an a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

SiliconANGLE reporter Duncan Riley notes that as a company BTCS started as a blockchain-based fintech provider but suddenly shifted its mission to bitcoin mining 12 months ago. This is also about the same time that plummeting Bitcoin market prices were driving other Bitcoin mining outfits out of the game.

Since then, the company has posted an $8.4 milion year-to-date net loss since the beginning of 2015 to September.

Align Commerce raises $12.5 million in Series A

Align Commerce, a blockchain-based business payments startup, has announced raising $12.5 million in Series A funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). Participating in this round also saw a stellar set of investers including including Digital Currency Group, FS Venture Capital, Pantera Capital, Recruit Ventures Partners and SVB Ventures.

This funding follows an undisclosed seed round in April for the company.

SiliconANGLE previously reported on Align Commerce when it announced a beta product of its B2B payments platform that uses the Bitcoin blockchain in order to resolve payments more quickly than legacy systems. At the time, Align Commerce CEO Marwan Forzley said, “businesses spend over $50 billion a year on wire and foreign exchange fees,” something that a blockchain-based approach could alleviate.

”We believe cross-border payments are broken,” Forzley told CoinDesk about the technology, “and using new technology to help reduce some of that friction, that’s where we use the blockchain, that’s where we get the benefits of a global payments rail.”

The company expects to use the new funding to expand its reach beyond the 60 countries it serves today.

Featured image credit: Bitcoin Logo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelastminute/12350379324.