The past week has shown a rapid increase in Bitcoin price. This will drive investment into the mining side of the Bitcoin network. 

The network capacity was last noted at 522 TH/s. Currently the network sits at 640 TH/s

The network has increased by  in 123% in one week. 

The weekly price of Bitcoin has also increased dramatically from around $120 to over $130.00 on most exchanges

This has effectively increased the Bitcoin market capitalization to $1.6 billion dollars. This increased the value of the Bitcoin market by $200M in one week.

Please view the video below that does a great job of summarizing the pros & cons of the Bitcoin currency and network as a whole.

This was filmed at the LeWeb conference in London England on June 5 & 6th, 2013.

The past 2 weeks continue to show incredible investment into the mining side of the Bitcoin network. The network was last noted on Aug 3rd to have a mining capacity of 371 TH/s. Today the network clocks in at 522 TH/s.

The network has increased by  in 141% two weeks.

The weekly price of Bitcoin has also increased dramatically during the past two weeks. It has jumped from around the $110 mark to around the $120 mark.

This has effectively increased the Bitcoin market capitalization to $1.4 billion dollars.

For those interested in mining Bitcoins, to update our quick napkin calculation, the 522 TH/S at approximately $250/GH Estimated Average (GPU/FPCA/ASIC) yields a mining investment of $130.5 M in mining equipment throughout the world.


Aug 22 - Bitcoin Network and Pricing

The future of sending money has just hit another milestone. It is now possible to simply send money (Bitcoin) via text message.

Coinbase has just launched the first SMS based Bitcoin exchange system. The beauty of this system is in the simplicity it brings to exchanging Bitcoin. No more QR codes or wallet applications required. Just a simple SMS text message and an email address. 

Bitcoin - An Official Currency 

Bitcoin has passed another milestone this week. It was officially recognized by the US court system as a currency. From the official court documents here's an excerpt:

"Bitcoin is an electronic form of currency unbacked by any real asset and without specie, such as coin or precious metal."


"Therefore, Bitcoin is a currency or form of money, and investors 
wishing to invest in BTCST provided an investment of money"

The power of this simple statement on an official court document within the US is staggering, this officially recognizes Bitcoin as a currency through the US legal system and paves the way to further legitimize and legalize this currency within the existing financial framework.

Source Link -http://ia800904.us.archive.org/35/items/gov.uscourts.txed.146063/gov.uscourts.txed.146063.23.0.pdf

Bitcoin Listed on Bloomberg

Additionally, as reported on BTCGeek, Bitcoin has now become listed as a currency on the internal Bloomberg terminal, the central data source for Wall Street. The report indicates that the currency is only available to employees for now but could be subject to further exposure shortly.

"This was overheard at the Satoshi Square last Monday coming from an employee at Bloomberg and our brilliant team at BTC Geek has now confirmed the same. Bloomberg employees can see the Bitcoin ticker under {XBT Crncy<GO>} on their Bloomberg terminal and look up it’s pricing."

It appears that Bitcoin continues to develop it's legitimacy within the existing legal and financial systems within the US. This is a surprising development for a fledgling currency without any central source, distributed among a computer network and only in existence for 4 years (Since 2009).

This week has shown incredible investment into the mining side of the Bitcoin network. The network was last noted to have a mining capacity of 234 TH/s. 

Upon review of the Bitcoin network capacity today, it appears that the network has increased by 147% in one week.

The current mining capacity of the network stands at a whopping 371 TH/s. This means a significant number of ASIC miners have come online in the past week. 

Will these miners continue to remain profitable over these significant increases in network capacity? 

Remember, as the network capacity increases, so does the difficulty in mining or generating the Bitcoins themselves.

To further clarify this concern, lets look at the weekly price of Bitcoin. Currently, the price is hovering around $103-104. If we review the weekly pricing chart, there were some indications that Bitcoin was continuing to drive upwards past $110 mark. However, the price has softened somewhat.

This week continues to prove the significant interest and investment into the Bitcoin economy as a whole.

Based on a quick napkin calculation, the 371 TH/S at approximately $250/GH Estimated Average (GPU/FPCA/ASIC) yields a mining investment of $92.75 M in mining equipment throughout the world.

Current estimates with a network capacity increase driving approximately 60%-75% per month will make it extremely difficult to profit for the average Bitcoin miner investing in mining equipment. 

Visit http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ to view the profitability of the current and future ASIC mining hardware. This calculator is not completely accurate but provides a realistic or even slightly pessimistic view of mining profitability based on the most recent Bitcoin network mining capacity increase.


Aug 3 - Bitcoin Network and Pricing

Someone who goes by the handle "Garbage" was challenged by a friend to get Bitcoin mining on a Nintendo NES game console. 

Please view this video on the site and see the resourcefulness that was required to accomplish this task...Very impressive!!