Tag Archives: jon matonis

Jon Matonis – Cyprus Goes Cashless The Hard Way

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Jon Matonis - Cyprus Goes Cashless The Hard Way:

Forbes contributor and Bitcoin Foundation board member Jon Matonis (@JonMatonis) posts on the latest developments in Cyprus and how Bitcoin has a role.  Excerpts:

“‘Only put money in the banking system that you can afford to lose,’ advises financial commentator Max Keiser. This is no more true than last weekend in Cyprus when bank depositors had electronic transfers blocked and were initially told to prepare for a confiscatory levy of up the 9.9% of their deposit balances across the board.”
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“Capital controls are about government keeping your money within easy reach should they ever want it. A decentralized and nonpolitical currency like Bitcoin starts to look attractive by providing a safer destination for wary depositors, allowing them to store their money securely in a digital account on their own computers, away from the big governments and politicians’ reach.”
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“The emerging trend towards bitcoin as a flight to safety seems to be accelerating despite the recent regulatory guidance from FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network).”
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“‘Gold is a great way to preserve wealth, but it is hard to move around,’ added [James Rickards, author of Currency Wars]. ‘You do need some kind of alternative and Bitcoin fits the bill.’”

 - http://onforb.es/101vGDz
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=157476.0 (Further discussion of the article)

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Jon Matonis – Bitcoin Casinos Release 2012 Earnings

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Jon Matonis - Bitcoin Casinos Release 2012 Earnings:

Forbes contributor and Bitcoin Foundation (@BTCFoundation) board member Jon Matonis (@JonMatonis) shares some details from leading online gaming services where bitcoins are used as the currency.  Excerpts:

“SatoshiDice reported first year earnings from wagering at an impressive ฿33,310. During the year, players bet a total of ฿1,787,470 in 2,349,882 individual bets at an average monthly growth rate of 78%. […] The odds are calculated to give the house an edge of 1.90% with full transparency because all dice rolls and earnings statistics are verifiable using the blockchain. […] SatoshiDice shares are traded on the MPEx bitcoin [cyber-equities] stock exchange […]. At the current exchange rate of $17.00 per BTC, SatoshiDice is a company valued at $8.9 million.”
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“BitZino reported first year earnings from wagering of ฿10,137. During the year, players bet a total of ฿664,192 in 3.2 million individual bets. […] [From June to December BitZino saw] a period growth rate of 894% or average monthly growth rate of 149%.”
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“Seals With Clubs is dealing about 10,000 hands of poker per day and raking only about 4,000 of them. […] The current rake is 2.5% with a cap of ฿0.10 per hand which is slightly less than half of what other poker sites would charge.”
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“With privacy, efficiency, growth, payment irreversibility, and cost savings as demonstrated by the above, it’s only a matter of time before the mainstream casino operators of Gibraltar and Malta realize the benefits of a gaming economy that leverages the ideal digital casino chip.”

 - http://onforb.es/10DVrxq
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=138032.0 (Further discussion of this article)
 - http://tcrn.ch/Wgetql (Related article on TechCrunch)
 - http://bit.ly/W06gXC (Related article on The Verge)
 - http://ars.to/10QcVYw (Related article on Ars Technica and Wired.co.uk)
 - http://bit.ly/10JloM3 (Related article on Boing Boing)

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Jon Matonis – PayPal’s Assault On File-Sharing Sites

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Jon Matonis - PayPal's Assault On File-Sharing Sites:

The latest Forbes post from Bitcoin Foundation board member Jon Matonis (@Matonis) describes a PayPal’s actions are making a business case for Bitcoin.  Excerpts:

“PayPal is requiring private BitTorrent tracking sites to provide them free access for purposes of monitoring user content for possible copyright infringement.”
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“PutLocker had their PayPal funds frozen for six months because they objected to the backend monitoring of their customer’s files.”
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“Used properly, bitcoin can have the privacy attributes of paper cash and bitcoin doesn’t make morality judgements about what you choose to do with your money.”
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“PayPal enforces a blanket global policy across legal jurisdictions as a substitute for due process. File-sharing sites comprise both file-hosting and BitTorrent tracking sites each of which may have different legal status in different jurisdictions depending on interpretation and enforcement of various copyright laws.”
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“PayPal is actually setting the stage for its payment successor.” 
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“TorrentBytes announced that they may have to shut down unless they can find a way to process payments.”
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“File-hosting sites and private torrent sites that have successfully adopted the bitcoin payment method from their users include Lumfile, filecloud.io, and TorrentLeech.”

 - http://onforb.es/UQ3m5l
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135623.0 (Further discussion about this article)

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