25 Jan 2014 / International Business News – NEW YORK — Edwin Cuevas III stands quietly in front of a folding table at the back of the room, people crowding around him, a buzz of excitement in the air. A projector shoots real time prices of bitcoin and other alternative digital currencies against the wall — flickering green figures against a black background that are oddly reminiscent of the computers used by Gordon Gecko-like power traders at the dawn of the personal computer.
The screen flickers and the price of litecoin increases minutely. Someone next to Cuevas delights at the progression and taps furiously away on his iPhone. Cuevas listens intently to a large man cheerfully shouting over the crowd as he describes the next item up for auction. “It’s a Butterfly Labs machine,” Nick Spanos, co-founder of the Bitcoin Center NYC says, referring to the company that made the equipment. “You can be big time.”
Cuevas, 25, is a college student studying business management at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, near where he was born and raised. His expression is subtle and calculating as he listens to Spanos gush about the virtues of the item up for bid.
“Thirty gigahashes; you can make $10 a day,” Spanos calls to the crowd. Luke Wu, the owner of the Butterfly Labs ASIC bitcoin miner up at auction, stands by Spanos feeding him information about the device. The miner, a small black box the size of a standard loaf of bread, isn’t much to look at, but Cuevas sees potential; he sees dollar signs — or bitcoin signs….. Read more
http://www.ibtimes.com/new-yorks-bitcoin-center-where-cryptocurrency-elite-newbies-gather-1547823
