07 Dec 2013 / Aljazeera – World powers have scrambled in recent weeks to react to the rise of Bitcoin, a decentralised digital currency created in 2009.
Publicity from US Senate hearings and a black-market website that used the currency saw the value of Bitcoin skyrocket from $13 in January to $1,242 on November 29 – higher than the price of gold at the time. The currency is stored in a digital “wallet” and is “mined” by computers solving mathematical puzzles.
But on Saturday the value of the crypto-currency plummeted to $830 on BTC China, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange by trading volume, after China banned its banks from providing related services and products on Thursday. Data on the Bitcoin Charts website shows that about one-third of the world’s Bitcoin transactions are made on the BTC China exchange, which is open only to Chinese users.
The Chinese market has become so big that China Telecom subsidiary Jiangsu Telecom and a Shanghai developer began accepting the currency, and one man has reportedly become China’s first Bitcoin multi-millionaire……. Read more
