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Coinstar & Coinme Partners to Provide Bitcoin Purchase through Grocery Kiosks

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The America based coin-cashing machine maker, Coinstar, is now ready to offer bitcoin on the coin-counting kiosks at various grocery stores for easy cryptocurrency purchases. Yes! The company has partnered with the Seattle based Bitcoin ATM producers, Coinme, in order to enable people to buy Bitcoins at the grocery stores.

coinstar-kiosk
Image Source: bitcoinerx.com

Coinme is the first licensed Bitcoin ATM operator in the US, having a number of crypto ATMs in the parts of the 11 states, and Coinstar, too, operates a network of thousands of kiosks in the states. People usually use those kiosks to convert their change into bills or gift cards for easy shopping. But now with the same machines, people will also be able to buy Bitcoins.

Coinstar CEO Jim Gaherity, said, “Coinstar is always looking for new ways to offer value to our consumers when they visit our kiosks, and Coinme’s innovative delivery mechanism along with Coinstar’s flexible platform makes it possible for consumers to easily purchase Bitcoin with cash.”

Last year, Coinstar had joined its hands with Seattle based startup doxo, enabling people to pay bills at the Coinstar kiosks. The company also added the Amazon Cash deposit capability to it.

Coinstar will charge a particular fee, to its users for every purchase. They will be able to purchase bitcoin worth $2,500 and will also get vouchers on transactions through the machine. They can easily redeem the vouchers at the official website of Coinme.

Although the charges the Bitcoin ATM machines put on every transaction is too high, but people still find it more convenient. And expectations are that they won’t mind paying the hefty charges on buying Bitcoins through the Coinstar’s kiosks, due to the convenience it is going to provide. For now, the machine will only have the support for purchasing the Bitcoin over cash. In future, it may have the options for credit cards and digital money, too.

Initially, the company will have its cash-counting-cum-Bitcoin machines installed at a few selected stores of Safeway and Albertson, in California, Texas, and Washington. Coinme has also added in their announcement on their website that in future, their partnership with Coinstar will result in thousands of places to buy Bitcoin.

Ledger goes Mobile with its Next-gen Bluetooth Hardware Wallet Launched at CES 2019

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Only one day to go for the CES, and many of the companies have already revealed the products that they will be launching at the conference. On the same league, Ledger, the leading crypto wallet producer, has announced the launch of a new and more secure Bluetooth wallet Nano X, in the upcoming event of CES 2019.

Ledger has not only beefed up the storage for the latest device but has also added support for multiple, i.e. up to 100 wallets. It has also enhanced the support for more coins, i.e. up to 1100 coins. The wallet now can be managed through an app, Ledger Live, installed on the user’s smartphone. It can be enabled and connected to the wallet through the Bluetooth. This means that now the users can easily send and receive tokens from their phones.

Ledger Nano X
Image Source: pcmag.com

Also, earlier those hardware wallets were connected through a USB cable. Although the wireless connection may seem to be risky, the fact that the wallet is only connected through the Live app using a particular pin for each user can diminish the risk.

Ledger’s previously launched hardware wallet, the Nano S, had become very popular among its users. The device is quite similar to the Nano X, except it had storage and support for a lesser number of wallets and coins. A hardware crypto wallet is a more flexible way for keeping the cryptocurrency locally in a protected manner, without storing it on an exchange. The wallet is secured with the help of a unique key, that the users must input every single time they use it.

Ledger, on January 4, had tweeted on its official account, “You asked, we listened: more applications on a single device, coming soon – 7 Jan 2019,” followed by another tweet, “Your crypto assets, always secured, everywhere you go with #Bluetooth.”

Ledger’s CEO Éric Larchevêque said, “There have been a lot of requests from our users to have a native application.” On the Bluetooth device being secure, he stated, “The Bluetooth connection is only used to send public data, such as your public key. The transaction itself is encrypted end-to-end while using the highest level of encryption and security on the Bluetooth protocol. No private keys are on the Bluetooth connection. It’s the same as the USB cable. Security-wise, the architecture is the same.”

The Nano X has also got a bigger screen, and the navigation buttons have been moved to the front from the top. The device has got its users the facility for tracking their assets including minimal hardware requirements. The acceptance rate of Nano X can be estimated through the success of its predecessor, Nano S, previously had gained. The mobile app, Ledger Live, is set to be rolling out on the iOS as well as the Android smartphones from 28 January 2019, and the company has started the preorders for the device from today onwards. The cost for Nano X has been fixed at $119 and will be shipped by March this year.

Bitcoin is Plunging after Months of Stability; Drops the Whole Crypto Market

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Bitcoin had just recovered from its price drop last month, and it again has faced a plunge in its value by more than 10%, on Wednesday. The currency valued the lowest, since October 2017, now trading around $5500. In the past one year, the value of Bitcoin was fluctuating around $6600.

Bitcoin
Image Source: oracletimes.com

Bitcoin’s price plummetted to $5,534 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, but soon, regained to a somewhat higher value. But still, it has not reacquired any of the previous values, lowering down the values of other cryptocurrencies, as well, including Ethereum’s Ether down to almost 13%, Bitcoin Cash down to 8.7%, and XRP (Ripple) to 9.2%. Since last year’s October month, the market cap for Bitcoin has first time fallen below $100 billion, and the total market capitalization for the same now stands at $96 billion. The total market capitalization for the cryptocurrency combined now stands at $181 billion.

Charlie Hayter, the founder of crypto data website Cryptocompare, said, “The market had been entering a wedge, with the volatility so low. What you are seeing low is a breakout on the downside. Sometimes when things happen, it takes a while for the true reason to become clear – an exchange trade or regulatory action.”

Bitcoin has provided some multimillion deals to people making them rich, but, most of the crypto experts are aware of the volatility of Bitcoin. The so-called “hard fork” scheduled for yesterday, in bitcoin cash, is being considered as the reason behind the huge plunge in the price of the Bitcoin. A hard fork includes the splitting up of one cryptocurrency into two, and it is acknowledged as the upgrade of the cryptocurrency by the crypto experts.

The crypto market has been calm for the past few years, but 2018 has been an unfavourable year for the cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin Cash, itself, is the resultant of the first Bitcoin hard fork, and this time the hard fork will leave the investors with two digital currencies that will go by the names Bitcoin ABC (core Bitcoin Cash) and Bitcoin SV. Some experts contemplated that investors may leave Bitcoin to raise funds to buy Bitcoin Cash after it splits in hope that both of the new coins will experience.

Google’s G Suite & Target Joins the List of the Victims of Ongoing Bitcoin Scam

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After the breach into the twitter accounts of the US and Israeli politicians, as well as the official account of the Indian Consulate in Frankfurt, on Monday, a group of hackers hacked the official Twitter account of the retail giant Target on the very next day.

In the brief time of half an hour, the hackers posted a fake tweet on the account to promote a malicious cryptocurrency giveaway. The fake giveaway’s worth was 5000 BTC (approx. $31 million), that was put on to the tweet with a QR code, Bitcoin address, and line of text that claims it will return deposits tenfold, to lure the naive investors. The tweet addressed the 1.92 million followers of Target’s twitter account and had asked them to send BTC on the given address, to become a part of the giveaway.

google-twitter
Image source: hot97svg.com

The hackers were smart enough, to put some replies on the tweet from some high-profile accounts, to make the tweet look more legit and convincing. The hacking lasted for a small time, and according to the Bitcoin insiders, the hackers were able to arrange not more than a handful of BTC from the followers.

In such a small time, the media and other parties got notice of the incident, and Target took control over its account back, just after thirty minutes of hacking and posted another tweet, that confirmed the hack. The tweet read, “Early this morning, Target’s Twitter account was inappropriately accessed. The access lasted for approximately half an hour and one fake tweet was posted during that time about a Bitcoin scam.”

After taking the control over its Twitter account, Target is still in active discussions with the social media platform, regarding the matter. Not more than a few hours passed for the Target’s twitter hack, another hack came into light when another major account i.e., the official Twitter account for Google’s G Suite, a group of software/products that includes Drive, Docs, Gmail, Hangouts, and others, was hacked by the hackers. The hackers posted a similar fake tweet on the account that mentioned a giveaway of 10000 BTC to the winners of the giveaway. The tweet included a similar link along with an image of a QR code and Bitcoin address. Google was quick to take down the tweet, and it still has to confirm the breach.

Other breaches like the hacking of the official account of Elon Musk and the major European film company, Pathé, which took place earlier this month, and TV Chef, Tyler Florence had also occurred around last month, and now Target as well as Google has also joined the list. For now, there has been no other news of any other hacking of any account, and we can expect that Twitter will now be more focused on the security of the accounts of its users.

Bitcoin Drags Down the Fellow Currencies with its Own Price Drop

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bitcoin
Image Source: mashable.com

Bitcoin successfully being steady at a higher value for a few months has faced a price drop in its value. Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency, and on Wednesday it experienced a sudden plunge in its value, shedding $400 within 30 minutes.

According to the CoinDesk data, the Bitcoin’s price drop has wiped billions of dollars from its market capitalization within minutes. It has also affected the values of other cryptocurrencies including Ripple (XRP), Ethereum, EOS, Stellar and Litecoin, dragging the value of each of them down, losing billions of dollars.

Bitcoin had attained a stability in its value, as recorded at the beginning of the month, the fall it has experienced has hit its 17-months volatility. The volatility comes when the value of the cryptocurrency gets into a state of stability, to end its stable trading. Also, the cryptocurrency trading by the whales (the people holding a huge share of cryptocurrency), also affects the price change of the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin was having this stable state since September 17. The value of Bitcoin was above $6600, in the past week and has decreased sharply to $6,125. However, after some time of the price drop, Bitcoin recovered its value to an extent and reached briefly to $6,200.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had already published a warning that the rapidly growing value of the cryptocurrency assets can create “new vulnerabilities in the international financial system”. The warning came to be true when Bitcoin’s value dropped to 4.65 per cent, over the 24 hour period. Bitcoin, with its price drop, is hardly maintaining any gains this month. In just thirty minutes the cryptocurrency market capitalization fell from $214 billion to $205 billion.

Buy Bitcoin for $1 in the Walmart Stores

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walmart-bitcoin
Image Source: bitcoinexchangeguide.com

According to a post, by TheKayleMain, in The CryptoCurrency subreddit, Walmart is planning to sell a set of six BitCoins for just $1 USD. The post was released on Monday, and included a picture, that displayed packages consisting of BitCoins that were bannered under the name of “Everyday Low Price”.

The BitCoin is a decentralised cryptocurrency that is created and held electronically. According to the Reddit readers, these BitCoins are a bit different in its manufacturing, as these are covered with chocolate. Pennsylvania based chocolate manufacturing company, the Frankford Candy & Chocolate Company, will cover the BitCoins with milk chocolate weighing about 1.48 Oz and will be wrapped with golden tinfoil.

According to the crypto forum, for now, these chocolate BitCoins will only be available in America. The launch of such BitCoin chocolates can make many other prospective investors to approach Wallmart as the intermediate for their market-to-market purchase of BitCoins.

Bitcoin’s price has already seen a slump from $20000 to $6000, this year, but, $1 exchange price for six bitcoins is quite inexpensive. Until now, Wallmart has not confirmed the news, but, Frankford gave a hint by tweeting on Friday, “Lots of Milk Chocolate + Bitcoins = Pure happiness.” With the tweet, it also posted a picture of chocolates covered with the gold foil having a Bitcoin sign on it.