Payment processing service, Stripe, announced in march 2014 that they would start accepting Bitcoin payments. Now, almost a year later, Stripe has finally launched the Bitcoin payment processing facility. The company had an extensive beta test spanning over 60 countries, and the response was very positive. The company which has a massive investment history, with several high profile investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel and Sequoia Capital to name a few, has finally launched the Bitcoin payment processing service.

Do you know what Bitcoin mining is? If not, here’s the deal – It is the way that Bitcoin transactions are verified and new coins are produced. Nowadays, this verification is done through miners, also known as ASIC’s (application specific integrated circuits). Miners are dedicated hardware which verify whatever transactions are going on, and the miners are then rewarded with Bitcoin or whatever crypto currency they are mining. When Bitcoin first started, the difficulty was very low, but as Bitcoin gained momentum and more and more people started embracing it, the difficulty kept increasing.

Bitcoin, as we know it has taken the world by storm and has a market cap of over $5 Billion spread over around 13 million Bitcoins. Few countries even have their own rules and regulations and countries like Russia are planning to stop the use of Bitcoins. But, they don’t realize that Bitcoin is a revolutionary new technology which has the potential to facilitate amazing things which can make the world a better place to live. What’s stopping this from happening is the lack of global awareness about Bitcoin, not many people know what is Bitcoin or how to use it. The need of the hour is to help people and more importantly merchants, understand Bitcoin and help them accepting Bitcoin. This should not be done in just a handful of countries but it should be done on a larger scale, all over the world.

Over the past few years, storing your Bitcoins has become a major cause of concern and with a lot of malware with Bitcoin stealing capabilities flooding the internet, this has become an even bigger cause of concern. Mt. Gox, which was one of the leading Bitcoin exchanges suspended its operations in February 2014, and it claimed that over 850,000 bitcoins were missing, which had a value of around  $450 million at that time. All of this conveys that there should be a much advanced level of security in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

When you go to your favourite website, say YouTube, what is the most prominent thing out there? Ads. Those annoying banners and popup, if you don’t know, contribute to the agencies who sell those ad slots, a whole lot of money. Online advertising is a $40 Billion industry now, and all that forty billion comes at the cost of annoying you to a huge extent. It is also the way the websites make money. It is not the only way they do so though.

The finance and taxation ministry of Spain had recently issued a notice that Bitcoin should be treated as a convertible virtual currency, a way of exchange which then can be converted into real currencies like Dollars, Euros and Pounds. This is one of those decisions which either the Spanish government will regret or the one that might help them achieve new heights.

CryptoLabs, a Bitcoin startup has announced a new credit card sized (although not that thin) multi signature hardware Bitcoin wallet. It is slated for a 2015 release.

Have you got any crypto currency? Well, if you have, then its safe to assume that you are constantly worried about its safety. If you aren’t, here is some information that will make you want to convert it back. Bitcoin is not like real money, which you can feel and hold. Real money can be locked safely somewhere while Bitcoin can be lost without a trace, because it is spent and received anonymously. Here’s the bombshell, once you lose Bitcoin, you can never get it back, unless you are or know an expert hacker. And also, almost 70% of the computer viruses are intent on sucking Bitcoin from your wallet. Then  there is also the possibility of  people stealing funds by stealing the PC in which you have stored your Bitcoin, if you have an offline wallet, in which case you can say farewell to your well earned money.