Free Talk Live

The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to ban caffeinated alcohol drinks, which it has been reviewing the drinks since last year. Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) wrote the FDA will rule that caffeine is an unsafe additive to alcoholic beverages, effectively banning them from the U.S. market.

"Let these rulings serve as a warning to anyone who tried to peddle dangerous and toxic brews to our children. Do it and we will shut you down," wrote Schumer.

Secretive Internet currency’s server hacked; money stolen

Upwards of $90,000 worth of Bitcoins have been stolen from an exchange service website this week, marking the second time in nearly two months that the cyber-currency has been compromised due to a security breach.

'Zerocoin' Add-on For Bitcoin Could Make It Truly Anonymous And Untraceable.

Are physical Bitcoins legal?

Bitcoins aren't just an abstract financial instrument living somewhere in the digital ether anymore. They're now a physical currency capable of taking a ride in your pocket or scratching off your lottery tickets.

The physical Bitcoins, called Casascius Bitcoins and created by a guy in Utah named Mike Caldwell, are made of brass, with gold electroplating on the 25 Bitcoin denomination. And, of course, they're tied to the peer-to-peer, open-source digital currency that's been exchanged on the Internet for a while now.

The FBI sees the anonymous Bitcoin payment network as an alarming haven for money laundering and other criminal activity—including as a tool for hackers to rip off fellow Bitcoin users.

That’s according to a new FBI internal report that leaked to the Internet this week, which expresses concern about the difficulty of tracking the identity of anonymous Bitcoin users, while also unintentionally providing tips for Bitcoin users to remain more anonymous.

New bitcoin trading site, Coinabul.com, is now accepting bitcoins in exchange for gold. Orders are currently live during the private beta. Coinabul is the only true Bitcoin-to-Gold exchange in the world. Bitcoin is a digital stored value vehicle, able to provide near-instant transaction capability in a global Internet economy. Bitcoin users are able to trade in bitcoins to their national currency via currency exchanges, but for users who prefer to save their money in gold, Coinabul provides instant gold purchasing capabilities.

Bitcoin sounds like something from science fiction: A purely digital currency, created by an anonymous hacker, that operates outside the world's traditional banking systems. The four-year-old currency is very real, though, and it's trading an all-time high, tripling in value in the last two months alone. One bitcoin is was worth about $40 U.S. dollars on Tuesday, and surged on Wednesday to nearly $49. That's up from around $13 in January, and 5 cents in 2010, according to Mt. Gox, the bitcoin market's main exchange.

A few weeks ago the Royal Canadian Mint rolled out MintChip, a digital currency that is “better than cash.” It isn’t an alternative currency in that it’s a digital representation of the sovereign currency — the Canadian dollar.

The issue is whether Bitcoin will ever be so widely adopted that it acts like a real, stable currency. Right now, it’s more like a commodity with wild price swings on rumors, articles, anonymous chat-board postings, and well-publicized problems with theft. Most people should wait at least until those issues are resolved. Generally, however, average folks shouldn’t be making direct forays into currency trading; Bitcoin feels a bit like online investing, but it’s more like diving into foreign exchange with even less information on which to make currency calls.