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"₿" redirects here. It is not to be confused with "฿" for Thai baht.
decentralized cryptocurrency
Bitcoin (₿) is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.[7]
Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. Bitcoin was invented by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto[9] and released as open-source software in 2009.[10] Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies,[11] products, and services. Research produced by the University of Cambridge estimates that in 2017, there were 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.[12]
Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions, its high electricity consumption, price volatility, thefts from exchanges, and the possibility that bitcoin is an economic bubble.[13] Bitcoin has also been used as an investment, although several regulatory agencies have issued investor alerts about bitcoin.[14]
- 1 History
- 2 Design
- 2.1 Blockchain
- 2.2 Transactions
- 2.3 Units
- 2.4 Transaction fees
- 2.5 Ownership
- 2.6 Mining
- 2.7 Supply
- 2.8 Wallets
- 2.9 Implementations
- 2.10 Decentralization and centralization
- 2.11 Privacy
- 2.12 Fungibility
- 2.13 Scalability
- 3 Ideology
- 4 Economics
- 5 Legal status, tax and regulation
- 6 Criticism
- 7 In popular culture
- 8 See also
- 9 Notes
- 10 References
- 11 External links
Main article: History of bitcoin
The domain name "bitcoin.org" was registered on 18 August 2008.[15] On 31 October 2008, a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System[5] was posted to a cryptography mailing list.[16] Nakamoto implemented the bitcoin software as open-source code and released it in January 2009.[17][18][10] Despite a multitude of efforts to determine Nakamoto's identity, it remains unknown.[9]
On 3 January 2009, the bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the first block of the chain, known as the genesis block.[19][20] Embedded in the coinbase of this block was the following text: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."[10] This note has been interpreted as both a timestamp and a comment on the instability caused by fractional-reserve banking.[21]:18
The receiver of the first bitcoin transaction was cypherpunk Hal Finney, who created the first reusable proof-of-work system (RPOW) in 2004.[22] Finney downloaded the bitcoin software on its release date, and on 12 January 2009 received ten bitcoins from Nakamoto.[23][24] Other early cypherpunk supporters were creators of bitcoin predecessors: Wei Dai, creator of b-money, and Nick Szabo, creator of bit gold.[25] In 2010, the first known commercial transaction using bitcoin occurred when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz bought two Papa John's pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin.[26]
Nakamoto is estimated to have mined one million bitcoins[27] before disappearing in 2010, when he handed the network alert key and control of the code repository over to Gavin Andresen. Andresen later became lead developer at the Bitcoin Foundation.[28][29] Andresen then sought to decentralize control. This left opportunity for controversy to develop over the future development path of bitcoin.[30][29]
After early "proof-of-concept" transactions, the first major users of bitcoin were black markets, such as Silk Road. During its 30 months of existence, beginning in February 2011, Silk Road exclusively accepted bitcoins as payment, transacting 9.9 million in bitcoins, worth about $214 million.[31]:222
In 2011, the price started at $0.30 per bitcoin, growing to $5.27 for the year. The price rose to $31.50 on 8 June. Within a month the price fell to $11.00. The next month it fell to $7.80, and in another month to $4.77.[32]
Litecoin, an early bitcoin spin-off or altcoin, appeared in October 2011.[33] Many altcoins have been created since then.[34]
In 2012, bitcoin prices started at $5.27 growing to $13.30 for the year.[32] By 9 January the price had risen to $7.38, but then crashed by 49% to $3.80 over the next 16 days. The price then rose to $16.41 on 17 August, but fell by 57% to $7.10 over the next three days.[35]
The Bitcoin Foundation was founded in September 2012 to promote bitcoin's development and uptake.[36]
In 2013, prices started at $13.30 rising to $770 by 1 January 2014.[32]
In March 2013 the blockchain temporarily split into two independent chains with different rules. The two blockchains operated simultaneously for six hours, each with its own version of the transaction history. Normal operation was restored when the majority of the network downgraded to version 0.7 of the bitcoin software.[37] The Mt. Gox exchange briefly halted bitcoin deposits and the price dropped by 23% to $37[38][39] before recovering to previous level of approximately $48 in the following hours.[40] The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) established regulatory guidelines for "decentralized virtual currencies" such as bitcoin, classifying American bitcoin miners who sell their generated bitcoins as Money Service Businesses (MSBs), that are subject to registration or other legal obligations.[41][42][43] In April, exchanges BitInstant and Mt. Gox experienced processing delays due to insufficient capacity[44] resulting in the bitcoin price dropping from $266 to $76 before returning to $160 within six hours.[45] The bitcoin price rose to $259 on 10 April, but then crashed by 83% to $45 over the next three days.[35] On 15 May 2013, US authorities seized accounts associated with Mt. Gox after discovering it had not registered as a money transmitter with FinCEN in the US.[46][47] On 23 June 2013, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) listed 11.02 bitcoins as a seized asset in a United States Department of Justice seizure notice pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881.[48] This marked the first time a government agency had seized bitcoin.[49][50] The FBI seized about 26,000 bitcoins in October 2013 from the dark web website Silk Road during the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht.[51][52][53] Bitcoin's price rose to $755 on 19 November and crashed by 50% to $378 the same day. On 30 November 2013 the price reached $1,163 before starting a long-term crash, declining by 87% to $152 in January 2015.[35] On 5 December 2013, the People's Bank of China prohibited Chinese financial institutions from using bitcoins.[54] After the announcement, the value of bitcoins dropped,[55] and Baidu no longer accepted bitcoins for certain services.[56] Buying real-world goods with any virtual currency had been illegal in China since at least 2009.[57]
In 2014, prices started at $770 and fell to $314 for the year.[32] In February 2014 the Mt. Gox exchange, the largest bitcoin exchange at the time, said that 850,000 bitcoins had been stolen from its customers, amounting to almost $500 million. Bitcoin's price fell by almost half, from $867 to $439 (a 49% drop). Prices remained low until late 2016.[citation needed]
In 2015. prices started at $314 and rose to $434 for the year. In 2016 prices rose to $998 on 1 January 2017.[32]
Prices started at $998 in 2017 and rose to $13,412.44 on 1 January 2018.[32] On 17 December 2017 bitcoin's price reached an all-time high of $19,666.[35]
China banned trading in bitcoin, with the first steps taken in September 2017, and a complete ban starting 1 February 2018. Bitcoin prices then fell from $9,052 to $6,914 on 5 February 2018.[35] The percentage of bitcoin trading in renminbi fell from over 90% in September 2017 to less than 1% in June.[58]
Throughout the rest of the first half of 2018, bitcoin's price fluctuated between $11,480 and $5,848. On 1 July 2018 bitcoin's price was $6,343.[59][60] The price on January 1, 2019 was $3,747, down 72% for 2018 and down 81% since the all-time high.[59][61]
Bitcoin prices were negatively affected by several hacks or thefts from cryptocurrency exchanges, including thefts from Coincheck in January 2018, Coinrail and Bithumb in June, and Bancor in July. For the first six months of 2018, $761 million worth of cryptocurrencies was reported stolen from exchanges.[62] Bitcoin's price was affected even though other cryptocurrencies were stolen at Coinrail and Bancor, as investors worried about the security of cryptocurrency exchanges.[63][64][65]
For broader coverage of this topic, see Blockchain.
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The bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger that records bitcoin transactions.[67] It is implemented as a chain of blocks, each block containing a hash of the previous block up to the genesis block[a] of the chain. A network of communicating nodes running bitcoin software maintains the blockchain.[31]:215–219 Transactions of the form payer X sends Y bitcoins to payee Z are broadcast to this network using readily available software applications.
Network nodes can validate transactions, add them to their copy of the ledger, and then broadcast these ledger additions to other nodes. To achieve independent verification of the chain of ownership each network node stores its own copy of the blockchain.[68] About every 10 minutes, a new group of accepted transactions, called a block, is created, added to the blockchain, and quickly published to all nodes, without requiring central oversight. This allows bitcoin software to determine when a particular bitcoin was spent, which is needed to prevent double-spending. A conventional ledger records the transfers of actual bills or promissory notes that exist apart from it, but the blockchain is the only place that bitcoins can be said to exist in the form of unspent outputs of transactions.[3]:ch. 5
See also: Bitcoin network
Transactions are defined using a Forth-like scripting language.[3]:ch. 5 Transactions consist of one or more inputs and one or more outputs. When a user sends bitcoins, the user designates each address and the amount of bitcoin being sent to that address in an output. To prevent double spending, each input must refer to a previous unspent output in the blockchain.[69] The use of multiple inputs corresponds to the use of multiple coins in a cash transaction. Since transactions can have multiple outputs, users can send bitcoins to multiple recipients in one transaction. As in a cash transaction, the sum of inputs (coins used to pay) can exceed the intended sum of payments. In such a case, an additional output is used, returning the change back to the payer.[69] Any input satoshis not accounted for in the transaction outputs become the transaction fee.[69]
The unit of account of the bitcoin system is a bitcoin. Ticker symbols used to represent bitcoin are BTC[b] and XBT.[c][74]:2 Small amounts of bitcoin used as alternative units are millibitcoin (mBTC), and satoshi (sat). Named in homage to bitcoin's creator, a satoshi is the smallest amount within bitcoin representing 6992100000000000000♠0.00000001 bitcoins, one hundred millionth of a bitcoin.[2] A millibitcoin equals 6997100000000000000♠0.001 bitcoins, one thousandth of a bitcoin or 7005100000000000000♠100000 satoshis.[75] Its Unicode character is ₿.[1]
Transaction fees
Though transaction fees are optional, miners can choose which transactions to process and prioritize those that pay higher fees.[69] Miners may choose transactions based on the fee paid relative to their storage size, not the absolute amount of money paid as a fee. These fees are generally measured in satoshis per byte (sat/b). The size of transactions is dependent on the number of inputs used to create the transaction, and the number of outputs.[3]:ch. 8
Simplified chain of ownership as illustrated in the Bitcoin whitepaper.[5] In practice, a transaction can have more than one input and more than one output.[69]
In the blockchain, bitcoins are registered to bitcoin addresses. Creating a bitcoin address requires nothing more than picking a random valid private key and computing the corresponding bitcoin address. This computation can be done in a split second. But the reverse, computing the private key of a given bitcoin address, is mathematically unfeasible. Users can tell others or make public a bitcoin address without compromising its corresponding private key. Moreover, the number of valid private keys is so vast that it is extremely unlikely someone will compute a key-pair that is already in use and has funds. The vast number of valid private keys makes it unfeasible that brute force could be used to compromise a private key. To be able to spend their bitcoins, the owner must know the corresponding private key and digitally sign the transaction. The network verifies the signature using the public key.[3]:ch. 5
If the private key is lost, the bitcoin network will not recognize any other evidence of ownership;[31] the coins are then unusable, and effectively lost. For example, in 2013 one user claimed to have lost 7,500 bitcoins, worth $7.5 million at the time, when he accidentally discarded a hard drive containing his private key.[76] A backup of his key(s) would have prevented this.
About 20% of all bitcoins are believed to be lost. They would have a market value of about $20 billion at July 2018 prices.[77][78] Approximately one million bitcoins, valued at $7 billion in July 2018, have been stolen.[79]
Early bitcoin miners used GPUs for mining, as they were better suited to the proof-of-work algorithm than CPUs.[80]Amateur bitcoin mining with specialized ASIC chips. This was when mining difficulty was much lower, and this is no longer feasible.Today, bitcoin mining companies dedicate facilities to housing and operating high performance mining hardware.[81]
Semi-log plot of relative mining difficulty[d][66]
Mining is a record-keeping service done through the use of computer processing power.[e] Miners keep the blockchain consistent, complete, and unalterable by repeatedly grouping newly broadcast transactions into a block, which is then broadcast to the network and verified by recipient nodes.[67] Each block contains a SHA-256 cryptographic hash of the previous block,[67] thus linking it to the previous block and giving the blockchain its name.[3]:ch. 7[67]
To be accepted by the rest of the network, a new block must contain a proof-of-work (PoW).[67] The system used is based on Adam Back's 1997 anti-spam scheme, Hashcash.[5][83] The PoW requires miners to find a number called a nonce, such that when the block content is hashed along with the nonce, the result is numerically smaller than the network's difficulty target.[3]:ch. 8 This proof is easy for any node in the network to verify, but extremely time-consuming to generate, as for a secure cryptographic hash, miners must try many different nonce values (usually the sequence of tested values is the ascending natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, …[3]:ch. 8) before meeting the difficulty target.
Every 2,016 blocks (approximately 14 days at roughly 10 min per block), the difficulty target is adjusted based on the network's recent performance, with the aim of keeping the average time between new blocks at ten minutes. In this way the system automatically adapts to the total amount of mining power on the network.[3]:ch. 8 Between 1 March 2014 and 1 March 2015, the average number of nonces miners had to try before creating a new block increased from 16.4 quintillion to 200.5 quintillion.[84]
The proof-of-work system, alongside the chaining of blocks, makes modifications of the blockchain extremely hard, as an attacker must modify all subsequent blocks in order for the modifications of one block to be accepted.[85] As new blocks are mined all the time, the difficulty of modifying a block increases as time passes and the number of subsequent blocks (also called confirmations of the given block) increases.[67]
Pooled mining
For broader coverage of this topic, see Mining pool.
Computing power is often bundled together or "pooled" to reduce variance in miner income. Individual mining rigs often have to wait for long periods to confirm a block of transactions and receive payment. In a pool, all participating miners get paid every time a participating server solves a block. This payment depends on the amount of work an individual miner contributed to help find that block.[86]
Total bitcoins in circulation.[66]
The successful miner finding the new block is rewarded with newly created bitcoins and transaction fees.[87] As of 9 July 2016[update],[88] the reward amounted to 12.5 newly created bitcoins per block added to the blockchain. To claim the reward, a special transaction called a coinbase is included with the processed payments.[3]:ch. 8 All bitcoins in existence have been created in such coinbase transactions. The bitcoin protocol specifies that the reward for adding a block will be halved every 210,000 blocks (approximately every four years). Eventually, the reward will decrease to zero, and the limit of 21 million bitcoins[f] will be reached c. 2140; the record keeping will then be rewarded solely by transaction fees.[89]
In other words, bitcoin's inventor Nakamoto set a monetary policy based on artificial scarcity at bitcoin's inception that there would only ever be 21 million bitcoins in total. Their numbers are being released roughly every ten minutes and the rate at which they are generated would drop by half every four years until all were in circulation.[90]
For broader coverage of this topic, see Cryptocurrency wallet.
Bitcoin Core, a full clientElectrum, a lightweight client
A paper wallet with the credentials required to send and receive bitcoin payments printed to the page as 2D barcodesA brass token with credentials usable to redeem bitcoins hidden beneath a tamper-evident security hologramA hardware wallet peripheral which processes bitcoin payments without exposing any credentials to the computer
A wallet stores the information necessary to transact bitcoins. While wallets are often described as a place to hold[91] or store bitcoins,[92] due to the nature of the system, bitcoins are inseparable from the blockchain transaction ledger. A better way to describe a wallet is something that "stores the digital credentials for your bitcoin holdings"[92] and allows one to access (and spend) them. Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography, in which two cryptographic keys, one public and one private, are generated.[93] At its most basic, a wallet is a collection of these keys.
There are several modes which wallets can operate in. They have an inverse relationship with regards to trustlessness and computational requirements.
- Full clients verify transactions directly by downloading a full copy of the blockchain (over 150 GB As of January 2018[update]).[94] They are the most secure and reliable way of using the network, as trust in external parties is not required. Full clients check the validity of mined blocks, preventing them from transacting on a chain that breaks or alters network rules.[95] Because of its size and complexity, downloading and verifying the entire blockchain is not suitable for all computing devices.
- Lightweight clients consult full clients to send and receive transactions without requiring a local copy of the entire blockchain (see simplified payment verification – SPV). This makes lightweight clients much faster to set up and allows them to be used on low-power, low-bandwidth devices such as smartphones. When using a lightweight wallet, however, the user must trust the server to a certain degree, as it can report faulty values back to the user. Lightweight clients follow the longest blockchain and do not ensure it is valid, requiring trust in miners.[96]
Third-party internet services called online wallets offer similar functionality but may be easier to use. In this case, credentials to access funds are stored with the online wallet provider rather than on the user's hardware.[97][98] As a result, the user must have complete trust in the wallet provider. A malicious provider or a breach in server security may cause entrusted bitcoins to be stolen. An example of such a security breach occurred with Mt. Gox in 2011.[99] This has led to the often-repeated meme "Not your keys, not your bitcoin".[100]
Physical wallets store the credentials necessary to spend bitcoins offline.[92] One notable example was a novelty coin with these credentials printed on the reverse side.[101] Paper wallets are simply paper printouts.
Another type of wallet called a hardware wallet keeps credentials offline while facilitating transactions.[102]
Further information: Bitcoin Core
The first wallet program, simply named Bitcoin, and sometimes referred to as the Satoshi client, was released in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto as open-source software.[10] In version 0.5 the client moved from the wxWidgets user interface toolkit to Qt, and the whole bundle was referred to as Bitcoin-Qt.[103] After the release of version 0.9, the software bundle was renamed Bitcoin Core to distinguish itself from the underlying network.[104][105]
See also: Fork (blockchain) and List of bitcoin forks
Bitcoin Core is, perhaps, the best known implementation or client. Alternative clients (forks of Bitcoin Core) exist, such as Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Unlimited,[30] and Parity Bitcoin.[106]
On 1 August 2017, a hard fork of bitcoin was created, known as Bitcoin Cash.[107] Bitcoin Cash has a larger block size limit and had an identical blockchain at the time of fork. On 24 October 2017 another hard fork, Bitcoin Gold, was created. Bitcoin Gold changes the proof-of-work algorithm used in mining, as the developers felt that mining had become too specialized.[108]
Decentralization and centralization
Bitcoin does not have a central authority and the bitcoin network is decentralized:[7]
- There is no central server, bitcoin network is peer-to-peer.[10]
- There is no central storage, bitcoin ledger is distributed.[109]
- The ledger is public, anybody can store it on their computer.[3]:ch. 1
- There is no single administrator,[7] the ledger is maintained by a network of equally privileged miners.[3]:ch. 1
- Anybody can become a miner.[3]:ch. 1
- The additions to the ledger are maintained through competition. Until a new block is added to the ledger, it is not known which miner will create the block.[3]:ch. 1
- The issuance of bitcoins is decentralized. They are issued as a reward for the creation of a new block.[87]
- Anybody can create a new bitcoin address (a bitcoin counterpart of a bank account) without needing any approval.[3]:ch. 1
- Anybody can send a transaction to the network without needing any approval, the network merely confirms that the transaction is legitimate.[110]:32
Trend towards centralization
Researchers have pointed out at a "trend towards centralization". Although bitcoin can be sent directly from user to user, in practice intermediaries are widely used.[31]:220–222 Bitcoin miners join large mining pools to minimize the variance of their income.[31]:215, 219–222[111]:3[112] Because transactions on the network are confirmed by miners, decentralization of the network requires that no single miner or mining pool obtains 51% of the hashing power, which would allow them to double-spend coins, prevent certain transactions from being verified and prevent other miners from earning income.[113] As of 2013[update] just six mining pools controlled 75% of overall bitcoin hashing power.[113] In 2014 mining pool Ghash.io obtained 51% hashing power which raised significant controversies about the safety of the network. The pool has voluntarily capped their hashing power at 39.99% and requested other pools to act responsibly for the benefit of the whole network.[114]
According to researchers, other parts of the ecosystem are also "controlled by a small set of entities", notably the maintenance of the client software, online wallets and simplified payment verification (SPV) clients.[113]
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, meaning that funds are not tied to real-world entities but rather bitcoin addresses. Owners of bitcoin addresses are not explicitly identified, but all transactions on the blockchain are public. In addition, transactions can be linked to individuals and companies through "idioms of use" (e.g., transactions that spend coins from multiple inputs indicate that the inputs may have a common owner) and corroborating public transaction data with known information on owners of certain addresses.[115] Additionally, bitcoin exchanges, where bitcoins are traded for traditional currencies, may be required by law to collect personal information.[116] To heighten financial privacy, a new bitcoin address can be generated for each transaction.[117]
Wallets and similar software technically handle all bitcoins as equivalent, establishing the basic level of fungibility. Researchers have pointed out that the history of each bitcoin is registered and publicly available in the blockchain ledger, and that some users may refuse to accept bitcoins coming from controversial transactions, which would harm bitcoin's fungibility.[118]
Main article: Bitcoin scalability problem
The blocks in the blockchain were originally limited to 32 megabytes in size. The block size limit of one megabyte was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010. Eventually the block size limit of one megabyte created problems for transaction processing, such as increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions.[119]
On 24 August 2017 (at block 481,824), Segregated Witness (SegWit) went live. Transactions contain some data which is only used to verify the transaction, and does not otherwise effect the movement of coins. SegWit introduced a new transaction format that moved this data into a new field in a backwards-compatible way. The segregated data, the so-called witness, is not sent to non-SegWit nodes and therefore does not form part of the blockchain as seen by legacy nodes. This lowers the size of the average transaction in such nodes' view, thereby increasing the block size without incurring the hard fork implied by other proposals for block size increases. Thus, per computer scientist Jochen Hoenicke, the actual block capacity depends on the ratio of SegWit transactions in the block, and on the ratio of signature data. Based on his estimate, if the ratio of SegWit transactions is 50%, the block capacity may be 1.25 megabytes. According to Hoenicke, if native SegWit addresses from Bitcoin Core version 0.16.0 are used, and SegWit adoption reaches 90% to 95%, a block size of up to 1.8 megabytes is possible.[citation needed]
Satoshi Nakamoto stated in his white paper that: "The root problem with conventional currencies is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust."[120]
Austrian economics
According to the European Central Bank, the decentralization of money offered by bitcoin has its theoretical roots in the Austrian school of economics, especially with Friedrich von Hayek in his book Denationalisation of Money: The Argument Refined,[121] in which he advocates a complete free market in the production, distribution and management of money to end the monopoly of central banks.[122]:22
Anarchist and libertarian theories
Further information: Crypto-anarchism
According to The New York Times, libertarians and anarchists were attracted to the idea. Early bitcoin supporter Roger Ver said: "At first, almost everyone who got involved did so for philosophical reasons. We saw bitcoin as a great idea, as a way to separate money from the state."[120] The Economist describes bitcoin as "a techno-anarchist project to create an online version of cash, a way for people to transact without the possibility of interference from malicious governments or banks".[123]
Nigel Dodd argues in The Social Life of Bitcoin that the essence of the bitcoin ideology is to remove money from social, as well as governmental, control.[125] Dodd quotes a YouTube video, with Roger Ver, Jeff Berwick, Charlie Shrem, Andreas Antonopoulos, Gavin Wood, Trace Meyer and other proponents of bitcoin reading The Declaration of Bitcoin's Independence. The declaration includes a message of crypto-anarchism with the words: "Bitcoin is inherently anti-establishment, anti-system, and anti-state. Bitcoin undermines governments and disrupts institutions because bitcoin is fundamentally humanitarian."[125][124]
David Golumbia says that the ideas influencing bitcoin advocates emerge from right-wing extremist movements such as the Liberty Lobby and the John Birch Society and their anti-Central Bank rhetoric, or, more recently, Ron Paul and Tea Party-style libertarianism.[126] Steve Bannon, who owns a "good stake" in bitcoin, considers it to be "disruptive populism. It takes control back from central authorities. It's revolutionary."[127]
However, researchers looking to uncover the reasons for interest in bitcoin did not find evidence in Google search data that this was linked to libertarianism.[128]
Main article: Economics of bitcoin
Bitcoin is a digital asset designed to work in peer-to-peer transactions as a currency.[5][129] Bitcoins have three qualities useful in a currency, according to The Economist in January 2015: they are "hard to earn, limited in supply and easy to verify".[130] Per some researchers, as of 2015[update] bitcoin functions more as a payment system than as a currency.[31]
Economists define money as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account.[131] According to The Economist in 2014, bitcoin functions best as a medium of exchange.[131] However, this is debated,[132] and a 2018 assessment by The Economist found that cryptocurrencies met none of these three criteria.[123]
Liquidity (estimated, USD/year, logarithmic scale).[66]
According to research by Cambridge University, between 2.9 million and 5.8 million unique users used a cryptocurrency wallet in 2017, most of them for bitcoin. The number of users has grown significantly since 2013, when there were 300,000 to 1.3 million users.[12]
Acceptance by merchants
The overwhelming majority of bitcoin transactions take place on a cryptocurrency exchange, rather than being used in transactions with merchants.[133] Delays processing payments through the blockchain of about ten minutes make bitcoin use very difficult in a retail setting. Prices are not usually quoted in units of bitcoin and many trades involve one, or sometimes two, conversions into conventional currencies.[31] Merchants that do accept bitcoin payments may use payment service providers to perform the conversions.[134]
In 2017 and 2018 bitcoin's acceptance among major online retailers included only three of the top 500 U.S. online merchants, down from five in 2016.[133] Reasons for this decline include high transaction fees due to bitcoin's scalability issues and long transaction times.[135]
Bloomberg reported that the largest 17 crypto merchant-processing services handled $69 million in June 2018, down from $411 million in September 2017. Bitcoin is "not actually usable" for retail transactions because of high costs and the inability to process chargebacks, according to Nicholas Weaver, a researcher quoted by Bloomberg. High price volatility and transaction fees make paying for small retail purchases with bitcoin impractical, according to economist Kim Grauer. However, bitcoin continues to be used for large-item purchases on sites such as Overstock.com, and for cross-border payments to freelancers and other vendors.[136]
Financial institutions
Bitcoins can be bought on digital currency exchanges.
Bitcoin has not gained acceptance for use in international remittances despite high fees charged by banks and Western Union who compete in this market. Unlike bitcoin, these competitors accept and dispense cash and do not require the use of the Internet which is a distinct advantage in lower income countries.[31]
In 2014, the National Australia Bank closed accounts of businesses with ties to bitcoin,[137] and HSBC refused to serve a hedge fund with links to bitcoin.[138] Australian banks in general have been reported as closing down bank accounts of operators of businesses involving the currency.[139]
Plans were announced to include a bitcoin futures option on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 2017.[140] Trading in bitcoin futures was announced to begin on 10 December 2017.[141]
As an investment
The Winklevoss twins have purchased bitcoin. In 2013 The Washington Post reported a claim that they owned 1% of all the bitcoins in existence at the time.[142]
Other methods of investment are bitcoin funds. The first regulated bitcoin fund was established in Jersey in July 2014 and approved by the Jersey Financial Services Commission.[143]
Forbes named bitcoin the best investment of 2013.[144] In 2014, Bloomberg named bitcoin one of its worst investments of the year.[145] In 2015, bitcoin topped Bloomberg's currency tables.[146]
According to bitinfocharts.com, in 2017 there are 9,272 bitcoin wallets with more than $1 million worth of bitcoins.[147] The exact number of bitcoin millionaires is uncertain as a single person can have more than one bitcoin wallet.
Venture capital
Venture capitalists, such as Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, which invested US$3 million in BitPay, do not purchase bitcoins themselves, but instead fund bitcoin infrastructure that provides payment systems to merchants, exchanges, wallet services, etc.[148] In 2012, an incubator for bitcoin-focused start-ups was founded by Adam Draper, with financing help from his father, venture capitalist Tim Draper, one of the largest bitcoin holders after winning an auction of 30,000 bitcoins,[149] at the time called "mystery buyer".[150] The company's goal is to fund 100 bitcoin businesses within 2–3 years with $10,000 to $20,000 for a 6% stake.[149] Investors also invest in bitcoin mining.[151] According to a 2015 study by Paolo Tasca, bitcoin startups raised almost $1 billion in three years (Q1 2012 – Q1 2015).[152]
Price and volatility
Bitcoin price bubbles in 2011, 2013 and 2017Price[g] (left y-axis, logarithmic scale) and volatility[h] (right y-axis).[66]
The price of bitcoins has gone through cycles of appreciation and depreciation referred to by some as bubbles and busts.[153] In 2011, the value of one bitcoin rapidly rose from about US$0.30 to US$32 before returning to US$2.[154] In the latter half of 2012 and during the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, the bitcoin price began to rise,[155] reaching a high of US$266 on 10 April 2013, before crashing to around US$50.[156] On 29 November 2013, the cost of one bitcoin rose to a peak of US$1,242.[157] In 2014, the price fell sharply, and as of April remained depressed at little more than half 2013 prices. As of August 2014[update] it was under US$600.[158] During their time as bitcoin developers, Gavin Andresen[159] and Mike Hearn[160] warned that bubbles may occur.
According to Mark T. Williams, as of 2014[update], bitcoin has volatility seven times greater than gold, eight times greater than the S&P 500, and 18 times greater than the US dollar.[161]
Legal status, tax and regulation
Main article: Legality of bitcoin by country or territory
Because of bitcoin's decentralized nature and its trading on online exchanges located in many countries, regulation of bitcoin has been difficult. However, the use of bitcoin can be criminalized, and shutting down exchanges and the peer-to-peer economy in a given country would constitute a de facto ban.[162] The legal status of bitcoin varies substantially from country to country and is still undefined or changing in many of them. Regulations and bans that apply to bitcoin probably extend to similar cryptocurrency systems.[163]
According to the Library of Congress, an "absolute ban" on trading or using cryptocurrencies applies in eight countries: Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates. An "implicit ban" applies in another 15 countries, which include Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Lesotho, Lithuania, Macau, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.[164]
Regulatory warnings
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued four "Customer Advisories" for bitcoin and related investments.[14] A July 2018 warning emphasized that trading in any cryptocurrency is often speculative, and there is a risk of theft from hacking, and fraud.[165] A February 2018 advisory warned against investing into "IRS approved" virtual currency individual retirement accounts.[166] A December 2017 advisory warned that virtual currencies are risky because:
- the exchanges are not regulated or supervised by a government agency
- the exchanges may lack system safeguards and customer protections
- large price swings and "flash crashes"
- market manipulation
- theft and hacking
- self-dealing by the exchanges[167]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has also issued warnings. A May 2014 "Investor Alert" warned that investments involving bitcoin might have high rates of fraud, and that investors might be solicited on social media sites.[168] An earlier "Investor Alert" warned about the use of bitcoin in Ponzi schemes.[169]
The European Banking Authority issued a warning in 2013 focusing on the lack of regulation of bitcoin, the chance that exchanges would be hacked, the volatility of bitcoin's price, and general fraud.[170]
The self-regulatory organization FINRA and the North American Securities Administrators Association have both issued investor alerts about bitcoin.[171][172]
Price manipulation investigation
An official investigation into bitcoin traders was reported in May 2018.[173] The U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into possible price manipulation, including the techniques of spoofing and wash trades.[174][175][176] Traders in the U.S., the U.K, South Korea, and possibly other countries are being investigated.[173] Brett Redfearn, head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Trading and Markets, had identified several manipulation techniques of concern in March 2018.
The U.S. federal investigation was prompted by concerns of possible manipulation during futures settlement dates. The final settlement price of CME bitcoin futures is determined by prices on four exchanges, Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Kraken. Following the first delivery date in January 2018, the CME requested extensive detailed trading information but several of the exchanges refused to provide it and later provided only limited data. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission then subpoenaed the data from the exchanges.[177][178]
State and provincial securities regulators, coordinated through the North American Securities Administrators Association, are investigating "bitcoin scams" and ICOs in 40 jurisdictions.[179]
Academic research published in the Journal of Monetary Economics concluded that price manipulation occurred during the Mt Gox bitcoin theft and that the market remains vulnerable to manipulation.[180] The history of hacks, fraud and theft involving bitcoin dates back to at least 2011.[181]
Research by John M. Griffin and Amin Shams in 2018 suggests that trading associated with increases in the amount of the Tether cryptocurrency and associated trading at the Bitfinex exchange account for about half of the price increase in bitcoin in late 2017.[182][183]
J.L. van der Velde, CEO of both Bitfinex and Tether, denied the claims of price manipulation: "Bitfinex nor Tether is, or has ever, engaged in any sort of market or price manipulation. Tether issuances cannot be used to prop up the price of bitcoin or any other coin/token on Bitfinex."[184]
The Bank for International Settlements summarized several criticisms of bitcoin in Chapter V of their 2018 annual report. The criticisms include the lack of stability in bitcoin's price, the high energy consumption, high and variable transactions costs, the poor security and fraud at cryptocurrency exchanges, vulnerability to debasement (from forking), and the influence of miners.[185][186][187]
The Economist wrote in 2015 that these criticisms are unfair, predominantly because the shady image may compel users to overlook the capabilities of the blockchain technology, but also due to the fact that the volatility of bitcoin is changing in time.[188]
Identification as a speculative bubble
Main article: Cryptocurrency bubble
Bitcoin, along with other cryptocurrencies, has been identified as an economic bubble by at least eight Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates, including Robert Shiller,[189] Joseph Stiglitz,[190] and Richard Thaler.[191][13] Noted Keyensian economist Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column criticizing bitcoin, calling it a bubble and a fraud;[192] and professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University called bitcoin the "mother of all bubbles."[193] Central bankers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan,[194] investors such as Warren Buffett,[195][196] and George Soros[197] have stated similar views, as have business executives such as Jamie Dimon and Jack Ma.[198]
Energy consumption
Bitcoin has been criticized for the amount of electricity consumed by mining. As of 2015[update], The Economist estimated that even if all miners used modern facilities, the combined electricity consumption would be 166.7 megawatts (1.46 terawatt-hours per year).[130]
At the end of 2017, the global bitcoin mining activity was estimated to consume between one and four gigawatts of electricity.[199] Politico noted that the even high-end estimates of bitcoin's total consumption levels amount to only about 6% of the total power consumed by the global banking sector, and even if bitcoin's consumption levels increased 100 fold from today's levels, bitcoin's consumption would still only amount to about 2% of global power consumption.[200]
To lower the costs, bitcoin miners have set up in places like Iceland where geothermal energy is cheap and cooling Arctic air is free.[201] Bitcoin miners are known to use hydroelectric power in Tibet, Quebec, Washington (state), and Austria to reduce electricity costs.[200][202][203][204] Miners are attracted to suppliers such as Hydro Quebec that have energy surpluses.[205] According to a University of Cambridge study, much of bitcoin mining is done in China, where electricity is subsidized by the government.[206][207]
Ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme concerns
Various journalists,[201][208] economists,[209][210] and the central bank of Estonia[211] have voiced concerns that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. In April 2013, Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, stated that "a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast, seems more like a collective delusion."[212] A July 2014 report by the World Bank concluded that bitcoin was not a deliberate Ponzi scheme.[213]:7 In June 2014, the Swiss Federal Council[214]:21 examined the concerns that bitcoin might be a pyramid scheme; it concluded that, "Since in the case of bitcoin the typical promises of profits are lacking, it cannot be assumed that bitcoin is a pyramid scheme." In July 2017, billionaire Howard Marks referred to bitcoin as a pyramid scheme.[215]
Security issues
Main article: Cryptocurrency and security
Bitcoin is vulnerable to theft through phishing, scamming, and hacking. As of December 2017[update], around 980,000 bitcoins have been stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges.[216]
Use in illegal transactions
See also: Bitcoin network § Alleged criminal activity
The use of bitcoin by criminals has attracted the attention of financial regulators, legislative bodies, law enforcement, and the media.[217] In the United States, the FBI prepared an intelligence assessment,[218] the SEC issued a pointed warning about investment schemes using virtual currencies,[217] and the U.S. Senate held a hearing on virtual currencies in November 2013.[219] The U.S. government claimed that bitcoin was used to facilitate payments related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[220]
Several news outlets have asserted that the popularity of bitcoins hinges on the ability to use them to purchase illegal goods.[129][221] Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that bitcoin's anonymity encourages money laundering and other crimes, "If you open up a hole like bitcoin, then all the nefarious activity will go through that hole, and no government can allow that." He's also said that if "you regulate it so you couldn't engage in money laundering and all these other [crimes], there will be no demand for Bitcoin. By regulating the abuses, you are going to regulate it out of existence. It exists because of the abuses."[222][223]
In 2014, researchers at the University of Kentucky found "robust evidence that computer programming enthusiasts and illegal activity drive interest in bitcoin, and find limited or no support for political and investment motives".[128] Australian researchers have estimated that 25% of all bitcoin users and 44% of all bitcoin transactions are associated with illegal activity as of April 2017[update]. There were an estimated 24 million bitcoin users primarily using bitcoin for illegal activity. They held $8 billion worth of bitcoin, and made 36 million transactions valued at $72 billion.[224][225] A group of researches analyzed bitcoin transactions in 2016 and came to a conclusion that "some recent concerns regarding the use of bitcoin for illegal transactions at the present time might be overstated".[226]
In popular culture
In Charles Stross' 2013 science fiction novel, Neptune's Brood, the universal interstellar payment system is known as "bitcoin" and operates using cryptography.[227] Stross later blogged that the reference was intentional, saying "I wrote Neptune's Brood in 2011. Bitcoin was obscure back then, and I figured had just enough name recognition to be a useful term for an interstellar currency: it'd clue people in that it was a networked digital currency."[228]
The 2014 documentary The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin portrays the diversity of motives behind the use of bitcoin by interviewing people who use it. These include a computer programmer and a drug dealer.[229] The 2016 documentary Banking on Bitcoin is an introduction to the beginnings of bitcoin and the ideas behind cryptocurrency today.[230]
In September 2015, the establishment of the peer-reviewed academic journal Ledger (.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}ISSN 2379-5980) was announced. It covers studies of cryptocurrencies and related technologies, and is published by the University of Pittsburgh.[231] The journal encourages authors to digitally sign a file hash of submitted papers, which will then be timestamped into the bitcoin blockchain. Authors are also asked to include a personal bitcoin address in the first page of their papers.[232][233]
See also
- Alternative currency
- Base58
- Crypto-anarchism
- List of bitcoin companies
- List of bitcoin organizations
- SHA-256 crypto currencies
- Virtual currency law in the United States
- Cryptography portal
- Business and economics portal
- Free and open-source software portal
- Internet portal
- Numismatics portal
- Money portal
External links
- Binance
- Bitcoin Center NYC
- Bitfinex
- bitFlyer
- Bithumb
- BitMEX
- Bitstamp
- Bittrex
- BTC Markets
- Coinbase
- Coincheck
- Coinfloor
- Coinrail
- Coins.ph
- Cryptopia
- Gemini
- Huobi
- Kraken
- LocalBitcoins
- OKEx
- ShapeShift
- Upbit
Proof-of-stake currencies
ERC-20 tokens
Other currencies
Related topics
- Airdrop
- BitLicense
- Blockchain game
- Complementary currency
- Crypto-anarchism
- Cryptocurrency bubble (2018 cryptocurrency crash)
- Digital currency
- Double-spending
- Initial coin offering
- Initiative Q
- List of cryptocurrencies
- Stablecoin
- Token money
- Virtual currency
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I am proud to announce the launch of our first online course "Understanding Islam." I am already teaching this course at four different Christian universities, and now make it available to homeschoolers and the general public.
This course examines Islam from a Christian perspective. The course covers the life of Muhammad, early Islamic history, the beliefs and practices of Muslims, the Qur'an and an evaluation thereof, Islamic theology, and sects and movements within Islam. The course will also introduce Christian evangelism to Muslims. The course is designed for a full college semester, but the student can move through the curriculum at his or her own pace. The password issued upon registering and paying for the course allows the student access to the course materials for a full six months. The tuition payment is "per student," with special permission given for multiple students who are siblings. For group tuition rates, please contact me.
Who am I? I have a law degree from The University of Texas, and a Master's degree in Islamic Studies. I lived and worked in the Middle East for seven years, making it a point to befriend and interact with as many Muslims as I could. As of the summer of 2015, I have been teaching various Islamic Studies courses for five years. I also train churches and other groups in evangelism to Muslims, and speak frequently on various topics related to Islam. I believe my education and experience make me uniquely qualified to teach Islam.
For homeschoolers and the general public, the assigned readings, book reviews, research paper, and exams are all optional. The educational software program we use will automatically grade the ten weekly quizzes, the mid-term exam and final exam. I encourage everyone to read the assigned materials. For homeschool parents, if you desire your student to prepare the book reviews and research papers, I encourage you to provide grades or feedback to your students on these assignments.
The usual price for the course is $299. However, to celebrate its launch, I am offering an special discount. Between now and August 31, 2015, use the coupon code "earlybird" to receive a 50% discount on the tuition. Using this code, the tuition will be only $149.50!
If you have any questions, please feel free to write me at email@example.com.
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text:
Oil of the Month Club is the best value out there. Sign-up Today!
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text:
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) – A teen from Williamson County, Tenn. is recovering in Huntsville after receiving a severe spinal cord injury this weekend.
15-year-old Hunter Garstin was hurt during a wrestling tournament at Huntsville High.
Wrestling officials tell WHNT News 19 the injury is rare, and somewhat of a freak accident.
Wrestling is a demanding sport that requires much time and dedication from the athletes and their families. As a result, there is a very tight knit community that has formed around the sport.
After Garstin was transported to Huntsville Hospital, boosters from Huntsville High sprang into action to help his family any way they could.
"We made arrangements for them to be taken care of the best we could, knowing that they'd be here for a while," said Joe Demos, a Huntsville High wrestling booster.
Demos says he and other boosters needed to make sure Garstin's family was cared for during this time.
"Any parent would if their own child were hurt, they'd want to know things were taken care of so everybody would have stepped up," said Demos.
Not just in Huntsville, but back home also, Garstin's friends and family are rallying around him.
"The Franklin community around where the high school is, Independence, has really stepped up, they're doing a lot for Hunter," said Demos.
The Williamson County Schools superintendent wrote a letter to the Huntsville wrestling community thanking them for the support of his student athlete.
"It meant a lot to me and it meant a lot to our organization," said Fred Kemp, Alabama USA Wrestling Chairman.
No matter who Hunter Garstin was representing on the mat, he's part of a much bigger picture.
"The wrestling community is a very close knit community, it's a very demanding sport, it requires a lot of discipline and dedication so anybody that's wrestled has the respect and is considered family," said Demos.
"The people that you meet that have been in wrestling for years and years, they basically call it a family and i think this weekend is evidence of that," Demos added.
Garstin's family tells WHNT News 19 he was moved from the ICU unit of Huntsville Hospital to a regular room today.
They expect him to be ready to go to Atlanta later this week to start rehab.
A "Prayers for Hunter Garstin" Facebook page has also been created. Find that page by clicking here.


text:
Spamradio is a non-profit making project which is focussed on turning spam (junk) email into an Internet audio broadcast.
This is the most frequently asked question (if you can believe it). There are many reasons that we felt inspired to create spamradio, but this is the main one:
Everybody hates spam. Mass-marketing junk email is the bane of the Internet. But it thinks very highly of itself. It invades your inbox every day with a sense of confidence. There is always a new sales pitch -- a new way that you can improve your life, if only you will take a few minutes to read. Anything this important shouldn't be ignored. Anything this important deserves its own radio show.
Turning junk email into a listenable broadcast is a multi-staged process, using a number of different technologies. Here is a summary of the process we use:
Yes, all the spam you hear on spamradio is genuine junk email which we have received. We go to great lengths to ensure that what you hear is a true representation of the original text email.
In many cases the original mail will be formatted using HTML, which we strip out as part of our spam processing pipeline. This is done in the interest of making our audio output as listenable as possible -- HTML tags do not make pleasant listening. This does not affect the actual content of the mail.
The exception to the above rule is that we replace any occurrences of email addresses in the original mail with firstname.lastname@example.com. Our reason for doing this is to protect the names of any innocent parties which may be inadvertently mentioned in the original mail.
Nothing. All mail to this address is simply discarded.
A kind gesture indeed! However, we are already receiving enough spam mail to keep the wheels of spamradio turning.
Monotonik have contributed 90% of the music that is currently playing on spamradio. Be sure to check them out for a diverse selection of free electronic music. The remaining 10% of music was written especially for spamradio.
The absolutely best way to help the spamradio project is to provide yourself as a relay site. This is a quick and effective way to share the burden of providing an 'always-on' audio stream. If you can help in this regard or know someone that can, please feel free to contact firstname.lastname@example.com for more info.


text:
- This event has passed.
Harlem Premier: A Hug for Harlem
April 27, 2017 - 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm| $25 – $30
Event Navigation
The Harlem Chamber Players bring Jeff Scott's momentous piece, A Hug for Harlem, to the Schomburg Center for its Harlem premiere. Scott, who writes what he calls "urban classical music, will draw from his experience composing musical "hugs" to honor personalities or locales. The heartrending A Hug for Harlem fuses strings, winds, percussion and spoken word and is inspired by prolific Harlem Renaissance writers, including Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Wallace Thurman. Grammy-nominated pianist Joseph Joubert will join us as a special guest artist, and Terrance McKnight of WQXRFM will be the host and orator.


text:
Well here it is! The news I have been so excited to share. Infinity Homes won Best Kitchen Design and Cabinetry and Best Master Suite in the 2011 Home Expo. This was my first real decorating job and I'm very proud of the outcome.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
2011 Home Expo Pictures!!!
Posted by Red House Happenings at 2:23 PM
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text:
Instagram hacked - users blame Russia
Numerous Instagram users are not capable of connecting to their accounts
Several days ago, Instagram users started reporting about a strange hack incident causing them serious issues while trying to reach their content on this social network. It seems that hackers managed to break into numerous accounts and replaced their images with random photos from such films as Despicable Me 3, Pirates of Caribbean, Shrek 2, etc. Additionally, they locked their victims out of their accounts by changing their email addresses.
According to Mashable,[1] this is almost a thousand users who have already reported about the hack on their Instagram accounts. According to Andy Norton, the head of Lastline,[2], it is sad that people hadn't activated the two-factor authentication on their accounts which would have caused fewer losses:
I very much doubt 2FA was in use in the hacked accounts, so switching on 2FA will certainly prevent this type of attack, said Andy Norton, director of threat intelligence at Lastline.
To prevent quick recovery, email addresses used by users to recover after losing passwords, have also been modified by hackers.
People blame Russia for such hack
The idea that the hack was caused by Russia came from the recovery email addresses added to hacked accounts. People noticed that their email addresses were changed to addresses that are using the mail.ru email provider:
Apparently Instagram is just as unsafe as Facebook, I've been hacked! And they used a damn Russian email address! said a user.
However, no matter that numerous users believe that Russian hackers are responsible for this attack, there is no guarantee that the hack is coming from Russia as email addresses are not that difficult to change, and the Russian email provider has been used just to trick everyone by displaying the wrong location.
A researcher from Comparitech.com[3] has confirmed that email addresses are easy to alter:
Email addresses are easily spoofed, either to conceal identity or to encourage finger-pointing toward the wrong place.
A little bit of prehistory
This is not the first time Instagram is dealing with the hack – there are numerous familiar activities that had been noticed in the past. However, the most of such hacks were initiated due to the attempt succeeding in Selena Gomez's Instagram account hack[4]. The bug that was set to hack Gomez's account let various hackers steal personal information, such as email addresses and other contact data, from numerous victims.
However, such activity is not going to stop in the nearest future. The hack which was launched recently, and responsible for numerous Instagram account takeovers, is the evidence that Internet criminals can show up at any time and reach anyone who hasn't take their accounts' safety seriously.
To prevent such hacks, be sure to activate the 2FA function[5]. It will require more details if the password is lost and will prevent hackers from stealing your account details or accessing your personal data.
About the author
- ^ Karissa Bell. Instagram users are reporting the same bizarre hack. Mashable. Latest news.
- ^ Lastline.com. All about cybersecurity.
- ^ Comparitech.com. Comparitech. Tech compared and reviewed.
- ^ Casey Newton. An Instagram hack hit millions of accounts, and victims' phone numbers are now for sale. The Verge. News site.
- ^ What is 2FA?. Secur Envoy. A Shearwater Group plc Company.


text:
We want the weird, spooky and unconventional side of Christmas. Entertain us with up to 300 words using Christmas Folklore as your inspiration. Closing date 15 December 2017
Tell a tale in 40 words with sound effects, cash prizes- they run regular mini contests so it's worth book marking their page. I've won in the past.
Tell a tale in 80 words in this bi monthly comp with cash prize and to raise funds for fighting homelessness. Here is their tiny anthology they are printing for a Xmas stocking filler. My tiny tail about a Mermaid has won in the past.
linked to the Bath FF Prize, this has a word prompt, 150 word limit, runs weekly and they compile an online e doc for you to vote and read.


text:
So.. my husband suffers from a rare ailment. At least, I THINK it's rare as I've never seen it mentioned anywhere else.
He's absolutely UNABLE to unpack a suitcase. Allergic? Phobia? No idea what to call it.
Stupid as that may sound it DOES pile up frustration over the years and I've had it. Right now there is a suitcase 1/4 unpacked laying in our dining room. It's been there for at least a month and will continue to lay there until I unpack it, move it, or set fire to it.. whichever mood strikes me.
I don't understand it. I mean, yeah,.. it's a minor thing to get annoyed over but he NEVER does it. And we've been together for years. In the beginning when he would go on business trips or on trips with me I would take pride in packing his suitcase for him. Making sure he had everything he needed right down to the amount of socks. Nowadays though I dread it, because I know I will have to unpack it when we get back. Just something that's expected (I hate thinking that too!) There's never effort to try on his part.. none. Why? why? So, what I'm curious about is this a 'guy' thing? Do other people have this issue and if so is it just tolerated quietly?
In a few days we are leaving on a trip and I am working to get things packed.. usually I enjoy doing it, but not this time. It's more frustrating than anything.. 😦


text:
Meet the Bloom Twins. The Ukraine-born identical twins have an intoxcating songs that we're obsessing over rn. They've toured with Duran Duran, have the coolest music videos and have today released their latest track Set Us Free! We caught up with them to chat gigs, secret addictions and what they've got on the agenda for the rest of 2016…
Tell us about yourself…
We moved to London 4 years ago and can't imagine ourselves being elsewhere. We are in love with British music, and love the fact that you're exposed here to so many creative places. London inspired us to write our first song and made us find our own sound that we call Dark Pop.
Your videos are amazing, which has been your favorite to create so far?
Our favorite video to create was 'Amnesia'. It felt so weird but cool and it describes us, and our music, so perfectly. Black and white, Yin and Yang.
How would you describe your aesthetic and how does it inspire your music?
The appreciation of beauty (for us) is in a form of art and self-realisations. What we wear or what we see is 360 degrees of music. It is an entire package that inspires one another. It sets no boundaries for art. If you are an artist, you are an artist at everything that you do.
Who's the coolest person you've met so far?
Each other. We meet new sides everyday, and we inspire one another to get better.
Where can we see you perform next?
We're going to be headlining Nambucca in London on December 13th!
What's the best gig you have ever played?
Our first headline show in Ukraine. We still can't forget the huge queue outside when doors opened. We felt like crying with joy! The energy, people, our parents that couldn't wait to hear us… best feeling ever! When we were on stage, we felt something special. The other incredible gigs were on tour with Duran Duran in Italy. Surreal, warm energy coming from thousands of people.
What's on the agenda for 2016?
To release a video for 'Set Us Free' and share our music with even more people across the UK
Who would you like to collaborate with and why?
We'd like to collaborate with Ryan Tedder from One Republic. He is so talented not only when he is on stage, but he is also an incredible and versatile songwriter. On stage, you can't stop looking at him because he's so mesmerizing.
Why do you think the relationship between fashion and music is so strong?
Fashion and music are like my sister and I – very connected and you can't tear it apart. Fashion is how our music looks. Two identical spooky twins on stage, with smoky eyes playing electronic music. That's the way we feel it.
What's your favorite music video?
Radiohead's 'Lotus Flower'. It's a perfect mix of getting crazy but still trying to stay the same – an absolutely iconic video.
What's your spirit animal?
Penguins. Do you ever see one of them on their own? They always stick to one another! Happy, black and white and energetic. Brings a smile to my face when I think about them 🙂
Who are you currently stalking on Instagram?
Zach King, Jared Leto and Ana Kuni. You don't know what magic is until you've seen Zach's work! We are absolutely in love with Jared Leto's documentaries; sometimes it gets dangerous, scary, but always inspiring. As for Ana Kuni, her art is beautiful. We actually have several pieces of her artwork, and we're trying to convince her to do some collaborations with us. It's always heartwarming to see your compatriot succeed.
What makes you laugh?
When people say: "Everyone, get ready. 3 2 1 Action! Guuuuuuys don't laugh, concentrate!!" Believe me, it's so tough not to laugh after this phrase.
What's your secret addiction?
Coffee. It's actually scary to imagine having a day without it.
Who's your celebrity wannabe wife?
Celebrities don't have time to sleep. How would they be able to spend the rest of their lives with me! We all need attention sometimes, don't we?
What would your superhero power be?
We already have one. We are able to read each other's minds. It's enough to just look at each other to understand what the other is thinking about.
What was the first thing you did this morning?
Turned my alarm off and continued sleeping!
Tell us something weird about yourself…
We say the same things at the same time. We sing the same melodies and have the same dreams. It's quite freaky.
Who are you listening to at the moment?
Bedouin, Nine Inch Nails, Disclosure, HVOB, Dua Lipa & Gorgon City.
What's your song to get you ready for a party?
'I Feel Love' by Donna Summer
What has been your favourite place you've travelled to?
Italy. The people are so warm and welcoming. There was the best energy ever and their food and COFFEE are off the scale.
If you were a Spice Girl which one would you be?
A Salty one…!
What do you love about Missguided?
We're loving the layered/urban feel items. Something which would definitely be a key ingredient to get us inspired for a cool RnB song.
What item of clothing can't you live without?
Boots of all kinds – we're super addicted. Having lines of them in the hallway and getting super excited / kinda sweating when passing by. The scary thing is that you always need more!
What items do you make sure you pack on your travels?
Pants, socks, boots & a harmonica
Who is your style icon and why?
Madonna (1984 to be precise). Very fresh, bubbly, but also smart and French-inspired. Her quote sums it all up – "do you think someone else could come up with it?"
Where do you look for fashion inspiration?
From 90s movies.
What best describes your style?
Black and white, but still young and flowering.
What's your favourite fashion trend this season and why?
Hippie – very tender and sophisticated. Almost like a teen becoming a woman. The Michael Kors and Burberry collections feel like they are also about being young and blooming beauty. Discovering who you are. Very 90s.
If you could steal anyone's wardrobe who's would it be?
I believe it is too hard to pick anyone's wardrobe really. All we want is a different one every season!
You can only wear one outfit for the rest of the year, what is it?
A long dress that I would cut gradually until it becomes short. That way I can wear one outfit that transforms itself.
Which city has the best fashion?
Every city has got a fashion that's inspired from another city – so I guess that city is called Planet Earth!
Wanna know more? Follow the Bloom Twins @bloomtwins
…and listen to their new track on Soundcloud:


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- Home
- Captive in the Dark
Page 32
Page 32
"Fuck no. I'd kill you." She said with such sincerity that Caleb couldn't help but chuckle against her thigh.
"Where'd you learn to talk like that?" he mocked gently. She responded by rocking her hips up slightly. She winced a little and they both remembered how hurt she was. He didn't want to make her ask again. He caressed her leg and delved his tongue a little deeper, probing, sucking her deep, pink folds into his mouth.
Unconsciously, she attempted to pull away from his mouth. Not because she wasn't enjoying it he knew, but because the sensation of being licked and sucked simultaneously was nearly too much sensation to bear. His mind entertained a fantasy of his cock being sucked into her mouth, the tip licked by her soft tongue and he groaned against her. His hips rocked hard into the bed, but he remained focused on her pleasure. He let up a little, allowing her to adjust and then he pulled her in tight and did it again.
She gasped and moaned and rocked her little pussy on the tip of his eager tongue and this time there was no thought of pain. There was only pleasure.
His fingers found her and spread her open. Within her wet folds he found the tiny opening to her body. He licked it and she shivered. He slicked the tip his finger against her clit, loving the way she whimpered and writhed. She moaned. "Caleb," and then her hands were in the way, pressing his fingers to her flesh in a plea for something she didn't fully understand yet. Her hand clutched at his, "It feels…oh god. I think…" And the rest went unsaid as he moved his hand against her clit and his mouth sucked her fingers.
He felt her pussy pulse beneath his hand and he wished he could see it, those tiny muscles contracting. Her pussy leaking wetness onto the bed. He'd lick that up too. But this wasn't about him.
For a long time, he rested his cheek against her thigh, panting and breathless, even as she was also panting and breathless. Her hand moved slowly and he nearly sighed when she ran her fingers through his hair. Despite the fact his dick felt like it had been punched in the eye, he wished this moment could last for a very long time. He couldn't be certain of her motives for trying to have sex with him, especially after all that had transpired between them and in the hours before he was able to reach her, but he could not deny that it had changed something in him, irrevocably. He had underestimated her in some way and she had found a way to affect him. At the moment, he couldn't bring himself to care, but soon, it would matter very much.
"What about you?" The words were sluggish and he suspected she was only being polite and had no real intention of moving, let alone helping him finish.
He smiled. "Don't worry about me. I'm not prone to acts of selflessness, so let's just both enjoy this moment." He looked up in time to see her smile to herself and then she gently nodded off to sleep.
He lifted himself off the bed as stealthily as possible and grabbed the clean sheets he had brought. The comforter was clean, so he didn't bother moving her, he just covered her up and climbed in next to her, clothes and all. He indulged himself for several minutes, simply looking at her, beyond the bruises.
An annoying beep pulled him away from his thoughts. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to remove his clothes and rub his dick across her soft skin. He wanted inside of her.
He shook himself and got up to pick up his phone from the floor. He had received a text:
He felt dizzy, then angry, then like yelling and throwing things around the room, and then…a deep, deep loss. He thought about the three and a half weeks with Livvie and the time that was now lost to them. All the debt piled high above his head. He stared at the text, feeling…nothing at all. He watched Livvie sleep and the rage that had always coiled and seethed, floated away.
Rafiq, he thought, Rafiq. Things had just become more complicated than he had ever dreamed. As he looked at the sleeping girl on the bed, only one thought entered his mind. Be strong. Whether he meant the thought for himself or the girl, he had no energy to guess. He only knew he wanted to get back in bed with her and pretend the last few minutes never happened.
***P/S: Copyright -->Novel12__Com


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Anti-trust: Dealing with Customers and Competitors Fairly (Compliance Snapshot)
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This course introduces how best to deal with customers and competitors fairly in a business setting. Businesses cannot employ the practice of discriminatory pricing when dealing with specific customers and in this course you will learn how to avoid these types of anti-trust laws and when it's ok to have different prices for the same product. You will also learn about the acts that shaped the anti-trust laws pertaining to illegal pricing and negotiation prices.
Course Objectives
At the conclusion of this course, you will be able to:
- Describe how discriminatory pricing is a violation of anti-trust laws
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- Identify when different prices for the same product are acceptable
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Designed to connect and engage College Connections English students, as well as to provide a place for them to submit and publish their works online. Submitted each spring, these works include poetry, short stories, creative nonfiction, and essays.
This website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


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Hello, hello! My name is Becky, a 21-year-old student in Virginia, USA!
I'm looking for a messaging pal, but I'm also open to the possibility of sending some snail mail.
So you can get an idea of who I am…
- Some various things I like: video games, Pokémon, books, tea, YouTube and Netflix browsing, spoken word poetry, adventure.
- I'm both a cat person and a dog person, and generally a people person.
- fun fact: I'm currently working on making 1000 origami cranes
I'm not too picky about ages (preferably 18+) or genders or anything, I'm happy to get to know whoever.
You can contact me on tumblr (burgerteddy.tumblr.com/)
or email (fireworksforpoorfolks @ gmail. com)!


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War Criminal Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
War criminals time and again become Nobel Peace Prize honorees. Peace champions most often are scorned.
Nobel Committee members usually honor societies' worst, ignoring the best. Rare exceptions prove how they've operated since 1901.
Alfred Nobel was a wealthy 19th century dynamite inventor, armaments manufacturer, and war-profiteer, sort of Lockheed-Martin of his time, a merchant of death – enriching himself from mass slaughter, vast destruction and human misery.
Deplorable past Peace Prize recipients included a rogue's gallery of war criminals, including ruthless Israeli officials, Henry Kissinger, Obama, and other US warrior presidents, Jimmy Carter the least belligerent among them.
Earlier war criminal nominees not winning the prize included Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, GHW Bush, and Tony Blair, among others.
Notables never awarded the prize included Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel Castro, Eleanor Roosevelt, peace champion Kathy Kelly, and Jack Kennedy.
The CIA killed him, largely for wanting peace in Southeast Asia, not war – for ordering US forces withdrawn from Vietnam, 1,000 by December 1963, the rest by end of 1965.
Documents and tapes released under the JFK Records Act proved it. Military disengagement from Southeast Asia was official US policy on the day of JFK's state-sponsored assassination.
Lyndon Johnson reversed his order. US-waged aggression in the region raged until Washington's pullout in April 1975.
Millions of Southeastern Asian lives were lost, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos raped, victims of US imperial lawlessness.
Trump belongs in prison for his high crimes of war and against humanity, for the slaughter of countless thousands of civilians in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere so far in office, for supporting the scourge of ISIS and other terrorists he pretends to oppose, for disdaining world peace and stability, for waging a campaign against social justice and ecosanity.
Norwegian hard-right lawmakers Christian Tybring-Gjedde and Per-Willy Amundsen disgracefully nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Justifying the unjustifiable, Amundsen turned truth on its head, claiming "(a) process is underway to ensure world peace in the future," adding:
"It's a fragile process, but we must, of course, do what we can to help this process yield good results."
"I believe we can accomplish this by sending a clear signal, namely by awarding Trump the Nobel Peace Prize.
In naming Obama its 2009 Nobel Peace Prize honoree, Committee members disgraced themselves, saying:
It reflects his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" – a bald-faced lie!
Obama's "vision…and work (supports) a world without nuclear weapons" – more rubbish! In 2016, he approved spending $1 trillion or more to upgrade Washington's nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years.
Trump continues his agenda, earlier saying "(t)he United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
Separately, he added "let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."
Nobel Committee members on Obama deplorably added "(o)nly very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."
In office, he terror-bombed seven countries in eight years, waged war on social justice, served privileged interests at the expense of ordinary people, signed into law police state measures, authorized indefinite detention and assassinations of anyone on his say, and waged war on unwanted immigrants, earning the dubious reputation as America's Deporter-in-Chief.
He exceeded the ruthlessness of Bush/Cheney and the Clinton co-presidency. Trump so far outdid the worst of his lawlessness domestically and geopolitically.
His summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un was all about wanting another imperial trophy, getting the DPRK to bend to Washington's will in return for empty promises, along with wanting China isolated regionally.
It's highly unlikely Trump will fare better than its predecessors in dealing with North Korea.
Most likely current talks will fail in the months or years ahead like earlier ones with the DPRK – broken US promises dooming them, a repeat the most likely scenario playing out ahead.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at email@example.com.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."


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Grey Goose Crowns Gabrielle Panaccio 2013 Pour Masters Bartender
They came, they saw, they sipped: after a whirlwind tour in search of the country's best Cherry Noir flavoured vodka cocktail, the annual GREY GOOSE Pour Masters Competition came to a dramatic finale with Montreal bartender Gabrielle Panaccio, of Le Lab Comptoir a Cocktails, claiming the top prize.
GREY GOOSE Global Ambassador Ludo Miazga along with celebrity mixologist Marian Beke of Nightjar Bar in London, judged the four regional competitions in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal where 47 of Canada's top bartenders vied for the top spot of Pour Master of the year. Bringing a new twist to the annual mixology event, competitors were tasked to create a cocktail using a local ingredient from their hometown, a French ingredient inspired by GREY GOOSE's heritage, and the hero ingredient – GREY GOOSE Cherry Noir flavoured vodka, made with hand-picked black cherries from the Basque region of France.Grey Goose Crowns Gabrielle Panaccio 2013 Pour Masters Bartender
"Pour Masters is unlike any other bartending event in Canada," said Michael Corvese, Brand Manager, Bacardi Canada Inc. "We strive to bring together the country's best bartenders to showcase their skills in competition, and this year's competitors brought a whole new level of quality craftsmanship."
The regional winners astounded the judges with their creativity and passion. From Oliver Stern's elegant MariLou cocktail in Toronto and Jimmy Nguyen's innovative use of a coffee filter in Calgary, to Vancouverite Robyn Gray's Foie Gras-stuffed cherry garnish in his Duck Duck Goose cocktail, the 2013 competitors raised the bar for cocktail culture in Canada.Grey Goose Crowns Gabrielle Panaccio 2013 Pour Masters Bartender
"The GREY GOOSE Pour Master competition was truly an eye-opening experience to the tremendous talent in Canada," said Ludo Miazga, GREY GOOSE Global Ambassador. "I have worked with renowned mixologists from all over the world, and our Canadian competitors certainly measured up. I was continuously amazed with the innovation and creativity that they brought to the table, making this one of the hardest competitions I've ever had to judge."
Despite 46 inspiring creations and three regional winners, Panaccio was awarded the title of national winner. Dazzling the judges with her winning cocktail, Decoction de Printemps, Panaccio upped the ante by combining GREY GOOSE Cherry Noir flavoured vodka with Dolin vermouth, smoked applewood maple syrup, Lapsang Suchuong tea, and a dash of bitter tonic. A truly immersive experience, inspired by a sort of 'doctor's potion,' or elixir, Panaccio's concoction received top marks across the board with all judges.Grey Goose Crowns Gabrielle Panaccio 2013 Pour Masters Bartender
"Delicate, elegant, professional and humble, Gabrielle brought a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to the Pour Masters competition," said Miazga. "Not only did she exemplify creativity, finesse, and flair, Gabrielle preserved the authenticity of the Cherry Noir flavoured vodka, bringing it to a whole new dimension."
As the national winner, Panaccio will move on to represent Canada and compete at the GREY GOOSE 10, a global mixologist competition taking place in France in September. The three regional winners -Jimmy Nguyen from Calgary, Robyn Gray from Vancouver, and Oliver Stern from Toronto – received a prizewinning trip to Tales of the Cocktails in New Orleans later this month.


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Robert writes:
The only video camera I have is my smartphone. I want to do YouTube videos with my phone while avoiding camera shake. So is there a tripod that is made for a smartphone?
Thanks for asking me, Robert. It's got me thinking about solutions for my own smartphone again. The one that comes to mind right away is the MilliMount, a Kickstarter-funded project that is just now beginning to ship. The MilliMount is designed for a variety of smartphone mounting setups, including tripod mounting and windshield mounting (useful not only for recording but for using your smartphone as a GPS device). It can also be used as a simple phone stand.
Some of the team here at LockerGnome have MilliMounts being delivered to their home as I'm typing this; our own Ryan Matthew Pierson received his yesterday and describes it as a simple and sturdy device that "works pretty well, though it probably won't accommodate most of the larger screen Android phones. I could just barely fit my iPhone 5 with a case in the thing." During the Kickstarter campaign, the designer noted that the phone would fit most phones, so I would advise anyone with a device that could be referred to as a phablet to wait until the team behind the device develops a version of the MilliMount that will accommodate larger smartphones.
The Steadicam is the industry-standard (I'm referring to film and television industry) equipment for keeping a film or video camera stable. Steadicams use a system of counterbalancing mechanics to keep the camera steady. A professional Steadicam, of course, would be a bit of overkill for the purpose of keeping a smartphone from delivering shaky video. The Picosteady is a Steadicam-like mounting system (also funded by a Kickstarter campaign) that is designed for a variety of cameras, including DSLR cameras, point-and-shoot cameras, and GoPro cameras. As with the MilliMount, the Picosteady is designed to fit most smartphones.
Steadicam-like stabilizers are awesome, but there are also a variety of very simple, purpose-specific stabilizing mounts, many of which are also designed for specific smartphones. Some of these are very well made; others, less so. You generally get what you pay for. If you're serious about reducing the shakiness of your video and don't want to come across as an amateurish videographer using nothing more than duct tape and a coat hanger (which may very well work for you, actually), you're going to want to look for a Steadicam-like stabilizer, and those are usually more expensive than the mounts which don't rely on balancing and counterbalancing physics.
Anyone who can recommend some other smartphone stabilizing devices, please chime in! I'd love to hear about some other ways of reducing shakiness while recording with a smartphone, even if your method involves duct tape.


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Online information of Sonitpur District of Assam
In this article, I will explain the online information and about the tourist places of Sonitpur district of Assam. It is one of the popular district of Assam. If you ever come to this district never forget to take the joy of it. Read the full article to know more about the Sonitpur district of Assam.
About Sonitpur District of Assam
Sonitpur is one of the best district of Assam. This district is more important because is the administrative district of Assam. The headquarter of Sonitpur lacated in Tezpur town of Assam. The two cities are known as the "City of Blood". The name is so because of there is a very old story about it. This story was a romantic story of Usha who was the daughter of Banasura, the king of Asura and Anirudha who was the grandson of Lord Krishna. When the asura king got the information that Anirudha was the grandson of Lord Krishna who is the enemy of him then he imprisoned Aniruddha. Then to save his grandson Lord Krishna came to Banasura and there was a big fight took place between them and the whole city was drenched in human blood. The city was the district Sonitpur. So sonitpur is called as the "City of Blood". This district is located on the north bank of the river Brahmaputra. It is surrounded by some major districts, such as: Morigaon, Nagaon, Jorhat and Golaghat of Assam. This district is the second largest district of Assam due to its total land area is very big in comparison with other districts of Assam.
Important information of Sonitpur District of Assam
Rupkonwar Jyoti Prasad Agarwala
Kalaguru Bishnu Prasad Rava
Natasurya Phani Sarma
Lakhidhar Sarma
Agnikavi Kamalakanta Bhattacharjee
Ananda Chandra Agarwala
Padmanath Gohain Baruah
Dandinath Kalita
There are many Schools, Colleges and Universities are present in Sonitpur district of Assam. I have given the list of Schools and Colleges of Sonitpur district of Assam below.
Tezpur University
B.N.College of Agriculture
Biswanath College
B. T. College
Darrang College
T.H.B. College
Teachers Training College
Tezpur College
Tezpur Law College
P.G. College of Education
Tezpur Girls' College
L.O.K.D. College
Rangapara College
Chaiduar College
The Assam Valley School
Sacred Heart High School
Don Bosco High School
St. Joseph's Convent High School
Govt Boys High School
Govt Girls High School
Bengali Boys' H S School
Bengali Girls' High School
Guru Nanak Model School
Tezpur Academy
Children's Paradise School
Carmel Residential School
Bare Shaharia Bhaona
Shivaratri Fair
Balichar Festival
Ban Theatre, Tezpur
Tarun Asom Sangha, Tezpur
Jyoti Bharati,Tezpur
Jonaki Cinema Hall, Tezpur
Hem Baruah Hall
Jyoti Kala Kendra Sangeet Mahavidyalaya
Estantic Club and many more.
Tezpur Station Club
Borsola Gymkhana Club
Thakurbari Club
Biswanath Gymkhana Club
East Boroi Club
Chitralekha Udyan (Cole Park)
Padum Pukhuri
District Museum at Dak Bungalow
Ouguri hill
Trimurty Udyan
The Hazara Pukhuri
Bamuni Hills
Da Parbatia
Mahabhairab Temple
Rudrapada Temple
Nine lines Inscription of Harjjar Varma
Bhairabi Devalaya
Where to Stay in Sonitpur district of Assam
There are many hotels and lodges are available in Sonitpur district of Assam. There are also one tourist lodge is available there. The hotels of Sonitpur district of Assam give all types of modern facilities. The Hotel and Lodges of Sonitpur district of Assam are:
Other Attractions of Sonitpur district of Assam
There are many tourist attractions are there in Sonitpur district of Assam. You can travel these tourist places and enjoy the tourist attractions of this district. the best tourist places of Sonitpur district of Assam are:


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We welcome your referrals and requests for second opinions and look forward to collaborating with you, especially on complex restorative and aesthetic cases, to create a successful outcome for your patients.
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