Bitcoin round-up
As vertcoin sees a major spike following the launch of stealth addresses, the dogecoin community gets a new Foundation IBTimes UK

Bitcoin is bouncing back big time in the last week with the successful Silk Road auction providing a renewed impetuous for the investor interest in the cryptocurrency.

The cryptocurrency has jumped 4% in value in the last 24 hours alone, as investors believe the level of interest shown in the US Marshal Service's sell-off of the ill-gotten Silk Road gains, indicates that there is a positive future for the world's best-known cryptocurrency.

However, bitcoin's jump has strangely not seen the rest of the big altcoins record gains, with litecoin, peercoin, darkcoin and dogecoin all recording drops of between 1% and 7% in the last day.

Vertcoin stealth addresses launched

Vertcoin

One altcoin which has made significant gains however is vertcoin, which has risen in value by more than 85% in the last 24 hours.

The reason for the spike in value is the release of stealth addresses for the cryptocurrency. Stealth addresses allow payees to publish a single, fixed address that payors can use to send funds privately and non-interactively.

Stealth addresses have been proposed for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies previously but vertcoin is said to be the first to implement them.

The spike in value follows a prolonged three week drop in the value of vertcoin, as users and investors became increasingly worried about a lack of updates from developers.

Vertcoin hit the headlines back in February when its value rocketed virtually overnight with its market capitalisation going from $1 million (£580,000) to over $10 million in the space of 72 hours.

However despite the almost 90% price spike in the last 24 hours, vertcoin's market cap is still just $2.5m.

Dogecoin Foundation 2.0 launched

Dogecoin has been going through somewhat of an existential crisis of late, with in-fighting, high profile departures and potential network issues seeming to be at odds with the community's happy-go-lucky profile.

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In a bid to address these issues a group of dogecoin enthusiasts have announced the launch of a new Dogecoin Foundation, which will "facilitate the use of dogecoin through goodwill, promotional, and charitable endeavours. It works to ensure the continued prospering of the worldwide Dogecoin Community and to empower people around the globe by spreading a spirit of camaraderie and playful discovery."

A temporary board of five directors has been announced and it plans on publishing a roadmap of future plans online soon.

Will it be enough to get the meme-based cryptocurrency back to its former glory? Only time will tell.

Silk Road auction results revealed

Bitcoin is back. That would seem to be the result of the first auction held by the US Marshals Service to sell off the bitcoins seized as part of the shutting down of the illegal online drugs marketplace Silk Road last year.

While exact details of pricing and just who won and lost have not been released, the Marshals Service has revealed that 45 registered bidders had taken part and 63 total bids were received for the bitcoins.

It added on Monday: "The award process is ongoing, and we will have no further announcements today."

On Twitter, the CEO of luxury bitcoin marketplace BitPremier, Alan Silbert said those investors who were not successful in the auction would still be looking to get involved with bitcoin:

Alan's brother Barry Silbert wasn't so positive however, after he revealed that the SecondMarket consortium he created to allow smaller investors take part in the auction, didn't win any of the bitcoins:

Bitcoin