2014

01-09 Overstock started accepting Bitcoin in keeping with Byrne’s rebellious attitude and willingness to challenge the status quo. The ensuing excitement in the cryptocurrency community resulted in $126,000 worth of sales made with Bitcoin in just the first day.
01-14 Evolution Marketplace launched and saw rapid growth within its first several months, helped in part by law enforcement seizures of some of its competitors during the six-month-long investigation codenamed Operation Onymous
01-21 Las Vegas casinos adopt new form of currency.

02-07 Mt. Gox halted withdrawals due to insolvency after an apparently undetected theft that had been occurring since 2011. The company said it was pausing withdrawal requests “to obtain a clear technical view of the currency processes”.
02-24 Mt. Gox suspended trading. Hours after trading halted, the website went offline, returning a blank page.
02-25 Mt. Gox reported on its website that a “decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being”, citing “recent news reports and the potential repercussions on MtGox’s operations”.

04-14 Wladimir van der Laan announces Marco Falke as the new Testing & QA maintainer for Bitcoin Core.

05-01 Dark Wallet Alpha released. Dark Wallet was an early attempt to improve the anonymity of Bitcoin transactions. Cody Wilson and Amir Taaki created Dark Wallet. It was a digital wallet that enhanced data anonymization by obfuscating Bitcoin transactions. Although it was never really completed, Dark Wallet inspired many later anonymity projects. Samourai Wallet and Electrum on Tails offer many of the anonymity benefits for Bitcoin users that Dark Wallet once promised.

07-18 “Dell is now the world’s largest ecommerce business to accept bitcoin.” – Michael Dell

09-12 TeraExchange received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to begin listing an over-the-counter swap that is based on the price of a bitcoin. The CFTC approval marks the first time a US regulatory agency approved a bitcoin financial product.

10-06 Infamous bitcoin bearwhale event: An unnamed investor, the so-called bitcoin BearWhale, dumped approximately 30,000 bitcoins on the market. Over the course of six hours, the price stalled at $300 until all of the coins were sold off and the BearWhale was slayed.

Image – courtecy to @crayonsmell npub18mema8d3u0ex37zwjdadw0rgwu4933hlemqagtlwaa0jzjk3atusqluyuj

10-14 “The Darknet - From Memes to Onionland. An Exploration” by !Mediengruppe Bitnik opens in Kunstalle St. Gallen / Switzerland exhibiting The Random Darknet Shopper, an automated online shopping bot which is provided with a budget of $100 in Bitcoins per week. Once a week the bot goes shopping in the deep web where it randomly chooses and purchases one item and has it mailed directly to the exhibition space. Once the items arrive they are unpacked and displayed, each new object adding to a landscape of traded goods from the Darknet.

11-05 Operation Onymous¹, a joint law enforcement operation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the European Union Intelligence Agency Europol, is executed. The international effort also included the United States Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Eurojust. The operation was part of the international strategies that address the problems of malware, botnet schemes, and illicit markets or darknets. It was also linked with the war on drugs effort with the participation of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). A number of websites, initially claimed to be over 400, were shut down including drug markets that facilitated trade with Bitcoin such as Silk Road 2.0, Cloud 9 and Hydra”.

12-11 Microsoft starts accepting bitcoin. Bitcoin can be used to fund a Microsoft Account, allowing owners to purchase content from the Windows and Xbox games, music, and video stores.