As our regular listeners know, New York is where Marketplace Tech lives. And while the evidence that NYC is a legitimate challenger to Silicon Valley isn’t hard to find, any conversation about a home grown technology industry must still include that comparison. And senior editor of Quartz Zach Seward joins us to play Silicon Tally.

By now, the tech world is familiar with transparency reports from companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook. The reports detail a number of metrics, like how many law enforcement requests have come in for email data. The takeaway from Google this year was that government snooping is way up. Now, just before 2013 draws to a close, the world is getting a new set of reports from older tech companies like Verizon and AT&T. 

The idea of turning a blog into a book is nothing new, but Kevin Kelly, author and former editor of Wired magazine, has gone all out for his new book, Cool Tools. It’s based on the idea of an old catalog, called the Whole Earth Catalog. It’s big, colorful, and it features scannable QR codes attached to many of the nearly 1500 descriptive entries so that you can buy an object you like with a click of the smartphone.

One of the most respected cyber security firms in the business, RSA, has reportedly accepted money from the National Security Agency to push a flawed security product. This is connected to earlier revelations about the NSA building back doors into encryption to help its surveillance programs. Plus, Netflix’s programming for kids. And, news of a little app that might be helpful to parents by providing video proof, sort of, that Santa was here.

There’s a new charitable giving startup built by students at the University of North Carolina. It launched during finals week, and it’s designed to help us give a little something extra to families in need while we do our own last minute holiday shopping. The company is called CommuniGift, and it’s partnered with online retailer Amazon. Plus, how technology helps us find shipwrecks. And, today’s Techsplainer is about protecting your passwords.

Bitcoin has had a wild week, in no small part because the huge road block the currency hit in China. There the exchange is called BTC China. In recent months the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed thanks to people buying it up in the country, where the national currency is tightly controlled, but a few days ago the Chinese government put on the breaks, forcing the exchange to stop accepting Chinese currency. That cut the price of Bitcoin in half, but there’s still plenty of interest in the country. 

China’s largest Bitcoin exchange, BTC China has been forced to stop taking Chinese currency. The move follows a reported meeting this week between payment processing companies in the country and the People’s Bank of China, and a decision by national financial agencies in the country earlier this month that effectively banned dealing in Bitcoin, the so-called cryptocurrency — which Marketplace Tech has been looking at all week — seems either on the verge of collapse or going to the next level. So, which is it? Plus, the first piece of artwork created with Google Glass.

All this week, Marketplace Tech is talking about the digital currency Bitcoin. We’ve heard about what it is and how a company called Coinbase is trying to help more customers and businesses use it for transactions. Today we talk to one of the new businesses that is starting to use Bitcoin — a private medical practice in San Francisco. Plus, healthcare.gov gets a new boss. And, new regulations could be coming for data brokers.

All this week, Marketplace Tech is talking about the digital currency Bitcoin. Yesterday, we found out that like most forms of currency, Bitcoin is “a massive hallucination we all agree upon.” But it’s also a techy idea — a network where computers with a shared record of transactions can trade long strings of letters and numbers to keep track of who has what. Whether that description sounds simplistic or overly complicated, there’s a company designed to make sure we don’t ever have to worry about it. Plus, what options are there for people who need to replace their incandescent bulbs after new efficiency standards go into effect in 2014?