The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is thinking about approving a number of blockchain companies as it actively encourages businesses to utilize bitcoin’s underlying technology. Despite the fact that some regulators are cautious over the use of blockchain technology, the U.K.’s FCA is known as the most forward-thinking. It comes as no surprise then, that in an interview with the Financial Times, Chris Woolard, the FCA’s director of strategy and competition, explained that the FCA believes that the blockchain technology has some potentially interesting applications. He said: We are talking to firms thinking about how to apply that to financial services and how it could benefit consumers or indeed make the business of compliance easier. There may be areas where we might want to encourage it a bit. https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/uk-regulator-considers-approving-blockchain-startups/ |
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A local Florida Bitcoin seller recently saw all charges against him dismissed by a judge. That seemed rather strange, considering Michell Espinoza was under investigation for money laundering and unlicensed money transmission. However, the judge ruled. Bitcoin is not money. The state of Florida is now appealing that decision, and this case will drag on for quite some time. Back in 2014, when Espinoza was arrested for money laundering and unlicensed money transmission using Bitcoin, the charges seemed pretty solid. Unfortunately for the government, the outcome was very different from what they had hoped. Judge Teresa Mary Pooler ruled Bitcoin is not money. Hence Espinoza did nothing illegal by definition of the law. http://themerkle.com/state-of-florida-appeals-bitcoin-is-not-money-verdict/ |
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The way we vote relies on a system that has undergone little to no changes over the past few decades. Some countries switched from paper ballots to electronic voting, but the process remains the same. Over in Australia, the postal service indicated they want to use blockchain technology for digital voting. This should improve efficiency and provide more transparency. A recent submission was made to the Victorian Electoral Matters Committee regarding blockchain-based voting. The current voting process is cumbersome, far from efficient, and rather costly. By embracing blockchain solutions, all of these concerns would be alleviated, while improving the counting of votes at the same time. http://www.livebitcoinnews.com/blockchain-based-voting-will-come-to-australia-soon/ |
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The Bundy Ranch has had its PayPal accounts blocked. The Bundys, a US family of cattle ranchers in Nevada, rose to fame (notoriety?) in 2014 for refusing to pay the federal government for grazing rights on federal lands. This conflict resulted in an armed standoff between federal agents and supporters of the Bundys, many of them members of private militias from across the country. The standoff ended without violence, and members of the Bundy family had been receiving donations in support of their plight through PayPal. The Facebook page run to support the Bundy family and their struggle against the federal government posted the bad news early on Tuesday morning: https://www.facebook.com/bundyranch/posts/1084534661623341:0https://cointelegraph.com/news/paypal-freezes-bundy-ranch-accounts-will-they-switch-to-bitcoin |
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John Bush, Catherine Bleish, their two children, and their two dogs have endeavored to take on the challenge of traveling across the U.S. with the intention of educating and informing the people they meet on cryptocurrencies and how to use them. They intend to focus on bitcoin, ethereum, and dash, and will also teach people about the value of peer-to-peer technologies and decentralized social organization in their new Bitcoin Bus home. https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/blush-familys-bitcoin-bus-tour-dash-across-america/ |
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Stefan Thomas, who introduced millions of people to bitcoin, has had a change of heart. Blockchain, the ledger software that makes the digital currency possible, is too rigid to gain wide adoption, he wrote in an essay titled “The Subtle Tyranny of Blockchain.” The technology’s backers think it can revolutionize a wide range of industries including finance, international trade and health care. But tweaking the software -- as will inevitably be necessary as pioneers bring it to new areas -- requires consensus from a huge collection of software developers and so-called miners who make up the bitcoin network. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-18/man-who-introduced-millions-to-bitcoin-says-blockchain-is-a-bust |
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Dr. Web states that: “This malware possesses the ability to collect information about an infected computer and transfer it to the C&C server, download and launch a crypto-currency mining utility, and attack other computers on the network to install its own copy on them.” The main purpose of this malware is to convert computers that use Linux into crypto-currency generators. It basically performs three key functions; * It gains information about an infected computer and sends it to the C&C server (command and control) * It downloads and launches a crypto-currency mining program after receiving a configuration file from the C&C server * Searches for other computers on the network to install another copy of the cryptocurrency miner program and looks for Monero, a type of cryptocurrency https://www.hackread.com/linux-malware-bitcoin-mining-software/ |
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Dubai’s government seeks to bolster the development of new technologies with a startup accelerator –comprised of a $275 million investment fund–. Organizers said that Blockchain applications will be considered. The announcement was made last week by Dubai Future Foundation, as part of the proposal, the foundation spoke about an accelerator program spanning a period of 12 weeks, and directed at new companies (startups) looking to operate under United Arab Emirates jurisdiction. http://themerkle.com/dubai-opens-up-an-accelerator-for-blockchain-startups/ |
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The controversial entrepreneur Kim Dotcom said last month that he was preparing to relaunch Megaupload, the file-sharing site that U.S. and New Zealand authorities dramatically shut down in 2012, with bitcoins being involved in some way. Now we know more. Dotcom, a German-Finnish man living in New Zealand and currently fighting extradition to the U.S. over copyright-infringement charges, tweeted Friday that the transfers taking place over Megaupload would be linked to very small bitcoin transactions.. http://fortune.com/2016/08/05/bitcoin-megaupload-kim-dotcom/ |
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The service operated normally for the space of 8 days, with an average daily volume of 1.44 BTC. However, on August 2, the company announced the discontinuation of the website: Dear customers, we are currently reviewing some of our processes and regulatory framework, with the hopes of continuing to provide a legally viable service. We will release further information in the next days. We implore our customers to contact our support department to process all withdrawals. Colbitex was offering Bitcoin exchange services with local currency (The Colombian Peso COP). The suspension comes a week after Colbitex entered formal operations and it’s a major setback for the local Bitcoin ecosystem. The regulatory revision will establish a legal precedent in the government’s stance on cryptocurrencies. http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/08/05/colombias-first-bitcoin-exchange-colbitex-forced-close-shop/ |
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Bitcoin ATM network Coinsource has announced that it has installed four new Bitcoin ATMs last month, thereby becoming the largest Bitcoin ATM operator in the United States, and the most geographically diverse. In July, the Dallas-based firm installed new Bitcoin ATMs in New York, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, bringing its total number of machines to 42 across seven states. Of the four new machines, one was installed in Las Vegas, one in Staten Island, and two in Philadelphia. “We are extremely proud to be America’s number one Bitcoin ATM network, but it is our customers and the cryptocurrency phenomenon that deserve the credit. Bitcoin has proven to be one of the world’s highest performing investments. As Bitcoin becomes even easier to use and is accepted as payment in more and more venues, the list of users and use-cases has increased exponentially. From the beginning, our team wanted to solve the access problem for Bitcoin. Today, millions of consumers across the United States can find reliable, safe, instant access to a compliant Coinsource Bitcoin ATM nearby”, Coinsource CEO Sheffield Clark said. http://www.econotimes.com/Coinsource-becomes-largest-bitcoin-ATM-operator-in-America-244756 |
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coindesk-bpi-chart (39) Following a 20% decline in the price of bitcoin this week, uncertainty continues to cast a shadow on broader market activity. Bitcoin prices fell to a low of $480 on Tuesday amidst news Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex had lost nearly 120,000 BTC in a high-profile hack. But while the price has recovered to $580 at press time, the $68m loss and the subsequent shutdown of the exchange has sent shockwaves throughout the industry. Days after Bitfinex first halted trading, much about the path forward for the company remains unknown, including whether it will be able to reimburse investors who lost funds in the incident. All of this is creating a difficult market for traders, according to Petar Zivkovski, director of operations for bitcoin trading platform Whaleclub. http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-regains-market-will-bitfinex-close/ |
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If you think about it from a crypto economics perspective, what happened to Bitcoin this week with the inclusion of Ethereum on Coinbase is frankly devastating to Bitcoin’s brand image - and utility. Coinbase, founded in 2012, sitting on a fat 4.1 million customer userbase, and backed by some of the deepest pockets in Silicon Valley... the crypto services giant had always been staunchly a believer in Bitcoin exclusivity until this week’s rollout. As wildly exciting as the Ethereum community and ecosystem are becoming, in the back of one’s mind was the realization that it is still not in the same league as Bitcoin - can’t move it onto Coinbase and have it in my bank account as fiat currency the next day. Can’t buy it on Coinbase with a MasterCard instant buy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-seaman/bitcoin-the-bell-tolls-fo_b_11148312.html |
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https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Selection_20160722_006.pngBitcoin price decline intensifies under the bearish conditions emphasized in yesterday’s analysis post. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the bitcoin price charts so bearish across timeframes. Of course, there is no other asset out there that even comes close to Bitcoin’s super-fundamentals (censorship resistance, cryptographic security, mathematical consensus), yet, being unregulated (and beyond regulation by design) and floating freely in the open market, the price chart is traded up and down like any other commodity – irrespective of fundamentals or news events. The 4hr view is shown in the attached chart. Breach of the ascending blue trendline signals that the largest players are willing to concede some selling – despite ample resources in a market with low liquidity, they failed to defend that trendline. https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-decline-100-confirmed/
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The ethereum ecosystem is returning to normalcy following a high-profile hack last month that resulted in nearly $60m worth of investor funds ending up under the control of an unknown group or individual. The 'theft', as some would label it, was eventually reversed through what's known as a hard fork, a change in the code, 'approved' by an informal community vote, that effectively moved the disputed funds to a new account where investors could withdraw their original investments. But while the immediate impact was limited to the ethereum platform, the implications of its decisions have echoed across the blockchain community, influencing everyone from already ardent ethereum developers to bank consultants seeking to build private blockchain solutions. Joining this larger discussion have been bitcoin's software developers, many of whom have publicly claimed that ethereum's decisions not only permanently alter the value propositions of its platform, but have generated negative publicity that could harm all blockchain applications. Unlike traditional database technology, one of the distinguishing features of a blockchain is that its ledger of transactions is distributed among all users, which gives participants involved the confidence of knowing they’re using the same record of credits and debits. But these developers and infrastructure architects are growing increasingly concerned that now that ethereum has set a precedent for consensus formation based on the leadership of individuals, other blockchains might be compelled by regulators to make additional changes. Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd told CoinDesk: "This is potentially a very negative thing for bitcoin because it sets a precedent that an option to go deal with one of these failures is to go reset the chain, reverse things, and so on. It really calls into question the immutabilty of all these systems." http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-core-ethereum-hard-fork-unsettling-precedent/ |
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From Reuters comes the story of Texas man Trendon Shavers: Shavers, who pleaded guilty in September 2015 to one count of securities fraud and who now supports himself as a cook, said in court he had “royally messed up,” and had lost friends and embarrassed his family as a result of his fraud. …Prosecutors said from 2011 to 2012, Shavers, 33, raised at least 764,000 bitcoins, which at the time were worth more than $4.5 million, for his Bitcoin Savings and Trust. He operated the business from his home, offering bitcoin-related investments through the internet. Prosecutors said Shavers solicited the investments on the website Bitcoin Forum, and promised interest rates of 7 percent per week to investors who loaned bitcoins to Bitcoin Savings and Trust while he pursued a market arbitrage strategy. While Shavers invested some of the bitcoins with Mt. Gox, the now-defunct Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, he largely in typical Ponzi scheme fashion used new investors’ bitcoins to pay back prior investors, prosecutors said. Perhaps the prosecutors should turn their eye to bitcoin itself, a countryless, central bankless, digital pyramid with a global bid. http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/07/ironically-bitcoin-trader-done-for-ponzi-scheme/ |
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The first federal securities fraud case involving a bitcoin investment scheme has ended with perpetrator Trendon Shavers receiving a sentence of 18 months in prison. In addition, Shavers was assessed penalties including three years of supervised release, a $100 special assessment, $1.2m in forfeiture and $1.2m in restitution. The decision puts to rest a case that began in July 2013 when Shavers was charged with defrauding investors through an investment service called Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BCS&T), which was later deemed to be a fraudulent ponzi scheme. Shavers, who was charged with one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud, faced up to 40 years in prison. He pled not guilty to fraud charges in March 2015, a decision he would later reverse in September of that year as part of a plea deal that lowered his possible sentence to a maximum of 41 months. http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-ponzi-scheme-18-months-prison-bitcoin-savings-trust/ |
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