Monthly Archives: December 2014

Judge Rejects Florida Man's Bid to Dismiss Case

Posted on by

Florida Judge Fleur Lobree dismissed Pascal Reed's motion to drop illegal money transfer charges in an case relating to him selling roughly $25,000 worth of Bitcoin to a Secret Service agent in a sting last winter. Reed's lawyer argued that as merely a token of value applying Florida's money transmission laws to individuals as opposed to corporations would set a horrifying precedent:

"The statute was intended for the exchange of money for money, If you extend it to anything of value, then any customer using a credit card to buy something, anyone holding a yard sale and accepting cash, is a money transferer."

According to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle two other people were arrested as a result of this sting targeting "individuals engaged in high volume Bitcoin activity."

CFTC Restate Supposed Authority Over Bitcoin

Posted on by

If you didn't hear the first time, the CFTC has restated its authority over virtual currencies such as Bitcoin including futures and swap contracts. The claimant of this authority, Chairman of the CFTC Timothy Massad, made such comments when he appeared before the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. Massad's claim relies upon the Commodity Exchange Act's broad definition of what a commodity is. Continue reading →

Additional Information On A Normal Man AKA John D Powell

Posted on by

As John D Powell took a plea deal and plead guilty to two charges of operating an unlicensed money service business, few court documents are available. The documents that are available depict an articulate man who experienced a run of misfortune prior to his involvement with Bitcoin.

In a letter to Judge Shadid, Mr Powell cites the break down of his marriage and stress of surviving an aortic dissection as explanation for his decision to operate an unlicensed Bitcoin exchange. One could be forgiven for mistaking Powell's letter as one penned by a murderer who is remorseful for his crimes and if as claimed by the State, Powell did process USD $3 million in Bitcoin, it's clear it was a beacon of light for him despite yielding to the court in his apology letter. Continue reading →

CoinJelly Exchange Warns Users They Have 24 Hours To Remove Coins

Posted on by

Ownership of the Australian Bitcoin exchange CoinJelly is alleged to have changed hands and as a result of the purchase, CoinJelly users have been warned that they have 24 hours to remove their coins from the site. Despite the announcement, which was made via email and twitter, no notification of account closures has been made on the CoinJelly website although the sign up process has been disabled. Continue reading →

Microsoft Xbox and Mobile Marketplace Now Accepts Bitcoin

Posted on by

Microsoft Accounts, which includes Xbox Live users, now allow the "redemption" of Bitcoin for a dollar amount credit. This credit may be used as payment for Xbox Live Services and products. Windows Phone users may also use the credit to make purchases in the Windows App Store. Other well known Microsoft products, such as Windows and Office, are not available for purchase using this method. Continue reading →

A Normal Man Sentenced To 48 Months Prison

Posted on by

A Normal man1 has been sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge James Shadid to 48 months in federal prison for operating a bitcoin exchange. 55 year old John Powell of Normal, Illinois plead guilty to two counts of operating an unlicensed money service business.

Powell received US $3 million over an 18 month period up until February 2014. Upon completion of the sentence, Powell will serve three years of supervised release.

Source – http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/b-n-man-sentenced-for-illegal-bitcoin-operation/article_30069152-125b-5ef1-8d19-e8f8176678de.html

  1. top kek! ↩

Silbert Syndicate Wins 48,000 BTC at auction

Posted on by

Barry Silbert has self disclosed on twitter that his bidding syndicate has won 48,000 BTC in the recent United States Marshal's Service auction. Tim Draper had earlier announced winning the other 2000 BTC up for bidding. Silbert's tweet:

Announcement: Pleased to share that the syndicate organized by & our trading division won 48k bitcoin auctioned by US Marshals

9:32 AM – 9 Dec 2014

BitPay Forget To Renew Bitcore.io Domain Name

Posted on by

In February of this year, BitPay launched an open source JavaScript library titled Bitcore. The project aims to encourage and assist developers in building software which interfaces with the Bitcoin network. Unfortunately, it appears someone at BitPay has inadvertently allowed the bitcore.io domain registration to lapse and it now sits in pending delete status. Continue reading →