The largest Bitcoin bet in terms of absolute value, where on BitBet.us Mircea Popescu laid down 1000 BTC of his own funds on the proposition that Bitcoin would outperform Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway class A stock has been resolved as "No" with Bitcoin's exchange rate having suffered over the past 12 months. A year ago Mircea announced the bet on his blog Trilema and further declared that to hedge the bet he had sold Berkshire. Asked about how he felt about the bet's final outcome he offered: Continue reading
Monthly Archives: March 2015
Coinapult Reports Hot Wallet Compromise
Coinapult has halted its services after a compromise of its hot wallet lead to the theft of 150 BTC. Coinapult notified its customers via twitter to cease sending bitcoin to existing Coinapult addresses at this time. A notice on Coinapult's website currently reads: Continue reading
OpenSSL Severe Vulnerability to be Revealed March 19th
The OpenSSL project has announced that on March 19th they will be releasing updates to address what they are referring to as a "highest severity defect" affecting all of their supported versions. Details of the vulnerability are being kept under embargo until the patches are released, though this time the OpenSSL has had the courtesy to disclose the issue to the LibreSSL core team. Here's a snippet from the OpenSSL security policy on high security vulnerabilities: Continue reading
Coinbase Compliance Chief Resigns
The Washington Free Beacon reports that the Chief Compliance Officer of Coinbase has resigned. Chief Compliance Officer Martine Niejadlik resigned Coinbase after spending a bit more than a year with the organization. The Free Beacon notes that recently investors and regulators have been critical of Coinbase's "outreach" efforts where Coinbase has noted that Bitcoin does not respect international sanctions as well as Coinbase's failure to definitively achieve licensing in every US state it claims to operate.
Australian Drug Trafficker Sentenced To 12 Years Prison
An Australian man who late last month plead guilty to drug trafficking charges in relation to the importation of MDMA, cocaine and amphetamines into Australia was yesterday sentenced to 12 and a half years prison. Continue reading
Amid Decision To Close, AllCrypt.com Reports Hot Wallet Theft
Off the back of an announcement that the AllCrypt.com bitcoin/altcoin exchange would be going offline as of the 31st of March due to low trading volume, the site now reports that its hot wallet has been emptied to the tune of about 42 BTC 37 BTC1 The alleged theft comes just one month after AltCrypt.com's twitter account claimed that its users bitcoins were safe due to the site being "too small and insignificant" to matter. Continue reading
It was at first claimed on the AllCrypt.com website that the theft totalled 42 BTC – 12 BTC owned by the site and 30 BTC owned by users. The AllCrypt.com twitter account claims different figures. ↩
Mycelium's Entropy To Begin Shipping
Mycelium has announced that their frauduct known as Entropy will begin shipping out to customers as of this coming Monday. Mycelium's Entropy, which was Indiegogo'd to the tune of $31,271 back in June through August last year, was originally slated to ship in October of 2014 but was delayed due to manufacturing issues as well as a decision to change the design of the case.
Sold under the pretence of being the safest way to generate a paper wallet, pre-orders for the first batch of units quickly sold out. The Indiegogo page for Entropy describes the unit as: Continue reading
Polish Bitcoin Embassy Closed
According to a post on a Polish language Bitcoin forum the Polish "Bitcoin Embassy" has closed. The operators report physical assault on at least one person affiliated with their effort along with a number of threatening communications directed at the embassy. The original announcement: Continue reading
Silk Road Moderator Pleads Guilty, Faces Life Imprisonment
A 42 year old man who waived his extradition rights and was subsequently extradited from Australia to the United States last November today plead guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit narcotics trafficking and money laundering for his role as a moderator of the Silk Road forum. Continue reading
Latest Ransomware Targets Game Files & Related Applications
Bromium Labs reports that a new variant of CryptoLocker has been spotted and that it is designed so as to specifically target gamers rather than taking the broad approach previously seen in earlier versions of 'the popular to edit so as to make your own' ransomware.
The latest variant reportedly targets 185 file extensions including ones associated with popular online games such as World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Starcraft 2 and Day Z. Additionally, the ransomware seeks out file extensions associated with programs such as Unity 3D in what is likely to be an assumption by the malware creator that these files are valued much more so by its owner than that of saved game files. Continue reading