Monthly Archives: May 2015

Phuctor Begins Processing SKS Keyserver Dump

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The Phuctor, a service for testing the strength of RSA public keys used by the Gnu Privacy Guard and other PGP encryption software has begun digesting the output of an SKS keyserver's public key inventory. The Phuctor is a service provided by No Such lAbs. As of the time of this publication the Phuctor has processed more than 6500 public keys and found 60 with one or more duplicate moduli.1 The Phuctor, as announced on Stanislav "asciilifeform" Datskovskiy's blog Loper OS utilizes Euclid's algorithm for testing the quality of RSA moduli. The Phuctor has already been integrated into the Web of Trust explorers for both the #bitcoin-otc and #bitcoin-assets WoTs allowing users to check the key quality of potential counterparties. As the number of keys processed by the Phuctor increases the quality of feedback in can provide for keys already in its database grows.

  1. Likely the same keys found in different places or with different information attached.  ↩

Ripple Labs Fined for Violating Bank Secrecy Act

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The United States Financial Crimes Enforement Network (FinCEN) released a statement today charging Ripple Labs Inc. with a $700,000 fine for willfully violating the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. XRP II, LLC a subsidiary of Ripple Labs Inc. operates Ripple Trade a website where users can trade various assets and currencies for XRP. FinCEN claims Ripple's subsidiary XRP II, LLC "failed to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (AML) program" compliant with the BSA. This marks the first time a virtual currency exchanger has received a civil penalty from the United States government.

Silbert's Bitcoin Investment Trust begins trading on OTC Market

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The private firm Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) began trading on the over-the-counter "pink sheet" market OTCMarket under the symbol "GBTC" yesterday.1 The Trust, backed by Grayscale Investments, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, was founded by Barry Silbert and, according to AngelList, employs Ryan Selkis a.k.a. TwoBitIdiot. Continue reading →

  1. This ticker symbol is contrary to earlier reports suggesting the Trust would list under "BTCV". ↩

Mining Difficulty Increases, Albeit By A Small Amount

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With the ninth adjustment in the Bitcoin mining difficulty for 2015, the difficulty has increased to 47,643,398,018. Today's adjustment represents a minor increase of 0.07% over April 19th's difficulty of 47,610,564,513. The global hash rate as of today's change stands at 341,044,727 GH/s and approximately 64 weeks and three days remain until the next reward halving occurs.

American Green Deploys Two Bitcoin Capable Vending Machines

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This week the American Green company reports that they will be deploying two marijuana vending machines to different California cannabis dispensaries. The two model ZaZZZ vending machines will each possess their own Bitcoin wallets, which American Green plans to open for Bitcoin purchases by the end of the week. Bitcoin will be available as an alternative to the other more traditional fiat payment methods the machines will accept. Like the extant Bitcoin ATMs these vending machines are configured to enforce extensive customer validation and regulatory enforcement. These first two machines are being placed in California dispensaries where marijuana is controlled under a "medical" regulatory regime.

Deep Web Marketplace Go-Betweener Faces 20 Years Jail

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Having previously plead not guilty to charges related to the arbitrage of drugs purchased via the deep web and sold to IRL customers, 23 year old Joseph Patrick Gelli of Lexington, South Carolina last week plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Count 12, to which Gelli plead guilty, states that between June 2013 through to July 2014 Gelli purchased bitcoin from Coinbase in order to facilitate the purchase of drugs via an unnamed deep web marketplace so that it could later be onsold for a profit. Continue reading →

BitGo Files MultiSig Patent Application Joining Other Bitcoin Patent Parasites

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An application has been filed (local mirror) with the United States Patent and Trademark office by Bitgo Inc. of San Francisco which if accepted would assign patent rights over the process behind Bitcoin multiple signature addresses to BitGo. Titled "Virtual Currency Address Security" the application lists Michael A. Belshe and Joseph William Lee as inventors of the technology. A proof of concept implementation of multi signature addresses was incorporated into the BitcoinJS library in November of 2013. Continue reading →