Outgoing United States Representative Steve Stockman of Texas has proposed a bill, H.R. 5777 that if it became law would impose a moratorium of five years on regulatory and statutory constraints upon cryptocurrency, as well as changing the treatment of cryptocurrencies under United States tax law to that enjoyed by traditional currencies. The moratorium proposed would apply to regulations and statutes at both the state and federal level. The chance this bill passes either house of the legislature is remote given a lack of support and Stockman's limited remaining time in Congress. If it makes it out of Congress its chance of becoming law would still be rather remote, because it would arrive on Obama's desk and require his signature. At present the bill has been introduced to the floor of the House and referred to both the House Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. Continue reading
Author Archives: Aaron 'BingoBoingo' Rogier
New York DFS Publishes all Bitlicense Comments
The New York Department of Financial Services has published the text of all comments it has received on its Bitlicense proposal to their website. "Signed" comments are attributed to names, and contact information and method of transmission was redacted.
Justice Department's Subpoena to Theymos of Bitcointalk
In a continuation of the saga of the subpoena sent to Theymos of Bitcointalk, the subpoena has now been released. Full plain text below: Continue reading
Bitcoin History: Heroin Store Joe Job and the Bitcointalk Subpoena
Earlier today Theymos of Bitcointalk revealed that he satisfied a subpoena by prosecutors in the United States related to the yet to be tried Ross Ulbricht case. He offered that he turned over posts related to the account "altoid" alleged to be connected to Ross Ulbricht. He also admitted turning a number of posts, including posts deleted by users from a thread titled "A Heroin Store" which posed and interesting thought experiment: Continue reading
First Difficulty Drop of the ASIC Age
Today's difficulty change marks the first time since the introduction of Bitcoin mining ASICs that the network difficulty has dropped. Network difficulty went from 40,300,030,328 to 40,007,470,271 which is a loss of 0.73 percent. The first difficulty decrease happened in 2011 when pool operators discovered the existence of botnet miners for the first time and banned several. Other difficulty decreases happened during the GPU mining era when price dips made the energy cost of mining unprofitable in the near term. Since January 2013, the month before the introduction of the first commercial ASIC miners by Avalon mining difficulty has increased by more than 1,300,000 percent.
Australia: The Tax Institute Calls for 'Voluntary' Bitcoin Registry, Treating Bitcoin as Currency
In a filing with the Australian Parliament the Tax Institute proposed a number of changes and suggestions for future measures the Australian Government could consider with respect to Bitcoin. Among those changes were treating Bitcoin as a currency rather than a good which would end the burden of processing GST taxes on Bitcoin purchases, a bane which has lead at least one startup to leave Australia. Also proposed is a "voluntary registry" of Bitcoin addresses in order to: Continue reading
United Kingdom Severely Constrains Porn Production
Today an amendment to the 2003 Communications Decency act went into effect that severely limits the acts that can be portrayed in pornography produced in the United Kingdom. The changes apply restrictions that the United Kingdom has placed on content produced for DVD porn and extends those restrictions to Video on Demand Porn. Pornographer Erika Lust regrets the changes as: Continue reading
ChangeTip Raises $3.5 Million Lead by Pantera Capital
According to CoinDesk the Reddit and Twitter tipping service ChangeTip has raised $3.5 million in a funding round lead by Pantera Capital.
UN Report Criticizes United States on Human Rights
A recent report by the United Nations High Commision for Human Rights Committee on Torture excoriated the United States for its human rights record at home and abroad in it first review of the United States since 2006. The United States record was reviewed along with those of several other parties to the 1987 U.N Convention Against Torture which was ratified by the United States in 1994. A number of issues raised in the committee's conclusions include: Continue reading
HSBC Cuts Ties with GABI
HSBC has reportedly cut ties with the "regulated" Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment Fund (GABI) over concerns related to "money laundering" risks. Notably in 2012 HSBC settled with the United States for $1.92 billion related to assistance it allegedly provided drug cartels in laundering money in Mexico and Columbia, likely making the money laundering issue a very sore subject for the bank.