An increasing number of users of the altcoin exchange Coin-Swap are complaining about the inability to withdraw their coins from the exchange and claim that their support tickets and emails are yet to be acknowledged. The Coin-Swap exchange features over 50 altcoins which trade against bitcoin, dogecoin and more recently, paycoin. Continue reading
Author Archives: cazalla
Qntra (S.QNTR) January 2015 Statement
Police Warn Bitcoin Extortion Letter Recipients Not To Pay
Farmington Police have told recipients of an extortion letter – which demands payment of USD $2,000 made in bitcoin – not to send payment but to contact local police instead. Farmington Police are so concerned about the pay or be killed letters that they've involved the FBI and Postal Inspector to investigate further. Continue reading
LocalBitcoins.com Compromised, Bitcoins Stolen
It appears that LocalBitcoins LiveChat feature was compromised earlier today and that the attacker fooled some users with a trojan and proceeded to withdraw coins from their accounts. An administrator for LB posted the following message on the LB forums: Continue reading
The Crypto-Mises Podcast Third Episode Is Now Available
Daniel Krawisz and Michael Goldstein of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute have released the third episode of their podcast. The duo discuss malinvestments such as Litecoin, BFL and other well known scams as opposed to the few good investments and companies in the Bitcoin space to date such as Satoshi Dice and the Silk Road. The pair finish the episode with a startup idea of their own.
The third episode is available stream via YouTube, iTunes podcast subscription and to download in MP3 format.
Coinbase To Launch Licensed US Exchange
The WSJ reports that Coinbase is to launch a licensed US exchange this coming Monday in what is likely to be a reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger Lunar news which first appeared on the Coinbase website earlier today.
Despite Brian Armstrong's plans for the new exchange to become the world's largest, it will initially be open only to US customers who reside in the states in which Coinbase is believed to have acquired regulatory approval. The exact number of those states remain unknown although the WSJ article claims that California as well as New York are amongst them. Continue reading
Amid Domain Name Hijacking, CoinFire's Alleged SEC Source Is Revealed
Repeated attacks on the Bitcoin news site CoinFire today culminated with the theft of the coinfire.cf domain and twitter account @coinfireblog. If the individual or group who took over the @coinfireblog twitter account is to be believed, the attackers have also gained access to CoinFire's email inbox and published the alleged name of their SEC source who leaked documents confirming that scammer Josh Garza and his string of shell companies are currently being investigated by the SEC. Continue reading
Kidnappers Demand Ransom Be Paid With Bitcoin
Costa Rican tabloid Diario Extra reports the kidnapping of Canadian man Piercy Bate Ryan Craig. Craig, who is featured as a Costa Rican importer on the website ImportGenius, is being ransomed for a total of US $500,000 payable in bitcoin.
While it's not evident that the kidnappers are regular readers of the #bitcoin-assets logs, it's clear that this attempt to extort bitcoin in exchange for the release of a prisoner won't be the last and is something sure to grow as would be kidnappers realise the superiority of bitcoin over fiat when demanding ransoms.
Robert Faiella AKA BTCKing Sentenced To Four Years In Prison
Robert Faiella, better known as BTCKing and Charlie Shrem's partner in crime, was today sentenced to four years in prison for the part he played in selling USD $1 million worth of bitcoin to Silk Road users.
Using Shrem's BitInstant service, Faiella fulfilled orders by Silk Road users who wished to purchase bitcoins so as to then use them to buy their drug of choice via the Silk Road. Pleading guilty, former plumber1 Faiella told the court that his decision to act as a broker to people looking to purchase bitcoin came as a result of having no other way to support his family. Continue reading
Mushrooms anyone? ↩
Gavin Andresen On Future Blockchain Security: I Dunno LOL!
Undeterred in his attempt to fork the Bitcoin network, Gavin Andresen today posted an update to his blog in which he attempts to spread fear by implying users will switch to "substitute goods" or in other words an altcoin unless an increase to the blocksize is made. That portion of his update, bolding by USGavin himself, reads: Continue reading