Author Archives: cazalla

BitPay Yet To Release Bitcoin Black Friday 2014 Stats

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Despite a promise that 2014's Bitcoin Black Friday, held on November 28th, would be bigger, better, bestest than ever before, BitPay are yet to release any data for the event, something which they were quick to make public in previous years.

In fact, there is little information coming from anyone associated with the event. PYMNTS.com published an article in which they cite Bitnet's1 calculation that USD $296 million was processed by the Bitcoin network on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There is no data which suggests this figure is attributable to BBF but that didn't stop Roger Ver, an investor in BitPay, from retweeting the article while ignoring requests for further information from other twitter users. Continue reading →

  1. Bitnet is a payment processor much like BitPay and Coinbase. ↩

California's DBO: We Have Authority To Regulate Bitcoin

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Staff at California's Department of Business Oversight have concluded that the department has the authority to regulate Bitcoin but are yet to elaborate on just how they intend to do so. The perceived authority to regulate Bitcoin came about after staff at the DBO came to a consensus that the state's laws which govern money transmitters such as Western Union also applies to Bitcoin. Continue reading →

An Interview With Darkside Of The Russian Anonymous Marketplace

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Wired.com has published an interview with Darkside of the relatively unknown Russian Anonymous Marketplace, otherwise known as RAMP. RAMP caters solely to Russian customers and unlike Western dark markets, does not collect a commission on sales. Darkside claims his business model is earning him $250,000 per year and RAMP has now been in business longer than the original Silk Road.

The full interview is available here.

Australian "Big Four" Attempt To Build Real Time Payment Network.. Again

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The National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ, which make up Australia's "Big Four" banks and an additional eight financial institutions have announced their intention to build a new payments network that will enable real time payments. The network is to be built by Belgium based company SWIFT who today signed a 12 year contract to build and operate the infrastructure. Continue reading →

Project Longstrike Launches, Meanwhile Australian Citizen Extradited To United States Over Silk Road Charges

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Reuters reports that an unnamed Australian law enforcement agency is investigating the use of bitcoin in organised crime. It's unknown whether the LEA conducting the investigation, named Project Longstrike, is one at the state or federal level. Given the project's scope for local and international crime, it's likely to be the later of the two. Continue reading →

MasterCard's Submission To Economics References Committee Now Available

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A copy of MasterCard's submission to the Economics References Committee held by the Australian Senate on the 26th of November 2014 is now available to the public. Within the submission, MasterCard argues that the Australian regulators must address the pseudonymity of Bitcoin as it can be used to facilitate the purchase of illegal goods and services, launder money as well as finance terrorism.

MasterCard stated that for Australia to have an effective regulatory system for Bitcoin, it must make it a requirement for all transactions to go through regulated and transparent administrators rather than just the blockchain itself. The company also claims that Australia must address the risks that harm consumers and enable criminal behaviours through the use of digital currencies such as Bitcoin if the country is to take a market leadership position going into the future.

Continue reading →

MoneyBeat, A WSJ Blog, Confirms GAW Miners Is A Ponzi

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MoneyBeat, a blog hosted by the Wall St Journal, has published a second article discussing accusations levied against Josh Garza's GAW Miners. Michael J Casey, who authored the piece, concludes that his research is unlikely to placate the "highly vocal critics" of GAW Miners. Garza appears to be quite happy with the article, proudly tweeting it to his followers via @gawceo. Continue reading →