MtGox Trustee has 200k Bitcoins, Creditors to Line Up as Bankruptcy Progresses

As of the third creditors meeting on April 22, 2015, the approximately 100,000 creditors from 130 countries who were swindled by Robert Marie Mark Karpeles and his Bitcoin-fiat exchange MtGox Co., Ltd. – despite the numerous and several warnings and warning signs,1 – can now file claims through bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayash of law firm Nagashima Ohno & Tsudematsu. Continue reading


  1. Not the least of which was the consistent $10+ spread between Mt Gox and Bitstamp that persisted throughout 2013, with the premium going to Gox of course, indicating that the Japanese firm was delaying withdrawals, most probably on account of a fractional reserve deposit scheme 

Tennessee House Votes To Allow Bitcoin Campaign Contributions

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that the legislators of the Tennessee State House have voted 61 to 28 in favor of allowing Bitcoin to be accepted as a campaign "gift" in state elections. The bill passed the Tennessee Senate last month and awaits the Governor's signature which could render it law, though given that application of the Gubernatorial veto is rare in Tennessee as it takes the same simple majority from each house of the General assembly which initially passed the bill to override the veto. Continue reading

CaVirtex Reopens Under Coinsetter

Just two short months after closing its doors following an apparently humiliating "potential compromise," CAD-BTC exchange CaVirtex has re-opened its doors under the purview of US-based Bitcoin exchange Coinsetter. Yes, that would be Jaron Lukasiewicz's Coinsetter, he being the fellow who thought that Ripple was a good idea apparently because he had too much money on his youthful hands.

For users of the revived CaVirtex, the only visible difference is a new landing page promoting the new partnership. Once past this landing page, the excessive familiarity reveals itself in a number of now factual errors, to the point where the exchange still advertises itself as a "Canadian Corporation" and that "all voting shareholders of CAVIRTEX are Canadian" despite its most recent claims to the contrary.

Another claim that the revamped CaVirtex is making is that they've employed "the Securicoin® system," which appears to be little more than Coinsetter slang for "cold storage" even though it claims to be "Wall Street grade,"1 and that over 50% of user funds are being held in insured Xapo Vaults.2

Trading volume at CaVirtex has been slow to rekindle since trading resumed on April 8, 2015, with the website claiming a meager 372 BTC traded over the past week. This figure is to be taken with a grain of salt, however, given that CaVirtex apparently traded at least a fraction of a bitcoin for as cheaply as CAD $0.01 during the last 7 days. (cache)

No word yet on whether Coinsetter plans to honour obligations to non-voting shareholders who were stripped of 4,000 BTC when CaVirtex delisted on Havelock Investments on December 31, 2013. According to CaVirtex's delisting notice, these investors own 10% of the company. At this time, it appears they may be left out in the rain.


  1. It would seem to this author that "MPEx grade" holds more cachet, but this exchange is marketed to the masses who've never heard of such a thing. 

  2. Yes, the same Xapo that wants to pay you to play video games. 

Fenton Replaces Murck as Vessenes Foundation Pivots Again

The Vessenes Bitcoin Foundation has installed Bruce Fenton as their executive director replacing Patrick Murck who occupied the office on an interim basis. Fenton was elected by the board with five affirmative votes with one recorded abstention. In the recent election for the this foundation's board Bruce Fenton was a candidate ended the election in fourth place. One of the two candidates to win a seat on the Board, Oliver Janssens won a director's seat running for office with a history of seeking the Vessenes Foundation's replacement with software. After his first meeting as a board member Janssens, who won his seat with 63 percent of the membership's vote exposed the Vessenes Foundation's dire situation, and the rest of the board attempted a rebuttal of the indictment by Janssens. Continue reading

Judge: Preet Bharara's Brinkmanship Endangers Fair Trials

PreetPreet Bharara, the United States premier inquisitor for prosecuting Bitcoin cases, was reprimanded by United States District Court Judge Valerie Caproni for endangering the former New York Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver's right to a fair trial by making public statements endangering his right to a fair trial by jury. Caproni in ruling on a motion by the defense offered:

"In this case, the U.S. Attorney,1 while castigating politicians in Albany for playing fast and loose with the ethical rules that govern their conduct, strayed so close to the edge of the rules governing his own conduct that Defendant Sheldon Silver has a non-frivolous argument that he fell over the edge to the Defendant’s prejudice."

Continue reading


  1. Bharara  

Coinbase Outgoing Email Hacked

As noticed by #bitcoin-assets user fluffypony, and later confirmed by reddit user CoinbaseAdrian, a sendgrid.net account associated with em.coinbase.com has been compromised. The scammers behind this attack have used it to send email to a list composed mostly of, but not limited to, users of localbitcoins.com. Continue reading

Vessenes Foundation Attempts Janssens Rebuttal

This weekend Vessenes' Bitcoin Foundation board member Oliver Janssens offered a scathing critique of the "non-profit" organization.  The attempted rebuttal (archived) rather than refuting, merely edged Janssens's points. The foundation's four points are offered in condensed form below: Continue reading

TI-89 Bitcoin Diceware Tool Released

Matt Whitlock has recently released a diceware tool for generating Bitcoin address and private key pairs on the venerable Texas Instruments TI-89 portable general purpose portable computer commonly marketed as a "graphing calculator." The software takes input derived from analog dice rolls. The source code, written in C, is available here and it compiles with TIGCC. Whitlock previously worked on the Lamassu Bitcoin ATM. A video where Whitlock demonstrates the key generation process at 10x speed is embedded below: Continue reading