After the arrest of Blake Benthall for allegedly operating Silk Road 2.o a PDF began circulating which purports to be a copy of the complaint against Benthall. Qntra presents the text of the alleged complaint liberated from its PDF turd: Continue reading
Category Archives: Fiat/BTC interfaces
Silk Road 2.0 Seized, Blake Benthall Arrested
Today the FBI announced the closure of the Silk Road 2.0 and the arrest yesterday of Blake Benthall the alleged operator of Silk Road 2.0 who operated under the moniker "Defcon." The charges leveled at Benthall include: Continue reading
Poynt Smart Payment Terminal Accepts Bitcoin Payments
Poynt Co, founded by Osama Bedier who is the former head of Google Wallet and previously a PayPal senior exec, have released details of their smart payment terminal due to launch in 2015. Continue reading
Bitreserve Holds your Bitcoins as Fiat
In an attempt to address the price volatility of Bitcoin, Bitreserve recently launched as a Bitcoin storage service that keeps users' funds in the form of fiat. Bitreserve does this by immediately market selling any incoming deposits, essentially locking in the fiat value of the credited funds. Users are entitled to the locked fiat amount in Bitcoin upon withdrawal, thus users may lose or gain BTC due to volatility. Continue reading
Multisig Vault By Coinbase
Coinbase today unveiled their multisig wallet product which will allow customers to store their bitcoin with the site while restricting the ability for Coinbase and others to move the coins unbeknownst to the customer. Coinbase stated that they underestimated customer demand for such a product. Continue reading
Bitcoin Options Are Back At IG Markets
IG Markets, the online forex and CFD broker, has brought back bitcoin binary options to the platform. IG Markets previously provided bitcoin options in April of 2013 but removed the offering only a month later. Continue reading
LedgerX Thinks Bitcoin is Ready for Options (Again)
New York City startup LedgerX has submitted applications to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commisions (CFTC), to register as a "swap execution facility and derivatives clearing organization." If approved LedgerX would be allowed to list physically-settled digital currency option contracts, particularly Bitcoin denominated contracts. Continue reading
BitPay Lets Bitcoin Customers "Make It Rain"
Tampa, Florida is home to 2001 Odyssey, a strip club which also services user through internet services. Bitpay has partnered with the the club to allow users to pay with Bitcoin for these online services including a feature known as the "Make It Rain Machine." Continue reading
FinCEN: Payment Processors, Others may be Regulated Money Transmitters
FinCEN issued two administrative rulings in regards to "Virtual Currency." The first concerns "exchanges" and supposes they may be regulated as Money Transmitters under the Banking Secrecy Act. The second though supposes that payment processors like BitPay may similarly fall under their purview. This shift comes contrary to the expectations BitPay had disclosed anticipating from FinCEN.
PDFs of the rulings are available here: ruling 1, ruling 2. Extracted plaintext is available below. Continue reading
Hong Kong SAR Government Sponsored Bitcoin Exchange Bitspark Goes Live
Hong Kong based exchange, payment processor and remittance startup Bitspark have opened their doors for business, having gone into limited beta as of the 22nd of October. In order to entice new users to the exchange, Bitspark will only charge a fee when users withdraw coins from the exchange. Continue reading