A new report by Dr. Garrick Hileman and Danqing Ying of the London School of Economics reveals some interesting and noteworthy facts and figures about the state of the fiat-facing Bitcoin economy – that Tacoma Narrows bridge of finance that exists largely in the minds of government regulators and social media "experts" – from which, some highlights: Continue reading
Category Archives: Investment
Fiat Broker Broker Scottrade Hacked
This evening Fiat stock broker and online investment management portal Scottrade revealed it was hacked in an email to customers. The advised customers that critical personally identifying information was in all probability taken from their servers. In the email they offer that they have evidence they were breeched roughly around 2013 and 2014 without being more specific. Numerous fiat based financial services providers this year have not only had to weather attacks to their own infrastructure, but attacks which leveraged information attained in other breaches degrading their ability to provide services at all. Information publicly disclosed on the Scottrade breach so far was offered in an email to customers which availed them of a dubious credit monitoring service. Users of fiat services like Scottrade and of supposedly Bitcoin services that swear allegiance to customs of the fiat identity theft tradition are advised to stop doing that before you find yourself insolvent. The full text of the email is available below: Continue reading
CFTC Regulatory Butt Thunder Continues
As Bitcoin continues marching towards its grandiose destiny, it seems we just can’t get enough of the inept US Butt Thunder striking yet another fool boy and his pale imitation of a domestic commodity exchange. Continue reading
Market News Roundup
This week there have been a few major developments in the Bitcoin market ecosystem. Continue reading
Silbert's Bitcoin Investment Trust begins trading on OTC Market
The private firm Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) began trading on the over-the-counter "pink sheet" market OTCMarket under the symbol "GBTC" yesterday.1 The Trust, backed by Grayscale Investments, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, was founded by Barry Silbert and, according to AngelList, employs Ryan Selkis a.k.a. TwoBitIdiot. Continue reading
This ticker symbol is contrary to earlier reports suggesting the Trust would list under "BTCV". ↩
Largest Bitcoin Bet Resolved
The largest Bitcoin bet in terms of absolute value, where on BitBet.us Mircea Popescu laid down 1000 BTC of his own funds on the proposition that Bitcoin would outperform Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway class A stock has been resolved as "No" with Bitcoin's exchange rate having suffered over the past 12 months. A year ago Mircea announced the bet on his blog Trilema and further declared that to hedge the bet he had sold Berkshire. Asked about how he felt about the bet's final outcome he offered: Continue reading
Missouri Secretary of State Orders Slaughter to Pay Civil Penalties
AMC/VMC 'CEO' Kenneth Slaughter has been ordered to pay civil penalties of over $30,000 for multiple violations of Missouri Securities Act. Violations include, but are not limited to: offering/selling unregistered securities, making untrue statements and omitting to state material facts. Continue reading
AMHash Reports Theft Of Bitcoin Mining Equipment
AMHash1, the "mining security" whereby friedcat's ASICMiner provided the hashing power to be managed by RockMiner and sold to investors in 1 gigahash parcels via Havelock Investments, reports today via Bitcoin Talk that their mining hardware has been stolen. A short statement by AMHash reads: Continue reading
Silbert's BIT To Trade On Pink Sheets
Having allegedly gained approval from FINRA, Barry Silbert's Bitcoin Investment Trust will soon be available to trade via OTC Markets. Silbert's BIT, which has been allocated the ticker code of BTCV, has been classified by OTC Markets as "OTC Pink No Information". OTC Markets, previously known as Pink Sheets, provides a description of the type of companies one might find in the OTC Pink No Information category: Continue reading
The Superfish Funder List
In the wake of yesterday's disclosure of Lenovo's appalling inclusion of the Superfish malware on their OEM Windows installs, let us highlight the Venture Capital Firms which made Superfish possible: Continue reading