Coinbase has announced their intention to reimburse a small number of users who were the victim of a phishing attack. The attacker, who emailed users a purported new service agreement from Coinbase, used the Coinbase API to fool users into approving full permissions for his 3rd party app so as to withdraw bitcoins from the Coinbase wallet. As a result of the successful attack, Coinbase now claim they will review the approval process for applications using their API. Continue reading
Category Archives: Scams
BitMarket.pl Account Closed over HYIP Links
Silicon Angle reports that a likely catalyst for the suspension of bank accounts used by BitMarket.pl is a recurring connection between that exchange and High Yield Investment scams. The accounts were closed by BPH, a bank owned by bezzle economy giant General Electric. Silicon Angle also notes that BitMarket.pl was injured in the EgoPay drama.
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
CSM Profiles Homero J Garza, Serial Entrepreneur
Today the Christian Science Monitor published an profile of Homero "Josh" Garza featuring selection from an interview they conducted before the North American Bitcoin conference. Most of the information in the profile is not going to be new to anyone who has been following the GAW saga, but the profile covers Garza's history of serial entrepreneurship from Optima Technology and Great Awk Wireless to GAW Miners. Continue reading
Troubled EgoPay cries "Hack"
Payments processor EgoPay which has been troubled since at least December recently issued a blog post stating that they have fired employees likely responsible, and that the source of their problems was likely internal to their company. The full text of the post is preserved below for posterity. Continue reading
Theymos Claims Josh Garza Is Sending Him Legal Threats To Have Content Removed
Theymos, owner of bitcointalk.org and a moderator of /r/bitcoin, is claiming that he has been on the receiving end of legal threats from Josh Garza and his legal team. Garza is claimed to be demanding the removal of things from /r/bitcoin and the bitcointalk.org forums although it is not known which content Garza specifically takes offense to given much of what is being posted – such as claims of a $20 floor for Paycoin set by Garza and his $100 million backing in private funds – are known to have been said by Garza despite his attempts to re-write history by modifying previous posts. Continue reading
2014 Story of the Year: Mt Gox Finally Dies
This year's biggest story in Bitcoin actually predates the founding of Qntra. Back in February Mt Gox finally closed its doors. Since Jed McCaleb opened it for Bitcoin Trading in July of 2010, through its astounding three years of incompetence and mismanagement under Mark Karpelès Mt Gox had served as a central source of drama and uncertainty in the Bitcoin space. Continue reading
Collected Points From the NSA's Recent Document Dump
Numerous media outlets are going deep into the NSA's recent Christmas Eve document dump while Der Spiegel is supposing itself to cover new Snowden documents.In addition to the unsurprising post-Snowden revelation that NSA analysts routinely acted outside of their legal ability to monitor, a number of technical revelations came out about the NSA's surveillance abilities as they care to disclose them two years ago. As this document dump was an official agency disclosure take it with a grain of salt or several trucks full of salt as you feel necessary. Continue reading
While Some Ponzi Schemes Implode, Other Fraudsters Double Down
As this year draws to a close, so too have a few of the ponzi operators masquerading as cloud miners in the Bitcoin and altcoin space. Given the concept of cloud mining lends itself to being an ideal means for scammers to conduct fractional reserve mining or straight up ponzi schemes involving no mining at all, you can expect to see such shenanigans continue in 2015. Three 'cloud miners' which appear to have gone belly up this past week are Hashie.co, LTC Gear and Hash Profit. Continue reading
Butterfly Labs Allowed to Reopen
The Kansas City Business Journal is reporting that the judge in the Federal Trade Commission's case is allowing Butterfly Labs to continue business operations under court supervision. From the court order of Judge Brian Wimes:
"Plaintiff fails to show any continuing violation of the alleged misconduct. Plaintiff argues defendants' past conduct suggests they are likely to return to this business model and related representations in the future. But, as previously discussed, the court disagrees."
Butterfly Labs will be required to submit monthly reports to the court outlining progress in shipping products, processing refunds, and improving corporate governance. Other litigation against Butterfly Labs continues including cases in both Missouri and Kansas.