PseudoNode Proxy Fools Bitcoin Full Node Incentive Program

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Vessennes' Bitcoin Foundation recently sponsored a full node incentive program that pays full nodes registered with a Bitcoin address weekly if deemed eligible. The incentive program's goal is to estimate the size of the Bitcoin network by finding all reachable nodes running bitcoind version 0.8 or higher, likely in an attempt to lower the barrier necessary for a possible fork. Continue reading →

Megaupload Programmer: Days From Arrest to Plea

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Andrus Nomm, a former programmer from the defuct file sharing website Megaupload was arrested earlier this week before entering a guilty plea and being sentenced this same week. Nomm plead guilty to felony copyright infringement and was sentenced to one year and one day in jail. One of Megaupload's lawyers confirmed for the New Zealand Herald that Nomm was involved in a deal or agreed to come to the US. Among other charges Nomm is accused of watching at least one pirated TV Show. It, as always, remains important to note that his prison sentence is happening exactly because he came to the United States of his own volition and still finds himself having walked into the prison himself.

Excoin Exchange To Shut Down Amid Claims Of Theft

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The altcoin exchange Excoin has announced that it will soon shut down after alleging that an attacker was able to withdraw all the bitcoins from the exchange.

With a trading engine written in Go, Excoin launched what was predominantly a Blackcoin exchange back in November of 2014. Excoin also featured a proof of reserve page which reassured members that their funds were securely stored and accounted for. Continue reading →

Quebec Regulator: Bitcoin Businesses Need A Licence

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Operators of Bitcoin ATMs and exchanges in the province of the "economic shithole" known as Quebec, Canada must now obtain a licence from the Autorité des marchés financiers after amendments were made by the AMF to the Policy Statement to the Money Services Business Act.

The requirement of a licence now means that businesses operating Bitcoin ATMs and exchanges in Quebec will now be obligated to keep a record of financial transactions in addition to verifying the identity of customers. Continue reading →

Bill Would Ban Federal Employees From Porn Breaks at Work

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The Federal Times reports that if a new bill introduced by North Carolina Republican Representative Mark Meadows becomes law, the viewing of pornography on United States Government computers by its employees would be prohibited. It is unknown what effect this ban would have on the morale of United States Government employees seeing as in some of the more forlorn agencies it can take two to six hours of pornography viewing to make the workplace environment bearable.

Summary of MPEx Stocks & Funds January 2015

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Monthly statements from stocks listed at the MPEx exchange have been released for January. Official reports are available at Trilema. Here are some highlights, with assets listed in order of market cap1 :

MPEx (S.MPOE, market cap 403,020) reported a net profit of 520 btc, with 500 btc coming from new account fees. The MPEx exchange has seen a slight uptrend in volume over the past several months, the January volume was the highest since April of last year. Continue reading →

  1. Market cap data was calculated on 10 February 2015, current data is available at www.btcalpha.com/mpex/stocks/ ↩

Purported Silk Road 2.0 Dataset Up for Auction

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Someone who describes their self as a having been "hired by Dread Pirate Roberts a/k/a Blake Benthall as lead programmer for Silk Road 2.0" is offering for sale a dataset which they allege contains numerous record relating to and source code for running the Silk Road in its second incarnation. The first portion of the sale is occurring on Darkleaks, an information market which is advertised as being trustless and provably fair. Continue reading →