A snippet of from the St Louis Business Journal offers that troubled Bitcoin mining firm CoinTerra might or may have been acquired by Louisiana based Internet Service Provider CenturyLink as it continues to progress through a Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy.
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
The Crypto-Mises Podcast Third Episode Is Now Available
Daniel Krawisz and Michael Goldstein of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute have released the third episode of their podcast. The duo discuss malinvestments such as Litecoin, BFL and other well known scams as opposed to the few good investments and companies in the Bitcoin space to date such as Satoshi Dice and the Silk Road. The pair finish the episode with a startup idea of their own.
The third episode is available stream via YouTube, iTunes podcast subscription and to download in MP3 format.
Coinbase To Launch Licensed US Exchange
The WSJ reports that Coinbase is to launch a licensed US exchange this coming Monday in what is likely to be a reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger Lunar news which first appeared on the Coinbase website earlier today.
Despite Brian Armstrong's plans for the new exchange to become the world's largest, it will initially be open only to US customers who reside in the states in which Coinbase is believed to have acquired regulatory approval. The exact number of those states remain unknown although the WSJ article claims that California as well as New York are amongst them. Continue reading
Amid Domain Name Hijacking, CoinFire's Alleged SEC Source Is Revealed
Repeated attacks on the Bitcoin news site CoinFire today culminated with the theft of the coinfire.cf domain and twitter account @coinfireblog. If the individual or group who took over the @coinfireblog twitter account is to be believed, the attackers have also gained access to CoinFire's email inbox and published the alleged name of their SEC source who leaked documents confirming that scammer Josh Garza and his string of shell companies are currently being investigated by the SEC. 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
Winklevii Intend New York Based Exchange
The Winklevoss twins are reportedly working on a New York based Bitcoin exchange that will exist in submission to all United States regulations. This is in spite of New York doing everything it can to write itself outside of Bitcoin in both its regulatory environment and legal climate.
Group Proposes Bitcoin Wallet Privacy Ratings Criteria
A group referring to itself as the Open Bitcoin Privacy Project has recently released a draft set of criteria for comment that they would like to use for evaluating and rating different Bitcoin wallets from a privacy perspective. The criteria include a number of points about wallet behavior alongside a number of other factors. The heading under which their proposed criteria fall include: Continue reading
Kidnappers Demand Ransom Be Paid With Bitcoin
Costa Rican tabloid Diario Extra reports the kidnapping of Canadian man Piercy Bate Ryan Craig. Craig, who is featured as a Costa Rican importer on the website ImportGenius, is being ransomed for a total of US $500,000 payable in bitcoin.
While it's not evident that the kidnappers are regular readers of the #bitcoin-assets logs, it's clear that this attempt to extort bitcoin in exchange for the release of a prisoner won't be the last and is something sure to grow as would be kidnappers realise the superiority of bitcoin over fiat when demanding ransoms.
Drones Revolutionize Cross Border Drug Shipment
While the Silk Road trial is ongoing, San Diego's NBC news affiliate is reporting on a drone that crashed near the border crossing at San Ysidro while carrying more than 6 pounds of methamphetamine. The crash location itself was a Tijuana grocery store parking lot. This is far from the first report of drug trafficking across the United States – Mexican border using drones, and is largely notable because of the drone's crash. Continue reading