In a continuation of the saga of the subpoena sent to Theymos of Bitcointalk, the subpoena has now been released. Full plain text below: Continue reading
Australian "Big Four" Attempt To Build Real Time Payment Network.. Again
The National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ, which make up Australia's "Big Four" banks and an additional eight financial institutions have announced their intention to build a new payments network that will enable real time payments. The network is to be built by Belgium based company SWIFT who today signed a 12 year contract to build and operate the infrastructure. Continue reading
Bitcoin History: Heroin Store Joe Job and the Bitcointalk Subpoena
Earlier today Theymos of Bitcointalk revealed that he satisfied a subpoena by prosecutors in the United States related to the yet to be tried Ross Ulbricht case. He offered that he turned over posts related to the account "altoid" alleged to be connected to Ross Ulbricht. He also admitted turning a number of posts, including posts deleted by users from a thread titled "A Heroin Store" which posed and interesting thought experiment: Continue reading
First Difficulty Drop of the ASIC Age
Today's difficulty change marks the first time since the introduction of Bitcoin mining ASICs that the network difficulty has dropped. Network difficulty went from 40,300,030,328 to 40,007,470,271 which is a loss of 0.73 percent. The first difficulty decrease happened in 2011 when pool operators discovered the existence of botnet miners for the first time and banned several. Other difficulty decreases happened during the GPU mining era when price dips made the energy cost of mining unprofitable in the near term. Since January 2013, the month before the introduction of the first commercial ASIC miners by Avalon mining difficulty has increased by more than 1,300,000 percent.
Coinbase Allows USD Balance for a Few US Customers
Coinbase took a step yesterday towards lowering the friction of buying and selling bitcoin in the US. Customers that live in a small number of states can now hold a USD balance in their Coinbase account. This allows instant buying and selling of bitcoin instead of Coinbase's current week-long process. Continue reading
New Zealand Couple Avoid Jail For Drugs Imported Via Silk Road Like Site
A couple from New Zealand who were charged with various drug related crimes after having ordered drugs from a Silk Road type site, have escaped a jail sentence despite the Crown prosecutor's suggestion that imprisonment was the appropriate punishment. Continue reading
Australia: The Tax Institute Calls for 'Voluntary' Bitcoin Registry, Treating Bitcoin as Currency
In a filing with the Australian Parliament the Tax Institute proposed a number of changes and suggestions for future measures the Australian Government could consider with respect to Bitcoin. Among those changes were treating Bitcoin as a currency rather than a good which would end the burden of processing GST taxes on Bitcoin purchases, a bane which has lead at least one startup to leave Australia. Also proposed is a "voluntary registry" of Bitcoin addresses in order to: Continue reading
United Kingdom Severely Constrains Porn Production
Today an amendment to the 2003 Communications Decency act went into effect that severely limits the acts that can be portrayed in pornography produced in the United Kingdom. The changes apply restrictions that the United Kingdom has placed on content produced for DVD porn and extends those restrictions to Video on Demand Porn. Pornographer Erika Lust regrets the changes as: Continue reading
ChangeTip Raises $3.5 Million Lead by Pantera Capital
According to CoinDesk the Reddit and Twitter tipping service ChangeTip has raised $3.5 million in a funding round lead by Pantera Capital.
Project Longstrike Launches, Meanwhile Australian Citizen Extradited To United States Over Silk Road Charges
Reuters reports that an unnamed Australian law enforcement agency is investigating the use of bitcoin in organised crime. It's unknown whether the LEA conducting the investigation, named Project Longstrike, is one at the state or federal level. Given the project's scope for local and international crime, it's likely to be the later of the two. Continue reading