BitStamp: Unverified Accounts to be Closed, Balances to Regulators

BitStamp announced on their blog that accounts remaining unverified will be closed and have their balances turned over to regulators. BitStamp initially implemented their verification policy in September of 2013 and insists they can not allow accounts that do not comply with their anti-money laundering and know your customer policies to trade or receive other services from BitStamp including withdrawals in either Bitcoin or any other method. Their announcement: Continue reading

AlphaPoint, White Label Exchange Provider Secure $1.35 Million In Funding

AlphaPoint, a white label exchange and automatic market making provider, secured $1.35 million in funding which will be used to promote international growth and further development of products and services. The round of capital raising included investors such as Scott Becker of Invite Media1, Gabriel Weinberg of DuckDuckGo, Robin Hood Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners as well as other unnamed angel investors. Continue reading


  1. Acquired by Google. 

After Defeating It In The Bitcoin Market, La Serenissima Bleeds The USG All Over The Dow

Washington, DC had a financial plan to neuter Bitcoin on top of the usual operational plans of infiltration work etc. The way this plan was supposed to unfold ? First the USMS announces an auction for some Bitcoin they've managed to steal from US residents. The supposed auction was supposed to be open. It was also supposed to be won by a designated USG agent, and the price announced should have been significantly under market. Then any and all Bitcoin that could be begged, borrowed or stolen by Washington was going to be dumped on the market through "expert" hands, to a crescendo background of the well publicised wails of the usual suspects. And so Bitcoin was going to crash and burn. Continue reading

The Register: Man Hunts Insufficiently Random Nonces, Blockchain.info Wallets Vulnerable

According the The Register, Filippo Valsorda has released a tool which uncovers transactions that leak private keys on the Bitcoin blockchain. The tool is called Blockchainr and is available on Github. The attack highlighted is the same one which last year lead to the emptying of a number of wallets on the Android platform in which insufficiently random nonces in ECDSA signatures leave private keys solvable. Valsorda noted that the Blockchain.info wallet's dependency on the user's web browser to provide a random nonce leaves it vulnerable to this avenue of attack. Previously Valsorda released a tool which checks for vulnerability to the Heartbleed defect.

Vietnam: Prosecutors Reject Charging Bitcoin Traders

Thanh Nien News reports that three individuals arrested in Khanh Hoa Province for buying and selling Bitcoins have been released without charges on the order of local prosecutors. Police plan to continue pursuing the case by appealing to the Supreme People’s Procuracy to continue the prosecution. In the course of the arrest nearly 500 million Vietnamese Dong were seized along with computers and documents. According to the deputy head of the local prosecution unit "the three did not engage in an illegal transaction since Bitcoins are not a recognized currency or commodity in Vietnam and therefore cannot be considered a banned item."