The comments, made by MP Andrei Svintsov, came during remarks addressing the ongoing debate in Russia over whether bitcoin and digital currencies should be banned as part of a broader effort to stop capital flight.
Nonetheless, Svintsov’s remarks count as some of the more extreme to emanate from the discussion. Svintsov told Russian broadcast news agency REGNUM:
The main intergovernmental body behind the Commonwealth of Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat represents 53 states, mainly in the developing world. The final report will be presented at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in Malta from 27th to 29th November.
A spokesperson for the organisation provided further details of potential subject matters the report might discuss, telling Bitcoin News:
CoinSpark has released a new version of its protocol that allows users to send private messages tied to bitcoin transactions, effectively allowing its technology to be used for more commercial, notarized transactions.
The second major update from the bitcoin-based asset transfer protocol launched in September, CoinSpark 2.0 will enable a broad range of applications according to its developers, including the ability for two parties in a bitcoin transaction or asset transfer to record its purpose.
Gideon Greenspan, CEO and founder of Coin Sciences, the company behind the platform, described the upgrade as a way to provide bitcoin with the capabilities of more traditional payment systems such as PayPal and SWIFT when it comes to facilitating commerce.
Billed in a blog post as a way for the Bitcoin Foundation to advance blockchain technology by new executive director Patrick Murck, the decision was soon met with mixed reactions, with some lauding the novel step and others criticising it for a potential negative impact on an election meant to fill two outgoing board member positions.
At issue was a process described as cumbersome by candidates such as CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium’s (C4) Michael Perklin and decried as a veiled way for the organisation to prevent voter participation by entrepreneur and candidate Olivier Janssens.
RE/MAX London, the UK-based franchisee of the global real estate network, is now accepting bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin as payment for property rentals through a partnership with cryptocurrency processor GoCoin.
The decision enables RE/MAX’s 16 London offices to accept the payment method, a move the franchise said would benefit both itself and its tenants.
Bitcoin mining company Aquifer LLC has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
According to court documents obtained by Bitcoin News, Aquifer, also known as AQH, LLC, filed for Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California on 19th February.
The company claimed between $1m and $10m in assets, as well as between $1m and $10m in outstanding liabilities. The company has between one and 49 creditors, the filing stated.
In theory, you will be able to earn as much as you want with this game. Given that you spent enough time on it. Right now, the maximum earning per hour is 1800 satoshi. However, this amount might be increased during the beta period so please stay tuned. This is purely from mining and does not take selling resources in the market or referral payments into account.
Mining hardware leasing service BetaRigs is preparing to roll out a new contract rental feature in partnership with cloud mining platform Mintsy.
The partnership will enable BetaRigs customers to effectively rent out hash rates to Mintsy customers when the feature goes live early next month. The Mintsy mining platform, announced in September, is a joint venture between digitalBTC and digital currency exchange Cryptsy.
The partnership will enable clients of the BetaRigs service to plug into a larger hub of potential customers as Mintsy moves toward the completion of its beta testing period, according to Final Hash chief technology officer Marshall Long.
The owners of WoodWallets.io, the makers of handcrafted, wood-carved bitcoin wallets, have announced that the business has suspended operations and is up for sale.
The full post stressed that the owners were stepping away from the business due to unspecified personal reasons, and that they were unable to approach WoodWallets with the “same level of passion and dedication”.
An election to fill two individual member seats at the Bitcoin Foundation has ended without a clear winner, voting results show.
The Bitcoin Foundation reports that none of the 13 candidates received at least 50% of the vote from foundation members, a development that will result in another round of voting.
Participants in the run-off election will include entrepreneur Olivier Janssens, former foundation global policy counsel Jim Harper, Atlantic Financial’s Bruce Fenton and Michael Perklin of the CryptoCurrency Certification Consortium (C4), each of whom received at least 30% of the vote.
Bradley is referring to CAVIRTEX, Cointrader, Quadriga CX and Vault of Satoshi, what had been the four exchanges serving the Canadian market at the start of 2015. In the last two months, however, both CAVIRTEX and Vault of Satoshi, the market’s oldest and arguably most visible bitcoin trading platforms, abruptly closed.
The sudden shutdown of CAVIRTEX, in particular, has caught much of Canada’s bitcoin ecosystem by surprise, the notice following on the heels of the decision by the province of Quebec to require licensing for bitcoin trading platforms, a move that further thrust regulation in the country into uncertainty.
The US Marshals service has announced it will auction off 50,000 BTC, worth 11.85m at press time, to the public on 5th March.
The auction will take place from 8:00 EST to 14:00 EST, with bids being accepted only by pre-registered participants. Bidders must complete the registration process by 2nd March to be eligible, while winning bidders will be notified 6th March.
As in previous auctions, the 50,000 BTC will be split into smaller auction blocks. This time 20 in total will be auctioned, with 10 blocks of 2,000 BTC and 10 blocks of 3,000 BTC for sale.
The federal agency, which manages assets seized during criminal investigations, obtained the coins from original owner Ross Ulbricht, who was recently convicted of running the online black market Silk Road and now awaits sentencing.
The news follows statements to Bitcoin News in January that indicated the agency would plan to move forward with another bitcoin auction in the first quarter of 2015.
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A group composed of developers and security professionals have proposed a set of rules aimed at standardizing security protocols used by companies that handle or store digital currencies for their clients.
The proposal, created by the Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium (C4) and formally unveiled on 11th February during the DevCore bitcoin development conference in Boston, Massachusetts, aims to provide an industry-level standard by which exchanges and wallet providers can operate.
The Cryptocurrency Security Standard (CCSS) draft proposal calls for 10 standardized approaches to key and seed generation, storage and usage, proof-of-reserve and security audits, among others areas. The framework consists of three levels per section, with each grade signifying a higher degree of security based on the proposed guidelines.
Zhao joined the China-based bitcoin exchange in June, at a time when OKCoin was seeking to extend its services internationally. Today, the exchange is number two in the USD market, trailing Hong Kong-based Bitfinex.
Speaking to Bitcoin News, Zhao suggested he is still open to working in the bitcoin industry, though he painted the current environment as one that might necessitate his taking an extended leave.
Opening up about the bill in a new interview, Levine indicated that he believes New York City has a pressing incentive to begin accepting the payment method, due to its cost advantages when compared to credit cards.
The democrat from the 7th District in northern Manhattan recalls that it was this benefit that led him to introduce the bill, one that will now go through a process of gathering co-sponsors, before heading to a vote with the city’s technology committee and finally a full vote in the city council.
An online survey has found that 8% of US retailers say they are planning to accept bitcoin within the next 12 months.
The data, collected by the Boston Retail Partners, after surveying 500 retailers across the US, showed that none of the businesses were currently accepting bitcoin, whilst 5% have plans to adopt it within three years.
Source: Boston Retail PartnersIn contrast, the report found that PayPal was the most widely accepted alternative payment type. The payment processor is already accepted by 13% of those surveyed, whilst 49% plan on adopting it in the next three years.
Apple Pay, arguably the biggest threat to bitcoin, is only accepted by 8% of retailers, although an additional 48% have plans to accept it within three years.
The Google Wallet is currently being used by 3% of surveyed retailers, but 28% have plans to integrate the payment method in the next three years.
The survey also found that "payment security, real-time retail and implementing a unified commerce platform", were the top focus areas for retailers.
Approximately 105 BTC and 900 LTC were cited in a civil forfeiture that included more than $7m, hundreds of gold and silver bars and coins, and a number of luxury items including sports cars, wedding rings and a diamond-encrusted Rolex.
The operation involved a number of companies based in Missouri, Nevada, Washington state and Maryland. The digital currency holdings were confiscated from Rex Yang, a Seattle-based business operator who allegedly sold $1.4m in stolen codes.
A bootstrapped startup in the Isle of Man has launched a payment processor called ChainPay that it hopes will compete with the likes of BitPay and Coinbase in the European market.
The firm, called AltXE, says it is focused on signing up European merchants to use its payment processor and that its fee schedule and personal attention to customers will distinguish it from its much better funded competitors.
"If you sign up with Coinbase you might be just another merchant in their box. If you sign up with us, we'll be engaged with the merchant, making sure that everything is functioning well," said AltXE co-founder James Carter.
In what can only be described as a bombshell report, The Observer has published a near 15,000-word story that takes a detailed look at the allegedly sordid history of decentralized payment network startups Ripple Labs and Stellar, and the impact of this relationship on events in the wider bitcoin ecosystem.
“The interpersonal story of Stellar and Ripple Labs is emblematic of the turmoil roiling the entire industry,” the article, penned by Michael Craig, reads. “It has everything: sex, huge money, fraud, genius, betrayal, international intrigue and government raids.”
Of particular note are the stories main participants Jed McCaleb, the founder of now-defunct bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, Ripple Labs and Stellar, and Stellar executive director Joyce Kim who bear the brunt of the article's barbs.
The Observer reports that McCaleb and Kim have long had a personal relationship that complicated McCaleb’s relationship with other senior executives and board members at Ripple Labs, and ultimately lead McCaleb to leave that company and found competitor Stellar.
Also included in the report are allegations that hit home far beyond the companies themselves, as it suggests the feud at the two companies has had implications for mobile payments startup Stripe and banking giant Wells Fargo, among others.
Of all the details included in the report, however, none perhaps has greater relevance than the revelation that US banking giant Wells Fargo had assembled a task force compromising 20 of its “top executives and advisors” that was aimed at finding ways it could become the first bank to embrace cryptocurrency.
The report argues that due to a combination of the Mt Gox collapse, the closure of Silk Road and McCaleb’s personal track record, the unit was disbanded in 2014.
“Predictably, Wells got cold feet,” Craig writes. “At the bank, the crypto blackout was so severe that it extended not only to shutting the accounts that cleared funds for crypto companies, but even those companies’ operating accounts … were shut down.”
This includes the account held by Ripple Labs, whose CEO Chris Larsen, the paper said, had a more than 20-year relationship with the bank prior to the decision.
“The problem is your connection to Mr McCaleb,” Larsen was told, according to the report. “The guy founded Mt Gox. You’ve got to get that guy out of there or we won’t bank you.”
At the time, McCaleb was no longer with the company, but the report suggests even his association as a board member was “enough to make Wells Fargo skittish” and move ahead with the dismantling of its nascent cryptocurrency initiative.
Speaking to the Observer, Kraken CEO and Ripple Labs investor Jesse Powell indicated that he first introduced McCaleb and Kim, and that before long, Ripple had purchased Kim’s company SimpleHoney and brought her into the team.
The Observer described her tenure as one that was not only rocky, but saw her attempting to play up her importance and that of McCaleb. Eventually, the report argues that Larsen needed to intervene.
“Chris sat her down and was like, ‘Joyce you’re a CEO. It’s going to be hard fitting in. You’re obviously reporting to me. Two cultures coming together is always a hard thing. Let’s talk about everything before we do it just to make sure everything is good.’ And Joyce just of course wouldn’t hear of it,” an insider said.
Kim is alleged as having a “Yoko Ono” role at the company, according to those who spoke to the report.
“This is Jed’s thing, when you’re in a private conversation with him all of a sudden Joyce is CC’d on this private conversation, even when the conversation includes the person saying, ‘I don’t want you to share this with Joyce.’ So not only does he disregard that request but he’s letting you know she knows you don’t like her,” another source said.
Kim’s tenure lasted only six weeks. McCaleb, the report contends, soon “lost interest” in the project.
The end result of the ensuing turmoil is that a deal that would have seen Ripple Labs be purchased by Stripe for $13m in cash never came to pass. The Observer indicated it was unable to uncover an exact reason for the deal’s demise.
Yet, another sticking point however, was that most of the leadership team at Ripple Labs held significant holdings of XRP. McCaleb and Larsen, for example, both owned 9bn XRP, a factor that discouraged many in the wider bitcoin market from trusting the company.
At the time, Powell also sought to intervene to fix what he described as the company’s ongoing PR problem.
All of the problems came together, the report said, in a meeting in which McCaleb attempted to have Larsen removed from the company for reasons not disclosed.
Larsen kept his role, however, by a 5-1 vote, with McCaleb providing the dissenting voice.
“Every single person begged Jed not to make us choose between him and Chris,” said Roger Ver, a VC investor in Ripple Labs. “In the end, the vote was unanimous that Chris should stay. The only person who disagreed was Jed.”
McCaleb would go on to found Stellar, taking a $3m investment from Stripe, though the article questions the nature of the relationship between the companies.
For example, Stellar’s former head of community told the publication that the two companies are quite close, with everything Stellar does having to go through Stripe.
Still, Stripe’s relationship with Wells Fargo, the report suggested, has put limits on how close the two companies can publicly appear.
The report quoted those close to co-founder Patrick Collison as describing him as privately dismissive of banks, while highlighting the reliance the San Francisco-based payments company has on institutions like Wells Fargo.
The article went on to question Stripe’s designation as a non-profit, arguing that tax experts believe this claim won’t hold up under regulatory scrutiny.
“Once the IRS pieces together how Stellar benefits McCaleb, Patrick Collison and any other insiders receiving STRs or fattening up in the initial distribution, it will likely find the venture inconsistent with the charitable purpose of the 501(c)(3) exemption,” the report reads.
Following the publication of the article, Bitcoin News reached out to the parties involved for their take on the report and its implications.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, McCaleb moved to denounce the article as one that failed to capture the facts of the story.
"Given the vast amount of inaccuracies and innuendo in the article, it is not worth commenting on. The bias in the article is so obvious no one can take it seriously,” he said.
Bitcoin News reached out to Kim and Ripple Labs for comment, but has not received an immediate response.
Newspaper image via Shutterstock
