April 26, 2019 @ 7:22 am By Cali Haan  |  

Twenty-one American Members of Congress have signed a strongly-worded letter “urg(ing)” the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), “to issue needed guidance on the tax consequences and basic reporting requirements for taxpayers that use virtual currencies,” in the United States. The letter is signed by Darren Soto… Read More

April 25, 2019 @ 10:28 am By Cali Haan  |  

Pantera Capital, a “blockchain investment fund” based in San Francisco, is seeking to raise the final $15 million USD it needs to close its $175 million dollar Venture Fund III raise. According to Pantera, “Investors who commit $5 mm or more will have co-investment rights… Read More

April 25, 2019 @ 3:48 am By Cali Haan  |  

Chilean Minister of Finance Felipe Larraín has announced that his ministry is sending a bill to the Chilean congress which is designed to regulate Fintech and cryptocurrencies, Ahora Noticias reports. Promising “proportional rules,” Larraín announced from the United States last week: “Taking into account the different forms taken by the business models… Read More

April 25, 2019 @ 1:41 am By Cali Haan  |  

Paragon, a company that sold a cryptocurrency called PRG that the company said could be used to pay rent at a cannabis co-working space in LA, has decided to sell that property, Coindesk reports. PRG coins can now be used, the company says, to pay… Read More

April 24, 2019 @ 11:24 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Two men who ran a Dark Net website called NextDayGear from which they sold more than 10 000 packages of illicit drugs have been convicted in New York. The men, Callaway Crain, 35, and Mark Sanchez, 35, both plead guilty, and now face between 2.5 and… Read More

April 24, 2019 @ 2:08 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Wall Street Journal has reported this week that, on the advice of “a Bitcoin evangelist,” Softbank founder Masayoshi Son invested big in Bitcoins at the height of the market, then lost $130 million when he sold his position as the coin began to crash…. Read More

April 24, 2019 @ 12:20 pm By Cali Haan  |  

New details have emerged in the case of three alleged drug dealers in Australia, two of whom were also cryptocurrency entrepreneurs. In October 2017, police arrested the first two alleged dealers and claim to have seized at the scene 33 kilograms of MDMA, cocaine, and… Read More

April 23, 2019 @ 9:40 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Microsoft has found that ransomware and cryptomining hackers are finding the most success in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Tanzania and Zambia, while the UAE, South Africa and Namibia have proven themselves as the most secure nations in Africa and the Middle East when it comes to repelling cryptocurrency-motivated… Read More

April 23, 2019 @ 9:17 pm By Cali Haan  |  

An Israeli named Afik Wore has been indicted for allegedly stealing 6.2 million shekels ($1.7 million USD) worth of cryptocurrency from a friend who taught him how to trade it, News 1 reports. According to the outlet, Eliat resident Alexei Yaromenko, a cryptocurrency trader since 2013,… Read More

April 23, 2019 @ 1:58 pm By Cali Haan  |  

“Money must be made,” says white paper writer Adefemi Yusuff Adegoke. And though Adegoke won’t allow his name to go on a “crappy” project, he and other writers are willing to generate the compelling white paper used to attract investors nonetheless. That these papers often… Read More

April 23, 2019 @ 12:15 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Japanese agency responsible for overseeing the country’s banking, insurance and securities sectors conducted flash on-site inspections last week at local offices of the Huobi cryptocurrency exchange and at the FISCO Virtual Currency Exchange (formerly Zaif), Reuters Japan reports. Regulators from the Financial Services Agency… Read More

April 21, 2019 @ 6:59 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Adam O’Brien, a friend and former colleague of deceased QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten, told Canadian media outlet Global News this week that Cotten talked casually about being kidnapped for the vast fortune he controlled: “Gerry was holding, we know, over $100 million, almost $200 million… Read More

April 21, 2019 @ 6:32 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Relatives of Chad Elwartowski, a “pure libertarian” wanted by the Thai government for setting up a “seasteading” platform on an abandoned oil rig within the country’s waters say they are concerned about his well-being. Elwartowski’s sister, Delynne Elwartowski, told the Detroit Free Press that her… Read More

April 21, 2019 @ 4:24 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBIs) Draft Enabling Framework for its Regulatory Sandbox program shows that cryptocurrency and crypto asset startups may be excluded from participating in the program. According to the document, the RBI established an inter-regulatory Working Group (WG) in July 2016, “to… Read More

April 20, 2019 @ 1:07 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Numerous cryptocurrency commentators, most of whom are “bag holders” themselves, have been fond of announcing in the press and on social media the inevitable and imminent outsize ballooning of the price of Bitcoin. This phenomenon was particularly common during Bitcoin’s parabolic run up at the… Read More

April 20, 2019 @ 11:27 am By Cali Haan  |  

The Executive Deputy Superintendent for Banking at the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has taken to the media to respond to claims from the Bittrex crypto trading platform that it was treated unfairly when denied a license to do business in the… Read More

April 20, 2019 @ 10:08 am By Cali Haan  |  

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), part of the US Department of Treasury, has fined the operator of a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading service $35,350 USD and barred him from money-transmitting, “for willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act’s (BSA) registration, program, and reporting requirements.” In a release… Read More

April 19, 2019 @ 7:48 am By Cali Haan  |  

The recent loss of $190 million CAD by the now-defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX appears to have alerted regulators across the globe to additional complexities affecting the safe storage of cryptocurrencies at relevant businesses. Quadriga has claimed it lost access to the funds following the… Read More

April 18, 2019 @ 10:56 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A libertarian “seasteading” venture launched by a Bitcoin-rich American and his Thai wife off the coast of Phuket has induced a national security response from the Thai Navy, Bangkok Post reports. Chad Andrew Elwartowski and Supranee Thepdet (aka “Nadia Summergirl”) have reportedly established “a living… Read More

April 18, 2019 @ 8:42 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Winklevoss twins have reached a settlement with Charlie Shrem in the case they brought against him last November claiming he stole $61 000 USD of their funds and used them to buy 5000 Bitcoins in 2012. While details of the settlement are not publicly… Read More