Tagged: bitcoin

Plattsburgh Lifts Moratorium on Crypto Mining, Miners to Pay Overages

The town council of Plattsburgh, New York, has voted 5-1 to lift a year-old moratorium prohibiting any new cryptomining operations from setting up within town limits, Midday Magazine reports. The moratorium was established in March of last year after cold temperatures and crypto-mining consumption exhausted… Read More

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Asks UN to Help Accused Bitcoin Launderer to Return to Russia

TASS is reporting this week that Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, has asked the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, “to facilitate the extradition of Russian Alexander Vinnik from Greece to Russia.” Vinnik has been being held by Greek authorities since… Read More

Consulting Firm PwC Says Crypto Increasingly Facilitating Crime and Not “Decentralized” Economy

In its latest “Strategic Alliance Bulletin,” auditing firm PwC (formerly-known-as PricewaterhouseCoopers) has countered the sanguine narratives in crypto by stating unequivocally: “Cryptocurrency has increasingly been associated with serving criminal and nefarious purposes, rather than supporting the decentralisation of ‘traditional’ currency.” That said, the company does… Read More

CEO of Bitcoin Payment App Maker Abra Calls Private Blockchain “Nonsense”

The CEO of Abra, provider of a “Bitcoin-based app that lets people buy and sell currencies, virtual coins, and Nasdaq-listed stocks,” has called enterprise (private or permissioned) blockchain “nonsense,” ” a fallacy” and “complete waste of time,” Fortune reports. Bill Barhydt, a former Goldman Sachs… Read More

Bitfinex Returns $105,000 in Stolen Bitcoins Aided by US Law Enforcement

In a blog post earlier this week, cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex reported that 27.66270285 BTC (approximately $105,000) have been returned to customers due to the efforts of US law enforcement. The returned Bitcoins were part of a theft that took place in 2016. Bitfinex reported that it… Read More

Warren Buffet Calls Bitcoin a “Delusion,” Says it “Has No Unique Value”

Value-investing veteran Warren Buffet has stated in a recent interview at CNBC that his famously unimpressed position on Bitcoin has not changed: “(It’s) oo bad. Bitcoin -its ingenious- and blockchain is important, but it has no unique value. It doesn’t produce anything at all. I… Read More

Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Talks Zuckerberg, Bitcoin and AI, Throws Cold Water on the Prospect of Self-Driving Cars

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak granted an interview to Bloomberg’s Yousef Gamal El-Din this week in which he issued calming statements about the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), briefly discussed bitcoin and chastened Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, stating, “you can make a choice…(and) draw the (ethical)… Read More

Synthetix Launches Ethereum Synthetic Bitcoin “sBTC”

Synthetix, a decentralized synthetic asset platform, has launched a synthetic Bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain known as synthetic Bitcoin (sBTC). This news comes just a couple of months after Synthetix rebranded from Havven. According to Synthetix, sBTC provides access to the value of Bitcoin without the friction of… Read More

UAE Development Firm Behind Burj Khalifa Denies it Accepting Crypto for Real Estate

Emaar Properties, the company that developed the United Arab Emirati’s (UAE’s) iconic Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest in the world, has denied rumours that it plans to accept cryptocurrency payments in real estate deals. According to a company spokesperson speaking to Bloomberg: “Emaar does not… Read More

Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Accused of Handling Funds for Russian US Election Hackers Ends Lengthy Hunger Strike

Alexander Vinnik, a Russian citizen accused of laundering billions while allegedly running the BTC-e Bitcoin exchange in London, has ended his 80-day hunger strike, Urdu Point reports. Vinnik was detained in the summer of 2017 after being arrested while vacationing in Greece with his family…. Read More

UK Firm Auctioning 315 Seized Bitcoins for Belgian Government

UK auction house Wilson’s Auctions will be selling 215 Bitcoins, Bitcoin Gold “coins” and Bitcoin Cash “coins” in a 24-hour Timed Online Auction starting February 28th. According to the firm, the coins (104.99 of each), “were seized by the Belgium police as a result of a… Read More

Thai Investors Say They Were Defrauded of $1.34 Million in Bitcoin Mining Scam

30 investors in Thailand who say they were defrauded of 42 million baht ($1.34 million USD) by the owner of a Bitcoin mining scheme formally complained Monday to the Thai Technology Crime Suppression Division, The Bangkok Post reports. Police say a total of 140 investors have now… Read More

Citing Low and Volatile Crypto Prices, Argo “Temporarily” Drops Cloud Mining Program

Due to “challenging conditions” in crypto markets, Argo Blockchain (LSE:ARB), a cryptomining firm that went public in the UK last year, is no longer accepting new customers for its “mining-as-a-service” program (also known as “cloud mining”), and will terminate all contracts as of April 1,… Read More

Reality Shares Fiat and Bitcoin Futures ETF Filing Withdrawn After One Day at SEC’s Request

Exchange-traded fund provider Reality Shares has withdrawn its application to have its proposed “Reality Shares Blockforce Global Currency Strategy ETF” approved by the SEC- one day after the request was initially filed, Bitcoin.com reports. According to the “request for withdrawal,” the demand was made at… Read More

Crypto Miners Return to Sichuan Province for Cheap Hydro During Rainy Season

After many were forced out and ruined by floods last year, tenacious crypto miners are nonetheless poised to (re)establish operations in the mountainous Chinese province of Sichuan. They plan to do so just ahead of May to October’s rainy season when the price of electricity… Read More

NASDAQ Partners with Brave New Coin on Bitcoin and Ethereum Index

Nasdaq is moving up the crypto ladder with a new “data dissemination relationship” with Brave New Coin (BNC). The partnership will send real-time Bitcoin and Ethereum index level information on the Nasdaq Global Index Data ServiceSM (GIDS) starting on Monday, February 25th. The Bitcoin Liquid Index (BLX)… Read More

Two Years In, Mongo Databases Still Being Ransomed for Bitcoin, Though Less Successfully

Unsecured databases hosted on the free and open-source cross-platform database MongoDB are still being attacked by hackers demanding Bitcoin ransoms, says Zero Day, albeit less effectively than before. Reports of hack exploitation of MongoDB data first surfaced in December 2016, “when hackers realized they could extort… Read More

Swift Says Its New GPI System Outperforming Ripple

Bitcoin advocates and companies like Ripple have long been critical of slow and expensive cross-border money transfer services provided by banks and other traditional firms. Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse presides over a vast sum of publicly-tradable XRP crypto tokens which the company has used to… Read More

Child Porn Permanently Logged on Fork of Bitcoin Called BSV

Child porn has been permanently logged on a code copy of the Bitcoin blockchain called “Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision” (BSV), The Next Web reports. BSV was created last year in yet another contentious “forking” of Bitcoin after the team behind Bitcoin Cash broke up and Craig… Read More

“Sleeping Giant” Wakes: Google Building Comprehensive Crypto Block Explorer

Google UK

A software developer with a background in using multiple small computers to analyze the human genome is building a master blockchain surveillance tool for Google he hopes will show what their real use is, Forbes reports. According to Forbes, Google has so far been behind… Read More

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