As the days wind down before Benjamin Lawsky leaves the New York Department of Financial Services for private practice, Lawsky unveiled the final version of his New York Bitlicense proposal at an event in Washington DC. The full text of the document is available below: Continue reading
Category Archives: Fiat/BTC interfaces
Some Other People Sentenced This Month in US Courts
A few hours ago Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to a life of incarceration for convictions related to operating a website. Let's look at some other sentences handed down by American courts recently:
Terry and Victoria Smith (archived) were sentenced to seven years in prison by a St Charles County, Missouri court for keeping their six year old child with autism in an excrement filled cage. The judge in the case, Ted house also imposed a fine of five hundred dollars on each parent. Back in 2010 police, paramedics, and a case worker visited the Smith's home after receiving a tip through a child abuse hotline and found the Smith's autistic son locked in the cage. The seven year sentence is the maximum that could be imposed in this case. Continue reading
Gavin Threatens to Quit Bitcoin Development and Join Hearn's Fork
Today on the Sourceforge hosted Bitcoin-development mailing list Gavin Andresen has threatened to leave his present group of Bitcoin software developers over their objections to his demands for a rapid hardfork of the Bitcoin network. In the event his demands are not met Gavin plans to join Mike Hearn's Bitcoin-XT project which is a fork of the Bitcoin client where Hearn implements patches that Gavin's current affiliated developers find too risky to implement in any mainline Bitcoin client. If Gavin defects to Bitcoin-XT he plans to work with Hearn to lobby merchants, miners, and businesses to move to Bitcoin-XT. Previously Mike Hearn was responsible for the March 2013 Bitcoin network crisis. The full text of Gavin's message is mirrored below for posterity. Continue reading
IRS Confirms Breach Reported 2 Months Ago
The United States Internal Revenue Service has now confirmed that a March 30th report by Brian Krebs where he revealed an online portal operated by the IRS for disseminating tax transcripts had been leaking personal information and tax records to parties who ought not to have been authorized to view them. According to the the IRS more than one hundred thousand records were accessed in this manner. This news follows an epic volume of falsified tax returns filed this year sending tax overpayments to fraudsters to the point where major tax preparation companies had to stop handling state tax returns. The gravity of this leak's potential impact on the tenth of a million affected persons can not be underestimated considering the manner in which the fiat state handles identity: Continue reading
Former Vault of Satoshi Customers Can't Collect
The Brantford Expositor reports that Vault of Satoshi still has a number of customers whose funds have not been returned, even though Vault of Satoshi ceased operations back in February. Expositor reported Susan Gamble along with general allegations against Vault of Satoshi's operators present the story of a customer, Scott Campbell: Continue reading
Bitfinex Hot Wallet Possibly Compromised
Bitfinex has announced (archive) that their hot wallet may have been compromised and in a move reminiscent of the Bitstamp hack earlier this year is asking customers to cease deposits to older addresses at this time. The full statement reads: Continue reading
Lawsky Moves to Private Practice
New York Department of Financial Services superintendent Ben Lawsky is stepping down to pursure a career in private practice. Some time in the near future the New York Department of Financial Services is anticipated to pass some variant of the previously revised "BitLicense" regulation removing their jurisdiction from any relevance with concern to Bitcoin's future.
Market News Roundup
This week there have been a few major developments in the Bitcoin market ecosystem. Continue reading
Gavin Backs Off Blocksize: Scapegoats Memory, UTXO Set
Having retreated from the Vessenes Bitcoin Foundation to his new residence at MIT, USGavin, also known as Satoshi dress-up impersonator Gavin Andresen, has given up promoting larger block sizes. Continue reading
ItBit Unveils New Board Confirming Qntra Report
Today New York based ItBit exchange unveiled its new board and charter to operate as a financial services company from the New York Department of Financial Services. ItBit's announcement today confirms Qntra's April 16th report that former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Sheila Blair has joined ItBit's corporate board. Among those joining Blair is former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. ItBit insists its charter from New York allows it to legally operate in all 50 members of the United States in spite of Federalism. CoinBase earlier announced licensing to operate as an exchange in all 50 states, an assertion which was later found to be questionable. Continue reading