The Straits Times reports that despite much fanfare at the arrival of Bitcoin ATMs in Singapore during 2014, at least five have since been converted to non-bitcoin accepting kiosks or removed entirely. Continue reading
Category Archives: Fiat/BTC interfaces
Phishing With Coinbase
Coinbase has announced their intention to reimburse a small number of users who were the victim of a phishing attack. The attacker, who emailed users a purported new service agreement from Coinbase, used the Coinbase API to fool users into approving full permissions for his 3rd party app so as to withdraw bitcoins from the Coinbase wallet. As a result of the successful attack, Coinbase now claim they will review the approval process for applications using their API. Continue reading
BitMarket.pl Account Closed over HYIP Links
Silicon Angle reports that a likely catalyst for the suspension of bank accounts used by BitMarket.pl is a recurring connection between that exchange and High Yield Investment scams. The accounts were closed by BPH, a bank owned by bezzle economy giant General Electric. Silicon Angle also notes that BitMarket.pl was injured in the EgoPay drama.
Police Offer Well Surveilled "Online Exchange Zone"
Columbia, Missouri police have recently unveiled an online exchange zone where people might exchange goods being bought and sold on the Internet. All that is necessary to take advantage of this "safe space" for transacting with other members of the public is arranging to meet in the lobby of the police station as this video so helpfully demonstrates. Also emphasized heavily in the video is that in this "safe space" you are prohibiting from bringing or transacting in weapons. Continue reading
Greece Taps Anti-Bitcoin Video Game Economist as Finance Minister
One piece of fallout from the recent SYRIZA win in Greece's election is the appointment of Yanis Varoufakis, most notable for tinkering with Valve's Steam video game marketplace to the position of Finance Minister. Yanis Varoufakis is much less notable for in the spring of 2013 writing one of the many essays naively assailing Bitcoin as some sort of impossible fantasy incapable of anything, an essay that safely could have remained entirely without note. Unfortunately someone decided to promote him from advising ways for an arcade could extract more money from chumps to managing the finances of a populated area that is still by some miracle, in some form a sovereign state with a government. Let us consider some excepts beginning with the title: Continue reading
LocalBitcoins.com Compromised, Bitcoins Stolen
It appears that LocalBitcoins LiveChat feature was compromised earlier today and that the attacker fooled some users with a trojan and proceeded to withdraw coins from their accounts. An administrator for LB posted the following message on the LB forums: Continue reading
Rumor: CenturyLink May Buy CoinTerra
A snippet of from the St Louis Business Journal offers that troubled Bitcoin mining firm CoinTerra might or may have been acquired by Louisiana based Internet Service Provider CenturyLink as it continues to progress through a Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy.
CSM Profiles Homero J Garza, Serial Entrepreneur
Today the Christian Science Monitor published an profile of Homero "Josh" Garza featuring selection from an interview they conducted before the North American Bitcoin conference. Most of the information in the profile is not going to be new to anyone who has been following the GAW saga, but the profile covers Garza's history of serial entrepreneurship from Optima Technology and Great Awk Wireless to GAW Miners. Continue reading
Coinbase To Launch Licensed US Exchange
The WSJ reports that Coinbase is to launch a licensed US exchange this coming Monday in what is likely to be a reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger Lunar news which first appeared on the Coinbase website earlier today.
Despite Brian Armstrong's plans for the new exchange to become the world's largest, it will initially be open only to US customers who reside in the states in which Coinbase is believed to have acquired regulatory approval. The exact number of those states remain unknown although the WSJ article claims that California as well as New York are amongst them. Continue reading
Troubled EgoPay cries "Hack"
Payments processor EgoPay which has been troubled since at least December recently issued a blog post stating that they have fired employees likely responsible, and that the source of their problems was likely internal to their company. The full text of the post is preserved below for posterity. Continue reading