BTC Guild Shutting Down, May be Sold

An announcement was posted to the website of the BTC Guild website stating their intention to shut down. Key dates include November 30th, the day they will shut down their mining servers and January 15th the deadline to withdraw coins from their service. In an update to their announcement they float the possibility of being sold and continuing operations. Note that if sold they do not plan to transfer mining history or balances to the new owners. Continue reading

LedgerX Thinks Bitcoin is Ready for Options (Again)

New York City startup LedgerX has submitted applications to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commisions (CFTC), to register as a "swap execution facility and derivatives clearing organization." If approved LedgerX would be allowed to list physically-settled digital currency option contracts, particularly Bitcoin denominated contracts. Continue reading

FinCEN: Payment Processors, Others may be Regulated Money Transmitters

FinCEN issued two administrative rulings in regards to "Virtual Currency." The first concerns "exchanges" and supposes they may be regulated as Money Transmitters under the Banking Secrecy Act. The second though supposes that payment processors like BitPay may similarly fall under their purview. This shift comes contrary to the expectations BitPay had disclosed anticipating from FinCEN.

PDFs of the rulings are available here: ruling 1, ruling 2. Extracted plaintext is available below. Continue reading

DailyDot: What Happened to the Ulbricht Murder Charges?

The DailyDot has a story about the disappearance of the murder charges which notably were used to deny Ulbricht bail in the Silk Road case. Of the original six murder charges five indictments have quietly disappeared uncharged, while the sixth indictment remains on file in Maryland as opposed to New York, where the drug trafficking trial is occurring. The five uncharged allegations have been reduced to overt acts under the trafficking charge allowing prosecutors to use them against Ulbricht at trial without proving them to the jury. The sixth indictment in Maryland sets Ulbricht up for a potential second trial in that jurisdiction later.