Police in the Netherlands have arrested three persons allegedly involved in cannabis cultivation and money laundering. During a raid in Sneek, Friesland police seized 135 cannabis plants, cash, jewels, and assorted other items. Allegedly a financial investigation shows the suspects received "440,000 euros" in Bitcoin, though how they received it apparently remains a mystery. Dutch legal treatment of cannabis involves a "tolerance policy" allowing for limited retail commerce in cannabis though production and wholesaling to retailers is prosecuted.
Digital Hawala For The Poor
Former Netscape director Bill Barhydt has decided to enter the remittance market using Bitcoin as the underlying technology of his platform Abra. Migrant workers who are employed seasonally will send earnings to their family back home through services the likes of Western Union and MoneyGram. These brokers tend to charge upwards of $15 for a $100 or more cash transfer. Abra believes these fees on remittances can be reduced by using Bitcoin and what they noted as their own version of a hawala network. Continue reading
Tor Developers Set Funding Goal
The Daily Dot reports that the developers of the Tor software and network have decided to set an ambitious fund raising goal for this year. Specifically they aspire to reduce the portion of their funding which comes from the United States government to under half of their total. Last year roughly three quarters of their funding came from the United States Government. This follows another piece published by Yasha Levine on March 1st where Levine highlighted that the "activists" behind Tor, Open Whisper Systems, and other popular "privacy" ventures receive funding from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a Federal Agency born in the CIA which specializes in propaganda and psychological warfare. Continue reading
Bitcoin Mining Gains In Difficulty, Network Grows Stronger
With what is the fifth adjustment in the Bitcoin mining difficulty for 2015, the difficulty has increased to a new all time high of 47,427,554,951. Today's increase of 1.59% over February 22nd's difficulty of 46,684,376,317 represents the smallest gain for the network so far this year. The hash rate as of today's change stands at 339,499,662 GH/s.1
An average over the last 504 blocks. ↩
Ross Ulbricht Seeks New Trial
As expected, Ross Ulbricht is now seeking a new trial in an attempt to overturn his conviction for narcotics trafficking, money laundering and others. USA Today reports that earlier today, Ulbricht's lawyer filed legal arguments which suggest prosecutors for the State: Continue reading
Summary of MPEx Stocks and Funds February 2015
Monthly statements from stocks listed at the MPEx exchange have been released for December. Official reports are available at Trilema. Here are some highlights: Continue reading
Crapware Still Bundles Mining Software
The uTorrent software has been bundled with a cryptocurrency miner in its latest update. This inclusion has generated a number of user complaints as the mining software degrades the performance of the users computer while also not offering them any benefit. This sort of user abuse is par for the course with explicitly closed source and Windows software.
14 Bidders 34 Bids In Latest USMS Bitcoin Auction
Bloomberg reports that an auction held today by the USMS1 for 50,000 BTC attracted a total of 34 bids from 14 participants including third time bidders SecondMarket. The fenced goods are expected to be transferred to the winner/s of the auction by Monday at the earliest.
Alluding to Buterin's Waterfall, Gil Luria of Wedbush Securities Inc was quoted by Bloomberg as saying: Continue reading
Mirrored here as the USMS have deleted the pages for previous auctions. ↩
Missouri Secretary of State Orders Slaughter to Pay Civil Penalties
AMC/VMC 'CEO' Kenneth Slaughter has been ordered to pay civil penalties of over $30,000 for multiple violations of Missouri Securities Act. Violations include, but are not limited to: offering/selling unregistered securities, making untrue statements and omitting to state material facts. Continue reading
Aspiring Bitcoin Journalist Arrested For Recruiting For ISIS
A 17 year old teenager from Virginia in the United States who was arrested by the FBI last Friday for his alleged involvement in providing assistance to a man who wished to travel to Syria so as to fight alongside ISIS has been identified as Ali Shukri Amin.
Amin, who wrote for the Bitcoin news site Coin Brief on a variety of topics including Dark Wallet and Open Bazaar, is reported to have been charged as a juvenile for his as yet to be announced crimes. Attempts to charge the student as an adult are also reportedly under way. Continue reading