Friday, June 19, 2015
JUN 19 DIGEST: Case Wallet Raises US$1.5 Million; Polish Exchanges Suffer in Bitcoin Crackdown
How Can a Bitcoin Bank Pay Interest?
Good Bitcoin, Bad Bitcoin: Blockchain Analytics and Fungibility
Canada Rules in Favor of ‘An Almost Hands-Off Approach’ to Bitcoin
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Ex-U.S. Agent Charged With Bitcoin Theft to Plead Guilty
In March of 2015, two federal agents who helped conduct one of the major investigations in the Silk Road case allegedly stole thousands in bitcoin confiscated from the online dark marketplace. The two agents, Shaun Bridges and Carl Force from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Secret Service, were charged with several offenses including wire fraud and money laundering.
This week, Bridges, a special agent for the U.S. Secret Service for the Silk Road case, has come to an agreement with the prosecutors and pleaded guilty for the theft of confiscated bitcoin from Silk Road.
Bridges took part in a Baltimore task force as a computer forensics expert where he contributed to an investigation which acquired enough evidence to accuse Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road for allegedly hiring assassins to murder six individuals that threatened the marketplace.
During the operation, Bridges stole thousands in bitcoin by obtaining the passwords to Silk Road from the marketplace’s customer support representative and moved the bitcoin to his own personal account. Specifically, the prosecutors claimed that the stolen bitcoin were transferred into Japanese bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, to convert the bitcoin into U.S. dollars and then move it to his bank account.
The bitcoin stolen by Bridges are said to be worth around $820,000, which is equivalent to around 3,565 bitcoin, at today’s bitcoin price.
Bridges Pleads Guilty to Theft
This week, in a filing at the San Francisco federal court, Bridges agreed to plead guilty for the theft of bitcoin that once belonged to Silk Road and to two other charges: money laundering and obstruction of justice.
“Mr. Bridges has regretted his actions from the very beginning,” Bridges’ lawyer, Steve Hale Levin said. “His decision to plead guilty reflects his complete acceptance of responsibility and is another step towards rehabilitation.”
Back in March, however, Bridges and Levin strongly denied the accusations.
“Mr. Bridges, a former law enforcement officer with an unblemished record, maintains his innocence. He will fight the charges in the appropriate place at the appropriate time,” Levin said at the time.
The hearing date of the other agent behind the theft of bitcoin from Silk Road has been rescheduled to August, around the same time Bridges is required to submit a plea.
Image by Fayerollinson / CC BY-SA 3.0
Report: FinTech's Future Is in Asia & Africa, Europe Is ‘at the Bottom of the Heap’
Ripple Labs Joins Fed’s Faster Payment Task Force
Creators of the Ripple payment protocol, Ripple Labs, have been elected to the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payment Task Force Steering Committee.
The Fed created the Faster Payment Task Force earlier this year to tackle the challenge of upgrading the United States’ outdated payment infrastructure, which lags behind Europe, and, in some cases, emerging markets such as China. The committee will help execute and discuss a payment strategy laid out by the Fed earlier this year.
The central bank’s main goal is upgrading the country’s domestic payment system used for e-check settlement, called the Automatic Clearing House (ACH). Developed in the 1970s, it takes 1-2 days for it to clear a payment, something that simply won’t do anymore in our fast-paced world, according to the Fed.
To represent the interests of various stakeholders in the 300-plus-person task force, a steering committee has been elected by industry peers. Ripple Labs’ Ryan Zagone, head of research on the Business Development team, has been elected to represent the technology and nonservice banking provider sector. He, alongside 15 other committee members, will lead discussions on how to bring real-time settlement to the U.S. payment system.
“It’s a privilege to be selected,” Zagone said. “I look forward to leveraging Ripple’s global experience as the task force assess ways to increase speed, efficiency, access to, and competition in payments.”
One of many
Ripple Labs first got involved with the Fed’s payment initiative, at least to some degree, when it participated in the call for information by the central bank during 2013 and 2014, which helped shape the later published payment roadmap. And it appears the digital currency startup’s ideas might have caught some attention. As one potential solution for faster payments listed in the January 2015 report read:
[To] facilitate direct clearing between financial institutions on public IP networks using protocols and standards for sending and receiving payments.
A distributed architecture for messaging between financial institutions over public IP networks has the potential to lower costs compared to clearing transactions over a hub-and-spoke network architecture. A central authority would establish common protocols for messaging standards, communication, security and logging transactions.
It sounds a bit like Ripple’s hybrid cryptocurrency payment system that leverages centralized institutions over a distributed network. And already, three of Australia’s Big Four banks — Westpac, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia — announced that they have been, or will begin, testing Ripple for real-time settlements between their subsidiaries.
Ripple might be one option on the table, but the rest of the Steering Committee is also packed with heavy hitters in the U.S. payment industry. Dwolla is a prime example and has already gotten traction with their real-time payment system FiSync. The U.S. subsidiary of global banking giant, BBVA, announced in April that through FiSync their customers will be able to send free payments which clear instantly.
Russian Central Bank Governor: The Market Will Welcome Bitcoin
According to information provided last week to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, the Russian Central Bank will meet with representatives of the financial community to establish a position on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.
A source close to the Bank of Russia told Izvestia that the governor might be open to cryptocurrency and that the central bank may allow, and regulate, some Bitcoin activities, specifically transfers, payments, and settlements between users.
Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Russian Central Bank, provided clarifications on the position of the central bank on Bitcoin in an interview with CNBC.
Asked whether she could see a time in the near future where the central bank might be looking to hold any reserves of bitcoin or authorize the use of bitcoin in Russia as a legitimate currency of exchange, Nabiullina gave a cautiously open-minded reply.
“So far I can’t imagine a situation where bitcoins would be considered a reserve currency, but we are looking at how this market is developing, we are noting certain risks there and we’ve informed the market players that we identify these risks, and because there are many representatives in that particular sector that could be resorted to some dubious operations and transactions,” Nabiullina said. “You know the kind of policy we conduct about dubious transactions, but we are watching over the development of this market and see that for consumers there are certain attractions in bitcoin’s mobility, expediency, low cost, so this is something definitely the market will be welcoming so we will be watching with attention and, if necessary, regulate it.”
Nabiullina discussed many other current issues relevant to global and European financial markets, including the possibility of Grexit – the exit of Greece from the eurozone and perhaps even from the European Union. As recently noted by Bitcoin Magazine, such a possibility might have a significant impact on digital currencies.
“We do consider [Grexit] as one of possible risks which would increase turbulence in the financial markets in the European market, bearing in mind the fact the European Union is one of major trading partners, and we are definitely worried by it,” Nabiullina said. “There will be possible consequences. And there is a possibility of this kind of sentiment becoming stronger, which could reduce the rate of the development of the recovery of the European economy, and bring down the demand for our products.”
Nabiullina declined to speculate on the likelihood of Grexit.
In reply to a direct question, Nabiullina commented on the actions taken by the central bank to stabilize the Russian currency, such as rising interest rates, and finally, and win the battle against the speculators. “In order to stabilize [the currency], we had to apply a comprehensive set of measures – some of them being very unpopular, such as raising an interest rate,” she said. “The situation in the market gradually is stabilizing. But at the same time we were facing, you know, huge objectives to reduce inflation. Our objective is to reduce it down to 4 percent.”
Photo Pavel Kazachkov / Flickr
UKDCA & The Mankoff Company Announce Panel & Networking Event Addressing the Optimization of Bitcoin for Investment, Trading & its Surrounding Technology
LONDON – 12 June 2015 – The Mankoff Company along with the UK Digital Currency Association is hosting a high-level panel discussion on issues involved with Bitcoin geared towards Institutions, Traders, Hedge Funds and those in the FinTech market space.
With a panel of financial experts who have moved from mainstream finance into the leading-edge bitcoin space, this hour-long panel held after trading hours in Mayfair will discuss the current developments in the cryptocurrency market, particularly in the technology related to the bitcoin industry and how it can benefit those in the financial technology markets. Issues addressed include: Trading securely; Liquidity issues; Where to invest; Regulations and Block Chain Technology. The expert panel, consisting of Paul Gordon, Founder, CoinScrum; Ian Grigg, Technology Lead, Dinero Ltd.; Jonathan Heusser, Founder, Queueco; Timo Schlaefer, Co-founder & COO, Crypto Facilities and James Smith, CEO, Elliptic will be facilitated by Robert Sams, Founder & CEO, Clearmatics.
“This event is a follow on to our discussions held last year in London, New York and San Francisco just when the traditional financial community was first looking at bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies” says Stacey Mankoff, Managing Principal of The Mankoff Company. “Not the market has matured a bit and the financial world wants to know ‘what’s next?’ and where should I look to in the space – technology being one of the lead areas.”
This event, entitled After the Bell Discussion: Cryptocurrency Trading: Optimizing Bitcoin’s Potential in
Investing, Trading & Technology is being held at The Washington Mayfair Hotel in central London and the discussion is immediately followed by a networking reception to continue the discussion and optimize contact amongst your industry colleagues. To register and for more detailed information, go to: http://ift.tt/1GuHKnn
###
About The Mankoff Company
The Mankoff Company is a marketing consultancy concentrating on all aspects of the financial industry with an expertise in trading technology. We partner with our clients to determine need and design targeted and results-driven marketing plans, networking forums, interactive seminars, lead-generation campaigns, product promotion campaigns, b2b programs, and establishment of a web and social media presence. For more information, please visit http://ift.tt/1LhDxHU
Media Contact: info@themankoffcompany.com
Does Your Company or Site Belong on 'Please Protect Consumers'?
JoyStream Seeks Testers for Torrenting Client that Incentivizes the Seeding of Files
Estonia’s LHV Bank: ‘The Bitcoin Blockchain is the Most Tested and Secure for Our Applications’
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)