Oh good: “After a long period of quiet, the price of the virtual currency Bitcoin is surging again as signs of interest from China and Wall Street have helped kick off a new speculative frenzy.” Still don’t know who the real Satoshi Nakamoto is, though!
Bankrupt Bitcoin Kingpin Mark Karpeles Arrested in Tokyo
On Saturday, Mark Karpeles, CEO of bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which collapsed spectacularly last year, was arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of illicitly stealing $1 million from the online financial platform, the New York Times reports.http://valleywag.gawker.com/mt-gox-died-an…
Brooklynite Allegedly Mugged at Gunpoint for $1,100 in Bitcoin
Brooklyn Libertarians and/or Reddit gold account owners beware: police say a man was robbed at gunpoint for $1,100 in Bitcoin in Crown Heights last week.
The Silk Road Trial Is Treating Emoji as Evidence
The trial of Ross Ulbricht—the man the federal government says was behind The Silk Road—has been a kind of legal coming-out party for the darker corners of the internet. Jurors have had to acquaint themselves with things like the anonymizing browser Tor, and Ulbricht's surprise defense involved the disgraced…
Why You Should Care About the Silk Road Trial
Right now, a 30-year-old engineer is on trial for founding and operating an enormous online black market—the Amazon of drugs. The outcome of his trial could change the way we use the internet.
Silk Road Trial: Defense Says Mt. Gox CEO Is the Real Drug Lord
Since his arrest in 2013, Ross Ulbricht has remained the chief suspect behind the Silk Road, a sweeping and sophisticated online drug market. But today in court, his defense dropped a shocker: they claimed the market's actual kingpin was Mark Karpeles, who is infamous for running the world's biggest bitcoin…
Magical Thinking: Bitcoin Gathers at Disney
ORLANDO—(BTC @ $355.27) The hotel is a tomb of hopeful thinking. Built in the 1980s, the single tower of the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Hotel at Disney World juts up from the Orlando ground as if tectonic forces pushed skyward a sheet of pure, brown stucco. A soundtrack of Mickey Mouse anthems plays around the clock.…
Daughter Maintains Innocence in Breaking Bad Bitcoin Murder Trial
Kuntal Patel, 37, is currently on trial in the UK for the attempted murder of her mother, whom she allegedly poisoned with abrin after seeing a similar stunt on Breaking Bad. The ricin-esque substance was purchased with bitcoin on a dark web site and delivered to a friend's home, disguised in a candle.
Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto's Web Accounts Apparently Compromised
Email and forum accounts used by the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto have apparently been taken over by hackers or squatters, according to a series of odd posts made from accounts confirmed to belong to Nakamoto himself.
200 Years of Swiss Bank Secrecy Is Ending. So, Where's the Money?
A funny thing's happened in Finland. Scores of its monied elite have filed requests to correct their tax data this summer—suddenly recollecting that they'd stashed earnings away in Swiss banks. Truly, this is the end of an era, thanks entirely to a U.S.-led crackdown on tax evasion. It's also a strange new beginning.
"This is the very real, very expensive, and very environmentally unsustainable reality behind a virtual currency hailed as the future of money. We haven't escaped from industrial age mines. We've merely reinvented them."
Bitcoiners wishing to influence the American political process may now donate to their favorite (agorist, libertarian, crypto-conservative or maybe totally normal!) candidate using their internet-Monopoly-money, says the Federal Election Commission.
Bloomberg reports that former Bitcoin Foundation Vice Chairman Charlie Shrem has pled not guilty to charges of money laundering in a Manhattan federal court. He was busted back in January for using his Winklevoss-backed company BitInstant to make money on Silk Road. Trial is set for September 22.
Group of Investors Sweeps in to Save Beleaguered Mt. Gox Depositors
In the latest development in the crypto-soap-opera that is the Mt. Gox bankruptcy, plaintiffs in an Illinois class action brought by angry depositors have agreed to settle its claims against the beleaguered Bitcoin exchange. The settlement agreement, filed with an Illinois court yesterday, sets up the story as a…
Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto Thanks Bitcoiners for Support in New Video
A charming video has just been posted to YouTube of Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto thanking the Bitcoin community for its support in the wake of the Newsweek story that alleged that he was the original creator of Bitcoin. He appears with Andreas Antonopoulos, who spearheaded a collection among bitcoiners (in bitcoin of…
Mt. Gox, the beleaguered Bitcoin exchange, reportedly told a Tokyo court that it's giving up the ghost. It will shut down entirely and pay creditors out of what's left. That means its creditors are likely to get relatively few of their lost bitcoins (and other investments) back.
Those waiting to learn the fate of the Bitcoins they stored with the troubled Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox will have to wait a little longer. The investigator appointed by the Japanese bankruptcy court, who was due to report findings today, was given until May 9 to figure out what the hell happened.
"At a CoinSummit panel on Wednesday, [venture capitalist and ex-Facebook exec Chamath Palihapitiya] also said he thinks Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg thinks bitcoin is cool. Facebook declined to comment."
Watch a Man Literally Eat His Hat After Losing a Bitcoin Bet
Last November, when the digital currency property Bitcoin was trading at more than $1,000 per coin, one overzealous Bitcoin booster couldn't see any way it would ever go down. And he was so sure of himself that he promised to eat a hat if BTC had dropped below $1,000 on January 1st.
