Prosecutors have added three new charges to the case against Ross Ulbricht, the man the Feds believe to be “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the mastermind behind the now-closed online black marketplace Silk Road. Ulbricht, 30, will now face additional charges of narcotics trafficking, distribution of narcotics by means of the internet, and conspiracy to traffic in…
International shipping logistics is a tricky game to master. While many in the U.S. take the ease and relatively low costs of ordering online for granted, customers in more far-flung countries don’t have it so lucky. In the best case, they pay a hefty premium for having their order shipped internationally, and in many cases…
The Bangkok Post reported this week that Thailand’s business authorities have officially registered bitcoin exchange Coins Co., making the company a fully legal e-commerce company in the country. The move strongly suggests that the seemingly hostile attitude towards digital currency seen earlier this year from Thai authorities, including a statement from the Bank of Thailand…
The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has extended the public comment period around their proposed “BitLicense” regulation for digital currency-related businesses operating in the state’s jurisdiction. In an update published today to the NYDFS website, the regulatory agency said that the extension came in response to a “significant amount of public interest in…
Last week, online precious metals retailer Amagi Metals announced that it will no longer be directly accepting U.S. dollars for purchases of bullion and coins. The move will not take effect immediately, with dollar-backed purchases enabled through the end of 2016. Amagi is often cited among the first generation of bitcoin-accepting merchants, adopting a bitcoin-purchasing…
After months of speculation, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne confirmed yesterday that his company will be enabling buy-with-bitcoin options on their international site, O.co, starting Sept. 1. Although the move was known to be the works since July, the date of the bitcoin-buying service expansion wasn’t known beyond a general “within a few months” estimate. The…
In January, Federal prosecutors charged Robert Faiella and Charlie Shrem with a scheme to launder more than $1 million in drug money through now-shuttered online black marketplace Silk Road. A significant portion of case hinges on the idea that Faiella and Shrem were operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, even though that transmission largely took place…
Since July 12, bitcoin miners have had a much-needed break from the relentless growth in the mining difficulty. As one of the key metrics determining just how profitable a mining operation is, and a relative measure of how much competition there is to solve the next block in the block chain and gain a 25…
San Fransisco-based bitcoin development house Chain is already well ahead of the curve when it comes to raising venture capital. In January, the startup raised $4.2 million to further develop its API for bitcoin’s block chain, enabling a new suite of mobile apps to quickly and easily interact with the cryptocurrency network’s data. Clearly, investors…
If there is a single issue slowing mainstream business adoption of bitcoin, it’s the still-tricky problem of accounting. Although the IRS has offered some guidance on how bitcoin should be treated, and Intuit Labs has made some headway in bitcoin invoicing, there is still no one-stop solution for fully integrating bitcoin payments into their tax…