As governments across the globe race to develop laws and policies for handling virtual currencies like bitcoin, one of the biggest problems they face is simply knowing what general category cryptocurrency falls under. They’re clearly not legal tender, or even currency, even though in practice virtual currencies act like money. In a new report from…
As the situation at Mt.Gox was unraveling last month, bitcoin derivatives platform BTC.sx decided to immediately halt all operations. The company promised to resume operations once agreements with other exchanges could be established. After nearly three weeks of silence, BTC.sx quietly resumed operations yesterday. According to a report on CoinDesk, BTC.sx is currently partnering with…
In a new statement from New York Superintendent of Financial Services, Benjamin M. Lawsky, the state is now officially accepting applications for digital currency exchanges. The new exchanges will be regulated under still-forming rules that Lawsky plans to have in place by this summer. Today’s public order is the next phase in NYDFS’s public inquiry…
Make no mistake: Goldman Sachs doesn’t particularly like Bitcoin. But that doesn’t mean the investment banking giant doesn’t see some potential in the virtual currency. In a report published yesterday, Goldman’s chief markets economist Dominic Wilson noted that Bitcoin is not a traditional currency, and is unlikely to ever work as one. Without state control…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued a “Fraud and Scam” alert about Bitcoin today, noting the “very real abuses and criminal activity associated with it.” Such a claim is interesting coming from FINRA, the privately owned, non-governmental organization charged with the self-regulation of member brokerage firms and exchange markets. FINRA has no authority over…
In the last few months, Bitcoin has gone from fringe tech curiosity to a potential dark horse in the race for the future of international commerce. Not surprisingly, it has caught the caught the attention of cautious U.S. regulators, skeptical central bankers and scapegoat-craving politicians. To ensure that the Bitcoin movement has a seat at…
Back in November, the Bitcoin community was electrified when at 194,993 BTC transaction was identified on the blockchain, representing about $147 million at the time. Since that time, speculation about what the shift was and why it happened has been rampant, with theories ranging from Richard Branson consolidating his newly revealed wallet to a return…
In a dramatic new survey by Viacom’s brand research division Scratch, the mid-20s generation known as “millennials” have made their views about banks and the banking industry unambiguously clear: They don’t like banks. Period. The three-year study of 10,000 millennials, the “Millennial Disruption Index,” showed a general sense of skepticism and hostility towards banks. According…
In a recent conference at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, university CFO Dr. Christos Vlachos gave a presentation about Bitcoin to the Cypriot government and Cyprus Stock Exchange. The highlight of the presentation was a formal proposal to the government for “Converting Cyprus into a worldwide hub for Bitcoin trading and processing.” According to…
In February, Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office released a statement that seemed to plainly state that using Bitcoin was illegal in the country. The statement seemingly left no gray area around Bitcoin’s status in Russian law. The anonymous payment systems and crypto-currencies, including bitcoin – which is the most popular of them – are monetary surrogates….