Free Republic

To say I've been skeptical about Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto universe would be an understatement of epic proportions. I could see the fundamental promise of a digital currency free of banks if you were living in a failing state like Venezuela or an overtly authoritarian one like China or Iran, but how was this relevant to the vast number of Bitcoin boosters living in stable Western democracies governed by the rule of law? Enter the trucker protests in Canada. In just three weeks of honking, blocked streets and bridges, bouncy castles and flag waving, this peaceful protest...

A pair of Iranian hackers have been charged with breaking into a Missouri tech firm’s cloud-computing account and running up a $760,000 bill while mining cryptocurrency. Prosecutors say the two men, who live and operate in Iran, managed to access the company’s Microsoft Azure cloud-computing account and install several new servers and programs to mine a cryptocurrency called Monero — a process known as cryptojacking... ..The company was unaware of the intrusion until it received a bill from Microsoft for $760,00 for the use of the additional server capacity, prosecutors said....

When a cryptocurrency start-up that promised to revolutionize the fruit and vegetable industry shut down last month, it left behind one word on its website: penis. When a virtual currency company called DateCoin recently tried to entice investors for its initial coin offering, it posted a Facebook ad that featured a reclining woman in a swimsuit with text over her body that read, “Touch my I.C.O.” And after the North American Bitcoin Conference in January, which highlighted 84 male speakers and three women, the official conference party was held at a Miami strip club. Virtual currencies and blockchain, the digital...

Publicly fretting about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, last month, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin assured an audience at the Economic Club of Washington that "one of the things we will be working very closely with the G-20 on is making sure that this doesn't become the Swiss numbered bank accounts." He specifically cited the difficulty cryptocurrencies pose to tracking transactions as a major concern. Soon afterward, India's finance minister, Arun Jaitley, sounded an even stronger note, saying, "The government does not consider crypto-currencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate...

US Asks S. Korean Banks to Investigate Cryptocurrency Exchange Transactions Seoul, Korea 29 January 2018 - 9:30am Yoon Yung Sil The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) asked six South Korean banks and their New York branches to report on the current conditions of digital currency transactions in South Korea and their measures to prevent money laundering. It is very rare for the U.S. to make a request for business in South Korean branches. The U.S. seems to be concerned that virtual currency can be a loophole in financial sanctions on North Korea. According to investment banking (IB)...