One New York lawmaker wants to undo a big part of the state’s regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges. Yet that very regulation may have raised a red flag about some of the world’s largest—and most controversial—bitcoin exchanges three years ago. Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Democrat from Queens, introduced bill A9899 that he touts as replacing the state’s “BitLicense” rules that were put in place three years ago. It’s not the first time such a proposal has been bandied about the legislature. Last month, Sen. Jesse Hamilton and Sen. David Carlucci, Democrats from Brooklyn and Rockland County respectively, also discussed changing regulations. But now a bill is in committee, where it faces the…
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What the Circle/Poloniex deal has in common with Viagra and Cialis
Internet scammers always find new ways to rip off suckers
Lift a rock and you’ll find bugs crawling everywhere. Acquire a cryptocurrency exchange and you’ll find fake Twitter accounts crawling everywhere, too. When mobile payment company Circle announced its purchase Poloniex on Monday (a story we broke three weeks earlier, as we endlessly like to remind readers), Twitter lit up with very positive comments directed toward the exchange. There was just one problem: Many of those accounts appeared suspiciously like bots. As of press time, there were about 820 responses to this Poloniex tweet: Big news from the Poloniex team today!https://t.co/nZdjsKzWBl — Poloniex Exchange (@Poloniex) February 26, 2018 That would seem wonderfully positive for the company. Except our social media…
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Circle buys Poloniex, confirming Modern Consensus scoop
What the Circle/Poloniex deal means to us
On February 2, Modern Consensus broke the story that mobile pay startup Circle would be acquiring Poloniex. It was a big scoop, the kind that can put an upstart publication like Modern Consensus on the map. Twitter immediately lit up with talk of the deal and questions about how our little publication had broken such an important story. Predictably, some of that speculation immediately turned first to skepticism and then to outright insults. Ari Paul, the CIO of Block Tower Capital, first tweeted the story to his 95,000 followers. And then he immediately posted a cloying, virtue-signaling apology: I just posted a link to an article asserting that Circle was acquiring Poloniex. Someone helpfully…
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EXCLUSIVE: Circle set to acquire Poloniex
Mobile pay startup nears purchase of pioneering crypto exchange
Modern Consensus has learned that Circle, the venture-rich mobile pay startup that competes with Venmo and makes sending money almost effortless, is deep in discussions to acquire Poloniex, the American cryptocurrency exchange that made its name by listing scores of altcoins on a platform that resembles a professional trading station. At press time, Modern Consensus was unable to confirm the terms of the deal. According to one highly placed source with knowledge of the discussions, “Circle and Poloniex agreed to terms and Circle has already approached the regulators. The regulators came back with a list of KYC demands [Know Your Customer] and Circle has agreed to meet all the conditions.”…
