Ripple announced Thursday that it is giving its former CTO more than $260 million to change the way content is paid for on the Web. Ripple’s Xpring initiative to invest in companies building the XRP cryptocurrency ecosystem gave a 1 billion XRP grant to Coil, a micropayments company founded by former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas.
Bitcoin Suspect Could Shed Light on Russian Mueller Targets (Bloomberg) Remember the name Alexander Vinnik? He ran BTC-e, the cryptocurrency exchange that appeared all too willing to launder money for Bond villain-type characters. He was taken down by FinCEN, with the help of the IRS, and now sits in a Greek prison. Some of the bitcoins Vinnik allegedly helped launder belonged to a Russian hacking unit now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. See? It’s all connected. The baroness, the ICO fiasco, and enter Steve Wozniak (Financial Times) Michelle Mone, aka Baroness Mone, of Mayfair in the City of Westminster, OBE, sits in the British House of Lords…
Ripple announced a couple of additions to its leadership team on Wednesday. First, it went in-house to replace former CTO Stefan Thomas. In a blog post today, CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that David Schwartz, the crypto-financial company’s chief cryptographer, will take on the C-suite role. Schwartz is an influential member of the crypto community for some time. His Twitter account, @JoelKatz, has 103,000 followers. In May, Thomas left the company after half a decade to start a Coil, a micropayments platform for content. At Ripple, he created its first client application and its platform for smart contracts. Coil is built on the XRP Ledger. Notably, Garlinghouse’s statement said: “Schwartz’s team…
