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…
Must-reads for August 30, 2018: Ethereum’s Lubin talks Tether, EU considers regulations, and more
Ethereum cofounder defends Tether against manipulation accusations (Yahoo Finance) Tether is often accused of being printed without assets to back and then used as a tool to manipulate bitcoin price. Joe Lubin, who now runs Brooklyn-based Consensys, isn’t a Tether skeptic. “Based on our analysis, which involves just talking to a bunch of people in the space, we do believe that tethers are backed 1 to 1 by U.S. dollars in bank accounts. But it’s still not 100 percent solid in terms of a story from my perspective. I expect may other price-stable tokens will arise and take it place. MakerDAO’s dai is doing incredibly well. It’s a mechanism that…
Must-reads for August 29, 2018: Surveys, stolen hotel data, faked trades, and more
The rise of crypto in higher education (Coinbase) It’s a slow news week for the crypto space so this survey is getting a lot of press. Here’s the stat they keep talking about: “42 percent of the world’s top 50 universities now offer at least one course on crypto or blockchain.” That means 21 schools have at least one single class teaching a 9 year-old technology. Of 675 students surveyed, 9 percent said they’ve taken a cryptocurrency course, 18 percent said they’ve owned crypto at some point, and 26 percent said they want to take a crypto course. Did we mention this is a slow news week? Data of…
Must-reads for August 20, 2018
Maduro orders 96 percent devaluation in hyperinflation-stricken Venezuela (Reuters) The hell-on-earth created by Hugo Chavez and his equally noxious successor, Nicolas Maduro, has led to swaths of starving people eating their pets and zoo animals. However, for HODL bros, Maduro is an enlightened leader of a nation that now has a fiat currency officially pegged to its own cryptocurrency, the petro. That means a 96 percent instant devaluation of the bolivar. Remember, kids: Danish socialism is what they try to sell places like Park Slope and the suburbs but the reality usually looks like Venezuela. The blockchain bonanza is over for graphics card makers (Ars Technica) Remember when Nvidia’s…
