Marcus Swanepoel is the CEO of BitX, a Singapore-based bitcoin services company focused on digital currency in developing markets. In this opinion piece, Swanepoel tackles the issue of bitcoin’s bad reputation, arguing this perception is more based on misinformation than fact. As an industry insider, it is sometimes very hard to admit that bitcoin suffers from serious negative perception issues: that in the minds of many people bitcoin is still automatically linked to thoughts of drugs, terrorist financing and money laundering. Needless to say, this has massive implications for all potential stakeholders: It slows down consumer adoption, it has regulators set the bar unreasonably high for bitcoin companies to operate and many banks still refuse to provide…
Bitcoin, the distributed open source cryptocurrency went live in 2009. Since 2009, for about 3-4 years it was still an obscure token which only a handful of tech publications showed interest in. However, it all changed when this obscure ‘game currency’ was found to be a major currency in the deep web economy. The emergence of the deep web online marketplace – Silk Road and the use of bitcoin to but drugs and other contraband on that site garnered some attention from mainstream media. As time progressed, the Silk Road investigation and the sudden surge and fall of bitcoin price due to Mt Gox incidence were all picked up religiously by the mainstream news outlets. Almost all newspapers, magazines and online publications covered these incidents. By…
OpenBazaar, the decentralized online marketplace will soon be out as a beta release. The much-awaited bitcoin marketplace will be out in the public during the upcoming d10e Conference at Amsterdam next week. The preview of OpenBazaar is out on Youtube. Chris Pacia, one of the contributors of OpenBazaar has uploaded the video where he shows how the desktop client works. Chris has posted the desktop video grab of his Ubuntu machine while operating OpenBazaar desktop client. A view of OpenBazaar’s desktop client According to the video, the application is available in multiple languages. In order to use OpenBazaar, users have to download and install a desktop client. Installation of the desktop client is a fairly simple procedure with clear instructions…
The US government believes that a former Secret Service agent convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoin during the investigation of Silk Road may have been involved with additional thefts from the now-defunct online dark market. Ex-Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison after pleading guilty last year to money laundering and obstruction charges tied to the theft of more than $800,000 in bitcoin from the Silk Road during the US government’s investigation. Bridges was re-arrested in late January on suspicion that he was going to attempt to flee the country. Since then, he has remained in the custody of the US Marshals Service, court records show. Now, the government is saying that it…
A former Secret Service agent who pled guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoin during the US government’s investigation of the now-defunct dark market Silk Road has been re-arrested. Court documents point to a suspicion on the part of the federal government that Shaun Bridges may have been attempting to flee the country. In a 28th January document, prosecutors sought to prevent the court from approving Bridges’ request to be allowed to surrender to a Bureau of Prisons facility in the state of New Hampshire. Judge Richard Seeborg approved that order on 29th January. Prosecutors say the arresting officers discovered passports for Bridges, documents pertaining to offshore companies based in Belize, Mauritius and Nevis, and a bulletproof vest….