In this era of regulatory uncertainty, it is worth considering how privacy laws may affect digital currency businesses. Privacy law consists of a web of federal and state law – this first installment in a two-part series will discuss major threads in that web, the Privacy and Safeguards Rules of…
Last week, former Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) agent, Carl Force, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering, obstruction of justice, and extortion while investigating Silk Road’s illicit activities. Force’s plea follows the guilty plea of Shaun Bridges, former Secret Service agent, who also used his insider role to pilfer hundreds of…
It’s official. New York published the final BitLicense in its state register, which launched a 45-day period for businesses to submit a completed application for a License to Engage in Virtual Currency Business Activity. As the August 8th deadline approaches, employees might find themselves scratching their heads at how to…
On June 12, global insurance giant Lloyd’s of London released a report titled Bitcoin: Risk Factors for Insurance. Lloyd’s knows a thing or two about risk—it has been underwriting for more than 300 years and has insured everything from the Titanic to Keith Richards’ hands—so what does Lloyd’s think about…
It’s tempting to think that Bitcoin services would be immune to patent litigation. After all, Bitcoin protocol is open source and seems to be in the public domain. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous designer of Bitcoin, uploaded a whitepaper describing the currency on October 31, 2008, and he released operative source…
In January 2014, Overstock.com became the first major online retailer to accept payment in bitcoin. Less than eighteen months later, Overstock is now the first company to offer qualified buyers the option of purchasing private cryptosecurities, in the form of bonds. The corporate bonds will trade using Bitcoin’s blockchain protocol….
New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky in a speech yesterday at the BITS Emerging Payment Forum announced the final version of the long-awaited BitLicense. He stressed several points in his short speech, and during the speech, NYDFS published the final version of the rule on…
On May 29, 2015, after a lengthy criminal investigation and multi-week trial, Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind Silk Road—one of the most famous enterprises to utilize Bitcoin currency—was sentenced to life in prison in a Manhattan federal courtroom. In 2011, Ulbricht founded Silk Road, an anonymous, online marketplace where everything…
MtGox Co., Ltd., once the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange company, is insolvent, bankrupt, and now history. This bankruptcy (which I discussed yesterday) offers lessons to cryptocurrency startups. Mt. Gox’s fundamental lack of professionalism has become painfully clear since it filed for bankruptcy. According to a Wired expose last year, former…
Thousands of creditors may receive disbursements from the bankruptcy of MtGox, Co. Ltd., a Japanese corporation that once ran the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange. The bankruptcy filing last year was a rude awakening to Mt. Gox account holders who believe they collectively owned 750,000 Bitcoin, worth nearly a half billion…