Bitfinex is a Hong Kong-based digital currency exchange – one of the world’s leading such exchanges, and the self-proclaimed largest exchange by volume for trading bitcoin against the US Dollar. On August 2, 2016, Bitfinex halted trading after discovering a security breach, including by taking its website offline and suspending…
A Philippines bitcoin startup, Coins, recently announced a $5 million investment from global investors, to help it expand its reach to underbanked communities in Southeast Asia. The Series A round is a big shot in the arm to the fledgling company as it seeks to expand its reach throughout Southeast…
In our August 9 blog post, we discussed the Bitfinex hack that rattled the bitcoin markets and raised serious questions about the security of bitcoin wallets and allocating risk in this new age of cyber theft. Through a simple phishing email that contained a virus, hackers were able to gain access to…
In our last Fintech Flash we covered the pros and cons of marketplace lending platform companies entering into bank partnerships. If the arrangement is structured properly, two significant advantages result: The platform company does not need state lender licenses. By virtue of the bank partner enjoying interest rate exportation authority,…
Citizens in many countries the world over are plagued by an inability to record their land interests in a reliable and secure registry. Inefficiency, corruption and nepotism are rife, leaving countless people at risk of losing their land, and the livelihood they derive from it, at the whim of government…
On August 2, 2016, Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex was the latest target of hackers who stole 119,756 bitcoins, for a total loss of approximately $72 million at that time. Some are estimating it to be as high as $80,000,000. The Bitfinex hack was notable both because Bitfinex is one of the…
On July 25, a Florida Circuit Court judge dismissed state criminal charges against a defendant who attempted to sell bitcoins for $30,000 in cash on the ground that bitcoins are not money. Defendant Michell Abner Espinoza allegedly had agreed to sell bitcoins to an undercover Miami Beach police detective who…
If you have an interest in bitcoin, you’ve undoubtedly heard people refer to “The Blockchain.” Because the term “blockchain” can refer to any distributed ledger where “blocks” are added to the ledge by solving complex mathematical problems, it should more properly be referred to as “the Bitcoin Blockchain.” Each block…
Decentralized cloud storage programs, smart contracts, and the shared economy– will they combine to be a mainstream method of storage method of the future? A number of companies are working to make it a reality. One, Sia (sia.tech), a decentralized cloud storage program, released a public version 1.0 of its graphical…
There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins, and the rate at which those 21 million bitcoins are generated will decrease periodically by half until all bitcoins are in circulation. More specifically, a user is rewarded with a given number of bitcoins when it discovers (i.e., “mines”) a new block…