On July 26, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a grand jury in the Northern District of California had indicted Alexander Vinnik, a Russian national, and BTC-e, the bitcoin exchange that Vinnik allegedly operated, and one of the world’s largest and most widely used digital currency exchanges. The…
Last month, Senegal announced its intention to introduce a national digital currency based on block chain technology, and become only the second country in the world following Tunisia to do so. Senegal’s new digital currency – called “eCFA” – will co-exist as legal tender alongside Senegal’s fiat currency, the…
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…
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…
On February 26, 2016, Logos Capital Fund, LLP (“Logos”) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) a Form D Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities. As its Form D indicates, Logos is soliciting investments of at least $25,000 for its pooled investment fund. Logos claims an exemption from publicly…
At first blush, one might not expect the digital currency and firearm industries to have much in common – when was the last time you heard someone utter Bitcoin and guns in the same breath? Recently, however, the two industries’ interests have aligned, and the pro-Second Amendment lobby’s efforts might yield…
On April 22, 2015, the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) – the European Union’s (“EU”) securities watchdog agency – issued a formal call for evidence regarding investments using virtual currency or distributed ledger technology. ESMA is an independent EU authority responsible for safeguarding the stability, integrity, transparency, and efficiency…
Given digital currency’s rocky relationship with the Chinese government over the past year or so, some observers have suggested that digital currency service providers, investors and consumers might shift their focus to Hong Kong. The recent bitcoin-related scandal involving MyCoin has challenged this premise, however, and has prompted many –…