Coin News

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Florida man accused of running an unlicensed bitcoin exchange and who is among five defendants linked to last summer's massive data breach at JPMorgan Chase & Co is in talks to resolve his criminal case, according to court papers filed Friday.

In a court filing in federal court in Manhattan, a prosecutor said Yuri Lebedev, one of two men charged with operating the bitcoin exchange service, was in discussions "regarding a possible disposition of this case."

The filing used language that is usually indicative of plea talks, though cases in some instances can be resolved with deferred prosecution agreements or with charges being dropped.

Eun Young Choi, a prosecutor under Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara who made the submission, said negotiations were not yet complete and sought an extension until Sept. 28 for when a grand jury would need to indict Lebedev.

A federal magistrate judge has granted that request, according to court papers.

A spokesman for Bharara declined comment. Mark Bernett, Lebedev's lawyer, did not respond to requests for comment.

Should a plea deal be reached, it could be a breakthrough for authorities investigating the hacking of JPMorgan, which compromised information in 83 million household and small business accounts.

U.S. and Israeli authorities arrested four people in Israel and Florida in July in connection with two separate fraud schemes.

While the cases appeared distinct and made no mention of the JPMorgan hacking, a person familiar with the matter said both actions stemmed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation of the cyberattack.

In one indictment, U.S. authorities accused Lebedev and another Florida man, Anthony Murgio, of operating an underground bitcoin exchange, called Coin.mx, that was used to facilitate criminal activity including cyberattacks.

In another indictment, authorities accused three men of engaging in a stock manipulation scheme involving U.S. penny stocks.

In that case, Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein, both Israeli nationals, were arrested, and the U.S. government has sought their extradition.

Joshua Samuel Aaron, a U.S. citizen who resides in Moscow and Tel Aviv, remains at large, authorities have said.

The case is U.S. v. Lebedev, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-mj-02501.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Overstock has struck a deal to take the online retailer into a new arena: helping hedge funds short stocks. 

Overstock's t0 subsidiary acquired broker-dealer SpeedRoute Technologies on Wednesday August 26, adding crucial stock trading infrastructure to its list of offerings. 

OverStock founder and chief executive Patrick M. Byrne told Business Insider in an interview on Friday August 28 that he was especially excited about a new service that will help investors looking to short hard-to-borrow stocks.

"Hedge funds are going to love it," said Byrne. 

Hedge funds typically borrow stocks from buy-to-hold investors when they think the stock price is going to fall. They aim to sell the stock after borrowing it, buy it back at a lower price, and pocket the difference before returning it to the long-term holder. Some stocks are difficult or expensive to borrow however. 

Byrne said the new service is part of a series of moves Overstock is going to announce this fall. The stock-shorting product, which will also be available to day traders and retail investors, could be available as soon as late September.

Overstock will offer only 10 stocks to short. Byrne thinks that number could expand to as much as 50 to 100 hard-to-borrow stocks by the end of November 2015. 

"Securities lending is an extremely profitable business on Wall Street." 

It's the latest in a series of ambitious moves by Byrne to keep Overstock relevant at a time when the online retailing space is filling with new, well-funded competitors chipping into his business model. In early 2014, Overstock began accepting bitcoin as payment, making it the first retailer at that time to do so. 

Overstock shares have languished so far this year. The stock is down about 17% in 2015. 

Around 8.5% of Overstock's shares are out on loan, according to data from FinViz, making it a popular target among short sellers. 

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NOW WATCH: More trouble for Subway's Jared Fogle...

The venture arm of a major Canadian pension fund is reportedly looking at making investments in bitcoin and blockchain startups.

CoinDesk looks at the top headlines from the last week including prominent pieces from Rolling Stone and The New Yorker.

Bitcoin price has been going through the motions of ticking out a slow correction above $220 and below the 1-hour 200MA (red). The slow progress means there have been few analysis updates during the past days. At the moment there seems to be a signal in the 4-hour chart. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3 hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now and receive a $29 discount using the code CCN29. Bitcoin Price Analysis Time of analysis: 04h18 UTC Bitstamp 4-Hour Chart From the analysis pages of xbt.social, earlier today: We have […]

The post Bitcoin Price Has Some Wiggle-Room appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

An American teenager was sentenced to 11 years in prison today for providing material support to terrorism. But Ali Shukri Amin, just 17 years old, never committed violence in the name of radical Islamic terrorism. His crime was running a Twitter account that celebrated the terrorist group and taught others how to send money through Bitcoin.

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Coinbase users can now send bitcoin payments without being exposed to the digital currency’s volatility. Users with a fiat wallet (must be verified in order to get it) allows use of Bitcoin’s global payment network without being exposed to the price of the digital currency. Coinbase’s Instant Exchange deducts an equal amount to the bitcoin the user wants to send, effectively exchanging the two. The service is similar to one offered by Coinbase to bitcoin-accepting merchants. As of today, Instant Exchange is available for users with a USD, EUR, or GBP wallet. After typing the bitcoin address and chosing a fiat wallet, users can hit the “Instant Exchange” button, and then send. A bitcoin amount equal to the fiat selected will […]

The post Coinbase Launches Instant Exchange to Help Users Avoid Bitcoin Volatility appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The San Francisco-based bitcoin wallet provider has successfully given away free bitcoin to more than 20,000 college students. CyptoCoins News reported that any student signing up for Coinbase would receive $10 worth of bitcoin. Students were required to verify enrollment by signing up with an email domain ending in “edu.” At the time Coinbase founder, Fred Ehrsam, announced the limited time offer on Twitter, it was only available to a handful of “edus.” Now the international digital wallet has posted a list of the top 10 schools with the most signups. The University of Michigan led the way with 941 signups. The University of California, Berkeley wasn’t far behind with 939 signups, the University of Illinois had 873 and the University […]

The post Bitcoin Market Aimed at College Students, CoinBase Bitcoin Give Away appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The Moniker Art Fair has teamed with Fork The Banks, a revolutionary cooperative of artists and techies, in promoting bitcoin, according to artdaily.com. The Moniker Art Fair will return to London’s Old Truman Brewery Oct. 15 to 18, 2015 and will be the first international art fair to accept bitcoin payments. Fork The Banks, based in London, uses the bitcoin “B” in its “FTB” logo. Its motto is “99 Artists. 99 Musicians. 1 Currency.” Its website page features a picture of recent Greek street protests. Its YouTube video claims it seeks to unite artists and computer scientists looking to change […]

The post Revolutionary Coop Promotes Bitcoin To Promote Social Change, Will Take Center Stage At London Art Fair appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

CardCash, an American online company that buys and sells discounted gift cards from thousands of national retailers, has begun to accept bitcoin payments. CardCash joins companies like Gyft and Fold that provide ways for Bitcoin users to interact with the massive gift card industry. “We saw that bitcoin was getting a lot of traction and growing in legitimacy,” CardCash CEO Elliot Bohm said in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, “but it was slow in getting acceptance in popular brands.” He pointed out that while consumers could use bitcoin to shop at Overstock and Dell, they couldn’t spend their bitcoin at Macy’s, for example. “We can easily be the bridge,” said Bohm. “People can use bitcoin and save money at the same time.” […]

The post CardCash Adds Bitcoin Payments for Gift Cards at Thousands of US Retail Stores appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

As weak economic data from China hit asset prices globally, Bitcoin Magazine spoke to a number of experts to assess the impact on the price of bitcoin. Since its introduction in 2009, soon after the outbreak of the Great Recession, bitcoin has been championed as a more reliable store of long-term value than fiat money given bitcoin’s capped supply and the continued printing of fiat currencies by various central banks, which many fear will continue to cause financial crises across the globe. However as the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), often referred to as the ‘Fear Index’, recently trebled from 13.02 to 40.74, and global markets posted their worst week of the year, the U.S. dollar price of a bitcoin fell […]

The post Investors Weight Bitcoin’s Prospects as Fear Levels Rise Across Global Markets appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The block-size limit debate has taken a turn now that some of Bitcoin’s biggest mining pools are publicly endorsing BIP 100 (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 100) instead of backing a Bitcoin XT blockchain fork. So far, F2Pool, BTCChina, BitFury, KnCMiner, 21 Inc. and several smaller pools have come out in support of this alternative proposal. Combined, this represents well over half of all hashing power on the Bitcoin network. While these endorsements are just a show of support, and do not trigger a change of the block-size limit or a blockchain hard fork as Bitcoin XT is programmed to do, the mining endorsements do mandate a closer look at BIP 100. What is BIP 100?  Over the past weeks most of […]

The post A Closer Look at BIP100: The Block Size Proposal Bitcoin Miners are Rallying Behind appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

CoinWallet.eu, the U.K.-based Bitcoin mining and wallet business has said it will be running another “stress test” in early September to test the Bitcoin network, according to International Business Times. The company told the international journal that this round of “test” or “spam” attacks “will likely render most standard wallet software worthless and create nearly a 30-day backlog” in the system. Bitcoin Magazine reached out to CoinWallet to learn more about the company’s plans but received no response by time of publication. Stress Test will hammer the Bitcoin network Much like its previous stress test in early July of this year, CoinWallet’s so-called “dust attack” will flood the network with thousands of small, spam-like bitcoin transactions that are large in data but […]

The post Bitcoin Businesses Take Steps to Prepare for CoinWallet’s September Stress Test appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Vic Pascucci, current USAA head of corporate development, speaks to CoinDesk about his firm's interest in bitcoin and blockchain thechnology.

Leanne Kemp has set herself an ambitious goal: Stamping out diamond fraud and theft.

She's the founder and CEO of Everledger, a startup launched in 2015 which took part in the Barclays Techstars accelerator ending in June. It has built a global digital ledger — the first of its kind — that collects dozens of cross-reference-able data points on each recorded diamond in an attempt to inject transparency into the market and eliminate associated criminal activity. And that's just the beginning.

Diamond fraud is a big issue. In April, a London gang was convicted of "running boiler rooms that sold dozens of coloured diamonds to investors at up to 30 times their true value," the City of London announced at the time. The gang promised exorbitant potential for profit on the stones, and netted more than £1.5 million from dozens of victims. Everledger thinks its tech can tackle this: It makes it possible to check the provenance of diamonds by cross-referencing them against the ledger, preventing buyers from being ripped off.

Likewise, Everledger hopes to drastically reduce diamond theft. The existence of a ledger recording the ownership and origin of the jewels will make them far harder to sell on without recutting to obscure their identifying features or serial code — and lowering their value in the process.

Everledger's ledger is built on the blockchain — the same decentralised record book that underpins bitcoin. It means there's no one centralised server running things — instead, data is distributed across the network. Leanne Kemp told Business Insider that Everledger uses the blockchain as its basis because of its immutability. When a bitcoin transaction is written into the blockchain it cannot be altered; similarly, it is impossible to change an entry on Everledger's ledger once it has been written.

This permanence is vital in tackling fraud, meaning the ledger cannot be amended later to disguise criminal activity.

(Paper certificates for diamonds certifying provenance do already exist, but there's nothing like Everledger's ledger, which is continually updateable and accessible from anywhere in the world.)

Since March, 830,000 diamonds have been added to the ledger, Kemp says. It's a small team — just her and two others — and thanks to the accelerator, the startup is funded through to 2016.

Everledger began with diamonds, but Kemp has far larger ambitions. The startup is looking to move into other luxury goods, she says, and is speaking with select retailers with an eye to including high-end watches in the next 100 days. Again, the benefits are obvious: proof of ownership, tackling fraud, and a deterrent to theft. An API could also be offered to online retailers like Amazon or eBay to help prevent stolen goods being resold through their platform.

Speaking at the Barclays Techstars Demo Day, Kemp made the potential scope of Everledger clear. Following diamonds, jewellery and fine art, and luxury goods, comes electronic devices — and finally, "any asset with a serial number."

"Diamonds are just the start, and our vision is so much bigger, she told the audience. "We're going to help in combating counterfeiting, and that's not a fifty-billion-dollar problem — that's 1.7 trillion."

Here's Leanne Kemp speaking at the Barclays Demo Day Techstars accelerator:

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ChangeTip users can now withdraw bitcoin from the platform in the form of gift cards, thanks to an integration with Gyft this week.

The Bitcoin block size is a hot topic in Bitcoin. Gavin Andresen has been at the center of the heated discussion of how to scale Bitcoin to accommodate higher transaction volumes. The Lightning Network has garnered much support as a possible solution to this problem. The co-authors of the Lightning Network white paper, Joseph Poon and Tadge Dryja, gained credibility with the release of their ideas. Many projects have already seen the benefit of something like Lightning Network to their projects. And, according to Joseph Poon, this will be an easy thing for them to do. “Most companies can hook […]

The post The Lightning Network Could Solve The Bitcoin Block Size Limit appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A Virginia teenager who offered online advice on how to use bitcoin to fund terrorist group ISIL is to be sentenced today.