Kim Dotcom’s Baboom Challenge Spotify with Bitcoin

Internet Entrepreneur Kim Dotcom was recently interviewed by Max Keiser, and the topic of Bitcoin eventually became the focal point of the discussion.


When asked whether or not he was a believer in Bitcoin, Kim stated that the digital currency could become “one of the most important methods of transferring assets over the next decade”. Kim Dotcom’s MEGA accepted bitcoins as payment on their first day of operation, and it would make sense for the Internet tycoon to make similar choices with his other ventures in the near future. With Kim Dotcom and the rest of MEGA team working on all kinds of different projects involving email, encryption, and more, it’s possible that he may be able to leapfrog the competition in various industries by deciding to accept bitcoins right from the jump.

Enter Baboom

Baboom, which is Kim Dotcom’s new competitor to Spotify, enjoyed a soft launch on Monday, but all you can really do with the service right now is listen to Dotcom’s new album, Good Times. While the launch may not seem like a big deal right now, it could have a leg up on other music streaming services when it comes to payments. Bitcoiners have long tried to get Spotify to accept bitcoins for subscription payments, but it doesn’t seem that the music streaming giant is looking to embrace cryptocurrencies at this time. If the full version of Baboom is released to the public in time, we could be looking at a situation where Dotcom is actually able to carve out a bit of the market space for himself. It seems most users don’t see many differences between the current music streaming services, so accepting bitcoins could give Baboom an edge in a certain demographic. It’s important to note that the number of Bitcoiners out there also seems to be growing at an exponential rate.

Bitcoin Business Sense

Kim Dotcom is playing his Bitcoin hand “close to the chest”, but you have to think he would love to accept the cryptocurrency for all of his future online products and services. He’s noted an appreciation for Bitcoin on multiple occasions, so there’s no reason to think he would leave Bitcoin out of the Baboom launch. Even if he wasn’t a fan of Bitcoin, you could argue that it would make sense for him from a business perspective. By being the first business to accept bitcoins in various online industries, he could carve out a chunk of the entire Internet pie for himself.

source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/21/kim-dotcoms-baboom-leapfrog-spotify-bitcoin/

Kim Dotcom’s Baboom Challenge Spotify with Bitcoin

Mt. Gox Seizures Linked to Silk Road in Fed Testimonies

Last summer, news that federal agents had seized a combined $5M from accounts owned by Mt.


Gox roiled bitcoin markets. The warrants enabling the action cited improper filings when the company opened its bank accounts, including unlicensed operation of a money service business. Yet, written testimonies from federal regulators for the recent Senate hearings on digital currencies indicate the seizures were actually part of the much larger crackdown on online narcotics marketplace Silk Road – insight that presumably had to remain hidden at the time of the seizures due to the ongoing investigation.

Experienced market participants will recall that before and during bitcoin’s meteoric rise in popularity through April 2013, Mt. Gox dominated the exchange landscape with upwards of 70% of global trade volume. News broke the following month that the Department of Homeland Security had executed a seizure warrant for Mt. Gox’s US bank accounts based on the company’s failure to register as a money service business or appropriately indicate activity as an MSB on their bank applications.

Prevailing sentiment at the time leaned towards the notion that the government was actively cracking down on bitcoin companies, starting with the largest. Recent testimonies by federal agencies indicate that the account seizures were in fact related to the multi-year pursuit of Silk Road operators, rather than a crackdown on money transmission infractions for their own sake. In particular, the written statements not aired on television provide additional insight into the motives behind the seizures.

Notably, the statement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) states,

“In May 2013, through an interagency taskforce led by ICE in Baltimore, Maryland, three U.S. bank accounts associated with what was then the world’s largest bitcoin exchanger, Japan-based Mt.Gox, which was moving approximately $60 million per month into a number of Internet-based hidden black markets operating on the Tor network, including Silk Road, were seized for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1960, operating a money service business in the United States without a license. The bulk of the funds were associated with the illicit purchase of drugs, firearms, and child pornography.”

The testimony clearly draws a direct connection between Mt. Gox and Silk Road to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per month, yet still cites a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1960 (money transmitting regulations) as the impetus for the actual account seizures. When a seemingly innocuous section from the testimony by the Department of Homeland Security is added to this, the underlying motive for the seizures become clearer. In particular, the DHS states,

“The USSS is responsible for the forensics and cyber analysis in this ongoing criminal investigation [of Silk Road] and, along with our interagency partners, will attempt to identify the site’s origin and the identity of the site administrator. As a result of this ongoing investigation, approximately $5.5 million has been seized by the USSS and ICE-HSI.”

The $5.5M seized ‘as a result of the ongoing investigation’ into Silk Road isn’t explicitly tied to Mt. Gox by the DHS statement, but when considered in conjunction with other data points it becomes clear that the two are almost certainly directly related.

In addition to being roughly the same amount as the Gox seizures, the statement is in a section describing work done by the Baltimore Field Office (same jurisdiction that issued the seizure warrant), was done in conjunction with the US Secret Service (the agency that pursued the Gox seizures, as listed in the warrant) and also lists the involvement of ICE (the agency that describes themselves as the leaders of the interagency task force behind the seizures in the first testimony cited above).

Looking backwards, it’s clear why the Silk Road connection couldn’t be noted in any court filings that would become public. If federal agents made known at the time that they were actively pursuing Silk Road it could interfere with their ongoing investigation. This also means that, at least in this case, it appears money transmission laws were enforced on Mt. Gox not simply for their own sake, but to gain insight and hinder the capital flow to Silk Road without exposing the larger goal of shutting down the international narcotics marketplace.

source: http://thegenesisblock.com/mt-gox-seizures-linked-silk-road-fed-testimonies/

Mt. Gox Seizures Linked to Silk Road in Fed Testimonies

Mediabistro’s Inside Bitcoins Conference

Inside Bitcoins recently took place in Las Vegas on December 10-11, 2013 and drew over 1,500 attendees from all over the world.


Mediabistro announced that it will be taking the Inside Bitcoins Conference on a World Tour in 2014. On February 12-13 Inside Bitcoins will make its first stop in Berlin, Germany.

Attendees will hear from industry experts including Aaron Koenig, Managing Director of Bitfilm and Organizer of Bitcoin Exchange Berlin; Malcolm CasSelle, CEO of Timeline Labs; Jaron Lukasiewicz, CEO of Coinsetter; Bobby Lee, CEO and Co-Founder of BTC China; Oliver Flaskamper, Managing Director of Bitcoin Germany; and Steve Beauregard, CEO & Founder of GoCoin.com. View the full speaker list.

The program is designed to provide an overview of where the virtual currency industry is today, and a panel of top venture capitalists will discuss what business opportunities are on the horizon. Exciting sessions include Mining for the Future, What Bitcoin Businesses Need to Know, How to Win in the Bitcoin Exchange Ecosystem and Bitcoin in China. Register here to make sure you reserve your spot at Inside Bitcoins in Berlin!

Mediabistro will soon announce firm dates for additional events taking place in 2014 in New York City; Hong Kong, China; London, England; and Las Vegas, Nevada.

source: http://cryptosource.org/mediabistros-inside-bitcoins-conference-is-going-on-a-world-tour-in-2014/

Mediabistro’s Inside Bitcoins Conference

Say hello to 42

42. The answer to life, the universe, and everything…


Except what the maximum amount of coins issued for an altcoin should be. 42 continues the trend of attempting to differentiate itself through the use of gimmicks, rather than adding something of value. The way most of these new coins are marketed is like showing up at an interview wearing a clown suit. It’s funny, novel, whatever you want to call it… But it doesn’t bring lasting success. Gone are the days of new coins adding something of value, or attempting to fix a problem. Welcome to the new world of altcoins.

42 price

42 is only only getting acknowledgement from me due to it’s seemingly high price point and prominent position on cryptsy. Naturally, this coin suffers from a lot more pressing issues than a gimmicky presentation. It had a “small” 1% premine associated with it (.42 coins) which currently represents about 50% of all coins in existence, and is valued at over 300 BTC at the current price. This should throw up a huge red flag, and begs the question as to why anyone would anyone would ever invest in this garbage when there’s so much downward pressure on the price.

As for the coin itself, the design of it is exceptionally poor, even by the low standards set by it’s predecessors. A planned total of 42 coins means that you’ll always be dealing with stupidly small fractions of a number, something that humans are poor at interacting with. Can you imagine going to the store and purchasing something for 0.00000569 42? Me neither. To add insult to injury, 42 only has the standard 8 bits of decimal precision. For a coin dealing with such small units, 12 or 16 bits of precision would been beneficial. But of course, this requires the developer to have some small degree of competency with the code that he is editing, so this feature was naturally left out.

On the subject of developer incompetence, the author claims there is a max of 42 coins ever to be minted. This is not true, as one can look at the source and see that the 0.000042 block reward continues forever, with no end programmed in. However, this coin will be long dead way before it ever approaches 42 total coins, so I suppose it really doesn’t matter in the end.

42 altcoin

As with all gimmick coins, and especially with coins that have a premine, the long term price outlook for this coin is poor. It won’t be long before people get bored before they move onto the ‘latest and greatest’ coin.

source: http://cryptolife.net/the-gimmicks-continue-say-hello-to-42/

Say hello to 42

Russia may outlaw Bitcoin

Russia has proposed a new anti-terrorism legislation that may lay the foundation to restrict internet liberties in Russia. One particular part of the new legislation can seriously hurt cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.


We got an email today explaining it:

Officially it (the new legislation) is aimed at preventing terrorism funding, but it is probably the result of the wide use of “electronic” money transfers for support of political opposition in the recent years. It is proposed to punish (with large fines and imprisonment) all anonymous “electronic” money transfers through the border. Since Bitcoin has no borders, it may be the problem. Anonymous here means anything that it is not overseen by FSB (Russian analog of NSA). The president of the Russian Central Bank said in an interview, when he was asked about the status of Bitcoin in Russia, that “Russia is on the forefront in this area and has been using electronic currencies for many years now”, mentioning Yandex Money and other “internet payments processors”. The interview clearly showed that even the main figure in the Russian banking system does not know enough about Bitcoin as his counterparts does in China.

The part of the new proposed legislation will limit the amount of all “electronic” money transfers by 1000 RUR (30 USD) per day per person and 15000 RUR (450 USD) per month. Because of this it will be hard to withdraw and deposit money into it.

The main problem is that the law doesn’t give any strict definition of “electronic” money transfers. Right now it is defined as “any money transfers that are made by means of the computer and the internet network”. There is also that weird outdated definition of the Internet in the Law that is hilarious, but that’s another story.

I’m afraid that soon our government may simply outlaw things that they don’t (and don’t want to) understand as they did with their flawed internet censorship law. Until now Bitcoin has been in the blind spot, but things may change dramatically. They may even whitelist “internet payment processors”, considering the recent acquisition of the biggest “processor” Yandex Money by the biggest government-owned bank Sberbank, making Yandex Money the main candidate for “the national internet money system” people will be allowed to use.

Link to the article in Russian about the new legislation: http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/21316001/duma-protiv-terrora?full#cut

source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/15/breaking-news-russia-may-outlaw-bitcoin-russian-voice/

Russia may outlaw Bitcoin

Australia’s National Broadcaster Does a Story on Bitcoin

Australia’s National Broadcaster Does a Story on Bitcoin

Australia’s National Broadcaster Does a Story on Bitcoin

Singapore Declares Bitcoin Taxable

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has stated in an email that gains from transactions in Bitcoin will be taxed as Income Tax, for companies and individuals based in Singapore.


It was also mentioned that if the Bitcoins were held as a long-term investment, then capital gain profits will not be taxed. Also, all transactions where Bitcoins are used as payment for physical money, services, and goods will be taxed if both parties involved are in Singapore.

While this does not mean much for the rest of the world, it impacts Singaporean companies greatly, taking off profit from their goods and services. It also means more regulations on Bitcoin transactions, as the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore would clamp down and track Bitcoin to fiat transaction, to tax them with Goods and Services tax (GST). With only a few countries around regulating the usage of Bitcoin in their respective countries, such as China preventing companies from transacting Bitcoin payments, would Bitcoin survive the tough regulations to come? Bitcoins may be anonymous while it still is in Bitcoin form, but when you exchange them into fiat and withdraw it into your bank account, that amount draws a huge red flag. Governments would be monitoring transactions more closely, and tax everything that does not seem right.

But is there a way to prevent this? There is one obvious solution: keep everything in Bitcoin. By keeping your savings and fiat into Bitcoin as a long term investment, you not only benefit from added anonymously, security, and a rising value and devaluing of fiat, but you also are not taxed on any gains that you make. Maybe one day employees will get their pay in the form of Bitcoin, preventing income tax for some as governments cannot easily track Bitcoin payments to the original senders and receivers. However, countries cannot run without tax money to pay for infrastructure, education, health care, and police, among others. This will save Bitcoiners bottom line from those tedious but necessary taxes, but would effect would it have on our countries and governments? More likely than not, regulations will toughen over the next few years, as young and defiant Bitcoin goes against the forces of a devaluing fiat world. Governments may in the future find a way to identify and tax eligible transaction in Bitcoin. But until then, we can all sleep a little better knowing Bitcoin is truly anonymous, for now.

source: http://cryptosource.org/singapore-declares-bitcoin-taxable/

Singapore Declares Bitcoin Taxable