How To Use Bitcoin – The Most Important Creation In The History Of Man

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/29/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-sentenced


From the Comments section

Isanybodyouthere
40m ago

This life sentence is really, really harsh. Those assassination charges are still unproven and he wasn't the leader of a murderous drug cartel taking out lives deliberately or innocents caught in the crossfire. Meanwhile, Silk Road seemed to be a fairly regulated marketplace for recreational drug users who could pay for them.

The real perps are still out there .....


Yep! they sure are

The CIA, Drug Trafficking and American Politics: The Political Economy of War




The war on drugs is a fucking joke. Admittedly, the silk road dude is a fucking idiot, but, one cannot get over the fucking hypocrisy of it all.

The US Government colludes with drug cartels in the trafficking of drugs. Banks launder said drug cartel money, said banks get a pass because they are too big to jail. ETC .. ETC .. ETC You get the picture.
The justice system is skewed, corrupt, and fucked.

Hacker Has Sudden Change of Heart and Gives Ransomware Victims Their Files Back | Motherboard

A hacker who made a virus that locked victim’s data and held it for ransom had a change of heart last weekend. In a message posted online on Saturday, the hacker, who goes by the name “Poka BrightMinds” decided to publish data to help victims infected by the virus unlock their files.

Poka BrightMinds wrote that they regretted their actions and were “very sorry.”

All the hacker got from their criminal enterprise was a total of $169, according to Symantec researchers, who tracked down the Bitcoin addresses where Poka BrightMinds was set to receive payments from victims.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ha...and-gives-ransomware-victims-their-files-back

Ross Ulbricht Just Appealed His Life Sentence | Motherboard

Ross Ulbricht, the 31-year-old sentenced to life after being convicted of running the deep web market Silk Road, is appealing his sentence.

Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison last week after being found guilty in February on all counts related to running the site, which facilitated more than $200 million in illegal transactions, which were almost entirely drug deals.

He wasted no time filing the notice of appeal, which disputes both the guilty conviction and the sentence. His lawyers submitted the document to the court on Thursday, less than one week after his sentencing.

Ross Ulbricht's Notice of Appeal

Continued here:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ross-ulbricht-just-appealed-his-life-sentence

Silk Road creator Ulbricht, an “eternal optimist,” writes a letter from prison | Ars Technica

Convicted Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht has made his first public statement since he was sentenced to life in prison, writing a letter addressed to PorcFest, a libertarian gathering that he has previously attended.

"Unfortunately the worst case scenario has played out for me and I've been sentenced to spend the rest of my life in prison," writes Ulbricht from the New York City detention facility he's being held at while his appeal proceeds. In the handwritten letter, he goes on to say that he's an "eternal optimist," and "will never give up hope for my release." He hopes the appeals court "will recognize the errors by some and outright corruption by others in the government and give me some kind of remedy. It could be a new trial, where hopefully the whole story can be told, or the case could be dismissed altogether."

"In many ways, my struggle is just getting started now," Ulbricht writes. The letter asks PorcFest attendees for donations for his legal fund, before concluding: "Keep fighting for your freedom and eventually we will win."

The Porcupine Freedom Festival, also known as PorcFest, is an annual "liberty camping event" put on each year in New Hampshire by The Free State Project. Lyn Ulbricht, Ross Ulbricht's mother, spoke about his case there last year.

PorcFest took place in late June. The handwritten letter was posted to the Free Ross website on Monday and reported on Vice earlier today. It's reproduced in full below:

Continued here:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...eternal-optimist-writes-a-letter-from-prison/

The CEO of collapsed bitcoin exchange MtGox has been arrested in Japan | Business Insider

Japanese police on Saturday arrested Mark Karpeles, CEO of the collapsed MtGox bitcoin exchange, over the loss of nearly $390 million worth of the virtual currency, local media said. Karpeles, 30, is suspected of having accessed the computer system of the exchange and falsifying data on its outstanding balance, Kyodo News and public broadcaster NHK said.

The global virtual-currency community was shaken by the shuttering of MtGox, which froze withdrawals in February 2014 because of what the firm said was a bug in the software underpinning Bitcoin that allowed hackers to pilfer them. The exchange filed for bankruptcy protection soon after, admitting it had lost 850,000 coins worth 48 billion yen ($387 million) at the time.

Karpeles later said he had found some 200,000 of the lost bitcoins in a "cold wallet" -- a storage device such as a memory stick that is not connected to other computers. Bitcoins are generated by complex chains of interactions among a huge network of computers around the planet and are not backed by any government or central bank.

Immediate confirmation from police was not available.

Source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-japan-police-arrest-mtgox-ceo-over-loss-of-bitcoins-media-2015-7

So much drama!

More "settling" of this new virtual house? How much of an impact does this legal situation presently have on the overall Bitcoin landscape?

Though I haven't been following it lately, I remain optimistic myself about Bitcoin. Being the first widespread currency/network of its kind, it was bound to have some bumps along its journey. Even if it ultimately fails, the concept has been planted in millions of minds. The genie is out of the bottle.

A License to Kill Innovation: Why A.B. 1326 — California’s Bitcoin License — is Bad for Business, Innovation, and Privacy

Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 7, 2015

Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto would never have qualified for a license under California’s proposed virtual currency regulation.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/...1326-californias-bitcoin-license-bad-business

JPMorgan, Barclays & others join R3 on blockchain project | Business Insider

Nine of the world's biggest banks on Tuesday threw their weight behind blockchain, the technology that powers bitcoin.

Barclays, BBVA, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, State Street, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS have all formed a partnership to draw up industry standards and protocols for using the blockchain in banking.

The partnership is being led by R3, a startup with offices in New York and London headed by David Rutter, the former CEO of ICAP Electronic Broking and a 32-year veteran of Wall Street.

Rutter told Business Insider that the plan is to build the "fabric" of blockchain technology for banking, as well as develop commercial applications for banks and financial firms.

He told Business Insider that other banks have already signed up to the partnership, but the timing of the release means they could not be named. The Financial Times reports that Goldman Sachs are also involved in the partnership.

The blockchain is the software that both powers and regulates cryptocurrency bitcoin. In its most basic form, it records ownership of bitcoin — money — and transactions — one person paying another.

Transactions are signed off by the parties involved using the software, then added to the blockchain, a long string of code that records all activity.

Once other transactions are added on in front of an exchange, the transaction is stuck there forever and can't be changed, in the same way you can't change a brick once it's been built into a wall.

The software cuts out the need for a "trusted middleman" to sit in between parties in a transaction as it acts as that middleman. This makes transactions quicker, cheaper, and easier when compared to the current systems banks use.

Banks are therefore keen to see if it can be adapted for use with traditional currency, rather than just bitcoin.

Continued here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-barclays-and-others-join-r3-on-blockchain-project-2015-9

Oh well, with big banks getting into it, everything's back to business as usual. Sic transit gloria mundi.

How a Corrupt FBI Agent Threatened to Kidnap and Torture my Friend

“We are all at the mercy of tyrants but sometimes beauty shines through all their tyranny and we can find joy in small things” – those were my words forwarded to Ross in prison by his mom Lyn

By Virgil Vaduva, TruthVoice, September 28, 2015

Lyn Ulbricht is mostly soft spoken, and you would never know about her heartache and passion unless you ask about Ross Ulbricht, her son. Every time I see her she gives me a big hug, smiles brightly and first asks me about the family and the kids. She usually looks tired but determined to continue to get justice for Ross, who was sentenced to life in prison for running The Silk Road. She is a heart-broken mother who’s life has been turned upside down by a failed justice system, manufactured charges, corrupt FBI agents, DEA lies and an out of control judge.

Now information made public within the last 24 hours seems to actually prove virtually everything Lyn has been saying about the investigation into Silk Road, with all the plot twists and turns of a foreign spy film, everything from hackers, blackmail and even kidnapping, torture and perhaps murder.

The original Silk Road developer and architect going by the name of Variety Jones has been in hiding since the Silk Road arrests were made public, but he has suddenly come out of hiding with an incredible story about a corrupt FBI agent who has been attempting to hunt him down and force him to give him access to a bitcoin wallet worth 300,000 bitcoins or roughly about $75 million.

Variety Jones’ real name or identity is ultimately irrelevant. La Moustache has done extensive work on tracking him down and identifying him, and all the signs point to Variety Jones being a Canadian going by the name of Thomas Clark who currently lives in Thailand. He has been active on various online forums for years, especially forums discussing the cultivating of Marijuana.

The lengthy post made by Clark on the forum MyPlanetGanja.com outlines in detail the exploits of what he believes to be an FBI agent (using the monicker Diamond) forcefully attempting to gain access to tens of millions of dollars worth of stolen Silk Road bitcoin. The FBI agent spent the previous couple of years attempting to befriend Clark in order to gain access to Ross Ulbricht’s bitcoin wallet, and ultimately, when Clark turned him down, the agent went mental:

"He went fucking mental, and started going on about his backup plan. He would kidnap Ross Ulbricht's sister, or mother, or ideally both. Get a video capable phone in front of Ross Ulbricht, and he’d give up that fucking pass phrase, and Diamond would have them tortured until he did…”

Personally knowing Lyn Ulbricht and what kind of person she is brings me to feeling quite enraged about these new revelations. It is difficult to imagine what kind of psychopath would take to even think up such a scenario, nonetheless, here it is, the wide open mind of a dangerous, mentally ill man with access to virtually unlimited resources, LEO capabilities, funds and technical infrastructure capable of sustained cyber-terrorism.

Clark’s PGP signature and history of posting activity on MyPlanetGanja confirm his identity. While I guess the story itself could be manufactured, that is a very remote possibility as he has provided copies of signed PGP messages to the FBI.

Clark’s efforts to unmask the real identity of Diamond were not successful. He eventually gave up the hunt and decided to contact Serrin Turner, the Silk Road investigator responsible for the work behind the Silk Road trial and research. This was back in March. Turner has not yet responded, and the signed PGP messages confirm the communication is legit; at least the signed messages check out. VICE also confirms that they verified through back channels that Clark is legit and he is who he claims to be.

After months without reply from the FBI, Clark finally went public with his story, outlining in painful detail the conversations, exchanges and plans the criminal FBI agent had for the Ulbricht family, including torture and perhaps even murder.

Clark made it clear that he is not turning in because he is afraid of the FBI, rather he is turning himself in to protect Lyn and her daughter from what appears to be a well-funded, violent and psychopathic FBI agent who is ready to go to any length in order to gain access to a large stash of bitcoin.

And to make matters even more interesting, earlier today the FBI confirmed they are investigating Clark’s allegations. In a comment made to VICE, an FBI spokesman said,

“We are aware of the allegations made by Variety Jones and have forwarded them to the appropriate office for review. The FBI takes claims of employee misconduct seriously as we are an agency with the mission of upholding the law.”

I’m really not sure how seriously the FBI is taking claims of employee misconduct, especially considering the fact that they were notified about Diamond’s threats of kidnapping and torturing months ago.

And one thing is certain, the idea of kidnapping and torturing a woman, especially someone who is a family friend, is prompting some very strong feelings of anger towards Diamond and the incompetence of the FBI to root out serious corruption in their midst. It’s repulsive and inhuman. Nothing justifies this kind of behavior.

Note: Lyn was unable to comment on this article and on the recent developments related to Variety Jones as her attorneys advised her to avoid public statements.

Source:
http://truthvoice.com/2015/09/how-a-corrupt-fbi-agent-threatened-to-kidnap-and-torture-my-friend/

FBI Says Suspected Silk Road Architect Variety Jones Has Been Arrested


The man suspected of being a “senior adviser” to Ross Ulbricht, the convicted creator of the drug marketplace Silk Road, has been arrested, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.

Roger Thomas Clark is accused of being "Variety Jones," according to a press release, and allegedly was “a close confidante of Ulbricht’s who advised on all aspects of Silk Road’s operations and helped him grow the site into an extensive criminal enterprise.”

In September, Motherboard published an extensive investigation into the identity of Variety Jones, linking the online alias to a Roger or Thomas Clark.

Read more: How the Man Suspected of Being Variety Jones Was Caught

Clark was arrested in Thailand on December 3, and is pending extradition to the US, the release continues. The release claims that Clark also used the aliases of “VJ,” “Cimon,” and “Plural of Mongoose,” and that he was paid “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for his work on Silk Road.

Clark, a 54-year-old Canadian citizen, is charged with one count of narcotics conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, and one count of money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

"As this arrest proves, the ‘long arm of the law’ has a great reach—even in cyberspace."

"Roger Clark, a high-ranking Silk Road operator, served as Ross Ulbricht’s closest adviser and confidante as together they facilitated an anonymous global black market for all things illegal," James M. Gibbons, a Homeland Security Investigations Chicago special agent who worked on the investigation, said in a statement. "As this arrest proves, the ‘long arm of the law’ has a great reach—even in cyberspace."

Variety Jones joined the Silk Road in 2011, and was known publicly as a vendor of marijuana seeds. But in private conversations with Ulbricht, he acted as the site's in-house penetration tester, financial advisor, and in Ulbricht's own words, a “mentor.”

Variety Jones even came up with the now infamous moniker Dread Pirate Roberts, or DPR, which Ulbricht took on.

“[He] was the biggest and strongest willed character I had met through the site thus far,” Ulbricht wrote in a 2011 journal entry.

Variety Jones was also the one who encouraged Ulbricht to carry out his first attempted murder-for-hire, which targeted an ex-employee. (No one was actually killed, and the plot was in fact the brainchild of Carl Mark Force IV, a corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration investigator.)



Moar .... http://motherboard.vice.com/read/fb...-jones-has-been-arrested?utm_source=mbtwitter

Bitcoin Core Developers Quit Bitcoin Project to Launch a New Digital Currency | The Hacker News

Excerpt:

Decred intends to include a long list of features such as:

• Implementation of consensus system based on proof-of-work and proof-of-stake system
• Decred development is self-funded and open with block subsidy
• Decred uses Blake-256 hashing algorithm
• Decred may be compatible with Bitcoin
• Decred community members will be involved in making bottom-up non-financial decision making easier
• It will use secp256k1 signature scheme or Ed25519/secp256k1-Schnorr for better integration into existing software and make good use of the features offered by Schnorr signatures respectively
• Decred uses Go as a codebase for development

https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/decred-bitcoin-currency.html

Decred - Rethink Digital Currency

Decred is an open and progressive cryptocurrency with a system of community-based governance integrated into its blockchain.

The fusion of technology, community, and governance the Decred way means development is self-funding and remains sustainable.

https://www.decred.org/

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=Decred

Notorious Bitcoin Scammer Butterfly Labs Settles With the FTC | Motherboard

Butterfly Labs was once a rising star in the world of bitcoin, selling pre-orders for some of the fastest computer equipment around for “mining,” or generating, the cryptocurrency in its early days. But tens of thousands of those units never made it to the people who bought them, and many of the ones that did were either used or obsolete, making Butterfly Labs one of the most reviled names in the industry.

Now, Butterfly Labs and two of its operators, Sonny Vleisides and Darla Drake, have agreed to settle with the FTC to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, with potentially tens of millions more on the line if Vleisides and Drake are found to have lied about their ability to pay the penalties.

"Against Butterfly Labs and Vleisides, the judgment is $38,615,161, which will be suspended upon Butterfly Labs’ payment of $15,000, and Vleisides’ payment of $4,000. Against Drake, the judgment is $135,878, which will be suspended once she surrenders the cash value of all Bitcoins she obtained using company machines."

According to the FTC, in addition to paying out a monetary settlement, Vleisides and Drake are barred from misleading future customers about the delivery date, newness, and ability of their hardware to mine bitcoins. The pair are also no longer allowed to take up-front payments for bitcoin hardware unless the product is delivered in 30 days. If it’s late, they must provide a “prompt” refund.

Continued here:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/butterfly-labs-bitcoin-asics-miners-ftc-settlement-scam

The U.S. government is selling $1.6 million worth of seized bitcoins this month

The U.S. government is selling 2,700 bitcoin, valued at nearly $1.6 million based on current exchange rates, later this month.

The U.S. Marshals Service, the enforcement arm of federal courts, is holding an auction for the seized bitcoins on August 22; bidders must register by August 17 in order to participate. The electronic currency was seized during a bunch of different cases, but a lot of it comes from investigations of the Silk Road.

Bitcoin is a virtual currency, backed by a peer-to-peer network and advanced mathematics. Its decentralized nature makes it appealing to privacy advocates and others, but also to criminals.

Most infamously, bitcoin was the currency of choice for the Silk Road, which for a long time served as an eBay equivalent for drug dealers. The agency says 2.8 bitcoins in this latest auction were seized from Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Silk Road. Most of the coins for sale come from a few prominent cases.

• 1,294 bitcoins were seized from Matthew Gillum, a Silk Road drug dealer sentenced to nine years in prison in 2015.
• 65 come from Carl Force, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent sentenced for stealing bitcoins during the Silk Road investigation.
• 664 came from Sean Roberson, who allegedly set up a store that sold stolen credit card and debit card numbers.

This is not the first Bitcoin auction conducted by the Marshals Service. The enforcement agency has sold off bitcoins four times since June 2014.

The Silk Road was an online marketplace thought to be beyond the reach of government agencies. Distributed exclusively through Tor, a tool for anonymously browsing the web, it quickly became infamous as a marketplace for illegal guns and drugs. More than 1.5 transactions took place on the site, all conducted using bitcoin.

Crime obviously isn’t the only use for this currency, just the one that garners headlines. In theory, an online currency like bitcoin could serve as cash for the web, allowing online transactions without merchant processing fees.

Source:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/us-government-auctions-off-2700-bitcoin/

Seizing something that doesn't physically exist. I hope they have good security.

Tonight, CNBC aired a new episode of American Greed, titled Silk Road: Digital Drug Dealers. It's worth watching, and will be repeated for the first time on Saturday.

American Greed: Highlight Clip - Silk Road Gold Mine

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000554611

http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/30/rodrigo-souza-bitcoin-venezuela-brazil

During that Egyptian Arab Spring protests, the idea was raised of "protest pizzas": Outside supporters around the world using credit cards to buy pizzas for the protestors in Tahrir Square. Epic Fail because the Egypt government had already cut outside credit transfers. (It was later used in Wisconsin.)

With Bitcoins, and a pizzeria that accepted them, we could have bought those pizzas and damn the government!

I'm sure the Internet will think of other uses. Rule 34, if nothing else.

Someone Accessed Silk Road Operator’s Account While Ross Ulbricht Was in Jail | Motherboard

Quote:

Attorneys for Ross Ulbricht, the man convicted of running the Silk Road online drug marketplace under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts” say they’ve discovered evidence that someone logged into the Dread Pirate Roberts account on the Silk Road forums six weeks after Ulbricht was arrested. Ulbricht was in federal custody at the time.

If this piece of evidence is authentic, the logical conclusion is that someone else had access to the account that was said to belong to the mastermind of the massive Dark Web drug bazaar. Given the login occurred after the principal arrest in the Silk Road investigation, it may also indicate that whoever did it was someone with a law enforcement background, had access to the investigation, or was “another” Dread Pirate Roberts.

Ulbricht is serving a life sentence for his role in operating the dark web marketplace. Earlier this week, Ulbricht’s defense attorney Joshua Dratel filed a letter with the US attorney’s office in Maryland, where Ulbricht still has a case pending, alleging that the defense team had found separate evidence of another corrupt law enforcement official involved in the Silk Road investigation (two law enforcement agents, a Drug Enforcement Agent and Secret Service agent “broke bad” and were previously convicted for various crimes, including attempting to steal Bitcoin evidence during the investigation).

The bulk of Dratel’s letter says that a still-unknown government official sold information about the investigation to Dread Pirate Roberts and later deleted evidence of the arrangement. But the letter — portions of which have been described to Motherboard, but which has not been released publicly — also notes that an unknown person logged into the Dread Pirate Roberts account after its supposed owner was taken into custody.

Ulbricht was arrested on October 2, 2013. The Silk Road marketplace was taken down that same day, but the forums stayed up until November 22. His attorneys say that someone logged into the DPR account on the forum November 18.

These new details were uncovered by forensic analysts who studied backups of the Silk Road forums that were entered as evidence by the government during Ulbricht’s first trial. Ulbricht’s attorneys Dratel and Lindsay Lewis say that government tampering calls into question the evidence used to convict Ulbricht.

“The importance of the access issue is amplified by the fact that the timestamp for the last log-in by DPR on the SR Forum is November 18, 2013 — a full six weeks after Mr. Ulbricht’s arrest,” Lewis told me in an emailed statement. “Thus, obviously someone other than Mr. Ulbricht was continuing to log in to SR as DPR.”

Lewis said this piece of evidence wasn’t brought up during a press conference earlier this week because the defense was “focused more on the evidence of tampering. Obviously, this is a significant bit as well.”

That there could be more than one person using the Dread Pirate Roberts account has been a popular theory among people who have paid close attention to the Silk Road case. At trial, Dratel said Ulbricht was framed by the “real” DPR.

Continued at https://motherboard.vice.com/read/s...ators-account-while-ross-ulbricht-was-in-jail

Bitcoin splits, but clone off to slow start | Reuters

Quote:

Bitcoin's underlying software code was split on Tuesday, generating a new clone called "Bitcoin Cash," but the new virtual currency got off to a slow start due to lackluster support for its network.

The initiative was headed by a small group of mostly China-based bitcoin miners - programmers who essentially operate the bitcoin network - who were not happy with scheduled improvements to the currency's technology meant to increase its capacity to process transactions.

These miners, who get paid in the currency for contributing computing power to the bitcoin network, initiated what is known as a "fork" on Tuesday, where the underlying blockchain splits into two potential paths, creating a new digital currency.

The blockchain is a shared online ledger of all bitcoin transactions and has spawned a range of financial and business applications.

Bitcoin's split has created a new competitor to the original digital currency, which remains the oldest and most valuable in circulation.

Yet only a small fraction of bitcoin miners have been contributing their computing power to the new blockchain, and it took nearly six hours for the first batch of Bitcoin Cash coins to be mined this afternoon, according to Blockdozer Explorer, a firm providing data on digital currencies.

"It's been a slow start for Bitcoin Cash," said Iqbal Gandham, managing director at trading platform eToro. "The delay ... could be a result of a lack of miner support for the new cryptocurrency."

Bitcoin Cash on Tuesday traded on certain exchanges at a median price of $146.37, according to bitinfocharts.com, while bitcoin was at $2,729 BTC=BTSP on the BitStamp platform, down 4.6 percent from Monday.

After the split, Bitcoin Cash has all the history from bitcoin's blockchain, creating the same number of tokens, plus the new currency created. People who held bitcoins before the split now have access to an equal amount of Bitcoin Cash for free, which they will then be able to trade for fiat currencies - legal tender such as euros and dollars - or other digital tokens.

The creation of new tokens may speed up as less computing power will be required to mine new blocks, said Jeff Garzik, co-founder of blockchain startup, in an email.

Continued at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-split-idUSKBN1AH5F1

‘I Forgot My PIN’: An Epic Tale of Losing $30,000 in Bitcoin | WIRED

https://www.wired.com/story/i-forgot-my-pin-an-epic-tale-of-losing-dollar30000-in-bitcoin/

Bitcoin rebounds to $10,500 after U.S. regulator approves futures | Reuters

Quote:

Bitcoin rebounded on Friday to hit the day’s highs above $10,500, recovering from an earlier dip below $9,500, after the U.S. derivatives regulator said it would allow CME Group (CME.O) and CBOE Global Markets (CBOE.O) to list bitcoin futures.

The announcement by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) paves the way for CME and CBOE to become the first traditional U.S. regulated exchanges to launch trading in bitcoin-related financial contracts, a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency that could lead to greater regulatory scrutiny.

Bitcoin, which had been trading at around $10,150 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange BTC=BTSP before the news, jumped to as high as $10,513 in the 20 minutes that followed, leaving it up more than 5 percent on the day.

It has been a volatile week for the biggest and best-known cryptocurrency. On Wednesday, bitcoin smashed through $10,000 before rocketing past $11,000 less than 12 hours later to an all time-high of $11,395, and then plunging around 20 percent in the hours that followed.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-u-s-regulator-approves-futures-idUSKBN1DV4XH

Great post thanks for sharing with us.

Fuck off

Fuck right off with your spam bro

There's a related post in another thread:

3D-printed gun pioneer Cody Wilson accused of having sex with underage girl

https://whyweprotest.net/threads/guns.107650/page-5#post-2660408

No it won't. Bankers will bump up the price a couple of cycles, then make it illegal as a threat to the climate (bitcoin mining wastes real energy) and you'll lose a boatload of money. It has no inherent value. This is just another case of tulip mania.