Luke Parker

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)  recently announced the indictment of a Russian national and an organization he allegedly operated, the bitcoin exchange BTC-e, for operating an unlicensed money service business, money laundering, and related crimes. “BTC-e was noted for its role in numerous ransomware and other cyber-criminal activity; its take-down is a significant accomplishment.” - Michael D’Ambrosio, Special Agent in Charge of the US Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued a report of its investigation on The DAO. The record-setting Initial Coin Offering (ICO) launched in June 2016, and quickly lost a third of its assets to a hacker. The purpose given for the report is "to stress that the U.S. federal securities law may apply to various activities, including distributed ledger technology.” The report cautions market participants that offer and sell digital assets, including through ICOs and ‘Token Sales’ are subject to the requirements of the federal securities law.

Much like Ethereum’s July 2016 split into ETH and ETC, Bitcoin appears to be unable to avoid having a pair of currencies with ideologically-opposed proponents behind either side. For much of the last week bitcoiners have been focused on, and at times celebrating, a rare and important scaling advancement called BIP 91 (Segsignal). The hard-fought system upgrade has begun the process of Segwit activation, initially relieving fears of a hard fork that would lead to two competing versions of bitcoin.

There is evidence to indicate that Bitcoin’s network has been suffering a far greater workload than needed recently, according to the developer behind the bitcoin analytics platform OXT. The French developer, Laurent, told BraveNewCoin that he is “95% confident” that the 2015 “Stress Test” and “Flood Attack” events affected the number of bitcoin transactions as recently as January 2017.

Over three years after the failure and bankruptcy of the infamous bitcoin exchange MtGox, the first trial of its CEO, Mark Karpeles, took place at the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday, July 11.

The largest bitcoin and Ether exchange in South Korea by volume, Bithumb, was recently hacked. Monetary losses from compromised accounts have started to surface, and are quickly reaching into the Billions of won.

The web is full of articles and personal opinions labeling Bitcoin’s current high valuation as being in a bubble. Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner Marc Cuban has been tweeting to his 7 million followers about bitcoin on a regular basis, but says that he believes Bitcoin is currently in a bubble, “I just don't know when or how much it corrects.”

In the first-ever reported case of a US State funding what looks to be a Bitcoin mining operation, Montana’s Governor recently announced that $416,000 was awarded to a “data center that provides blockchain security services for the bitcoin network.”

Sidechains promise to help Bitcoin adapt to new demands and accommodate new innovation, according to the company behind the seminal sidechain whitepaper, Blockstream. Several different companies have been developing the idea since Blockstream introduced the concept in an October 2014.

Nevada Senate Bill 398 was recently signed by the State Governor, and officially passed into law on Monday. The bill establishes various provisions relating to the use of blockchain technology, and makes the Silver State the third in the Union to recognize the nascent industry.