Newsletter #70

28 March - 3 April 2015

It's big issue number 70! Amazed that I'm still curating this newsletter after over a year. Really enjoy following developments in this industry. How can you not when there are so many plot twists in developments surrounding this industry? This week we found out that the officers behind the SIlk Road investigations are corrupt and stole money from Dread Pirate Roberts and even staged a fake assassination of a fellow Silk Road admin!

Bobby Not a subscriber? Subscribe at altcoinweekly.com BITCOIN PRICE (BITSTAMP)

Latest News

The Silk Road case was compromised again and again as Force and Bridges took every opportunity to embezzle and steal money. With so much bitcoin on their hands, the two had to coax bitcoin and payments companies to help convert their ill-gotten gains. When companies resisted, investigations were launched, subpoenas were issued, and civil forfeitures were sought in retaliation.

To date, San Jose based PeerNova has raised $19 million in equity and debt financing. PeerNova intends to use the funds to accelerate the development of two core enterprise products focused on data security and financial applications and to build product and business development teams.

Swiss banking giant UBS is to open a technology lab in London to explore how blockchain technology - the underlying technology behind bitcoin - can be used in financial services.

Market

The $665 Million Evolution in a Space Nobody Respected a Year Ago - Already Outpacing the Internet Circa 1994

Richard Brown explains how the way bitcoins are spent using two programs (“scriptSig” and "scriptPubKey”) makes Bitcoin the protocol a sophisticated smart contract platform that can be improved over time.

Ecosystem

A new tool launched their crowdfund for a browser plugin that will allow for seamless online tipping for websites with Bitcoin addresses based on time spent on the website. Helps fund the creators of content which you consume.

Factom has raised 579 BTC, or roughly $140,000, through the first day of its software sale.

Cryptocurrency NEM (New Economy Movement) has officially been launched. CoinTelegraph had the chance to site down and discuss the ambitious project with one of the lead developers, Makoto.

A little more than a week after release of NeuCoin's technical whitepaper, an intense debate been sparked between the proponents of the two main crypto technologies, proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS).

Legal

One of the most interesting aspects of this revelation is how federal investigators have been able to use Bitcoin’s public ledger to easily trace bitcoins from Silk Road straight to the charged agents.

Bitstamp has initiated legal action over more than 1 million dollars in disputed funds related to the sale of nearly 100M XRP last month.

More than 70 digital currency industry businesses and execs are backing a petition meant to ease onerous components of New York's BitLicense proposal.

Learn

Mike Hearn gave a counter-argument to Peter Todd's proposal of introducing "Replace by fee" to fix perceived problems with unconfirmed transactions and make double spending harder.