215,000+ Sign Petition Against South Korean Crypto Regulation – Government to Respond
A national petition against extreme cryptocurrency regulations in South Korea has exceeded 200,000 signatures, the requirement for the government to respond. The petition entitled “Has the government ever dreamed a happy dream for the people?” was filed on December 28. Meanwhile, another related petition calls for the removal of the governor of the country’s Financial Supervisory Service.
Also read: South Korea Urges 23 Countries, EU, and IMF to Collaborate on Curbing Crypto Trading
Government Will Respond
The South Korean government announced a series of regulatory measures for cryptocurrencies in December. Immediately following the announcement on December 28, a national petition entitled “Has the government ever dreamed a happy dream for the people?” was filed and will run through January 27. According to the rules set by the Blue House, if more than 200,000 people sign a petition within a month, the government will respond within 30 days.
On Tuesday, January 16, the number of signatures exceeded that threshold for the above petition, with 215,140 signatories at the time of writing.
The petition reads:
Our people have been able to make a happy dream that they have never had in Korea because of virtual currency…I might be able to buy a house in Korea where it is hard [for me] to buy my house.
Concerning illegal gambling, the author argues “people are not stupid. In the current era, virtual currency is invested because it is judged to be the 4th revolution and it is not just a random investment…I invest wisely to the extent that I do not overdo my money.”
After acknowledging the risks, the author emphasized:
The world you [the government] see is different from the world our people see. You think you protect the people, but the people think that the government takes away our dreams.
The petition does not object to the real-name system which regulators are trying to implement or taxes that must be imposed. However, “Please do not take away our happiness and dreams that we had for the first time in Korea,” it concludes.
Another Petition and A Constitutional Court Case
On December 28, another national petition was filed. It “calls for the dismissal of Choi Heung-shik, the director of the Financial Supervisory Service, who is offering speculation to the people,” the document states.
This filing was in response to a speech Choi gave on December 28 in which he reportedly said it is a good bet that bitcoin’s bubble will burst. “Bitcoin will lose its bubble later. You can bet,” Hankook-Ilbo and other news outlets quoted him. At the time of writing, 37,911 people have signed this petition but the count is still rising.
Meanwhile, the country’s Constitutional Court has entered into a preliminary hearing on the case against cryptocurrency regulation filed on December 30. Anguk Law Offices appealed “over the government’s regulations on cryptocurrency trading, saying regulating the trade through administrative guidance without any legal grounds is an infringement of property rights,” the Korea Times explained.
The court will examine whether the constitutional appeal is appropriate and whether a full-scale trial is necessary.
What do you think of these petitions and the appeal? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the Korean government.
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Bitcoin Cash Tip Bot ‘Tippr’ Distributes Thousands of Micropayments
A new Bitcoin Cash (BCH) tip bot that lets anyone send small microtransactions using BCH called ‘Tippr’ is gaining a lot of traction on the web these days.
Also Read: Some UK Mortgage Lenders Refuse to Serve Bitcoin Investors
The Bitcoin Cash Tip Bot ‘Tippr’ Is Gaining A lot of Traction
The BCH Tippr bot is available on Reddit and Twitter. At the moment a lot of users are using the program to tip people. Tippr users on Reddit simply call “/u/tippr” and enter the number of funds they want to send and specify another user. The same thing can be done on Twitter by tagging the bot and the person on the receiving end and typing “$0.50 
“I’m a bitcoin cash tip-bot for Reddit and Twitter, allowing you to send bitcoin cash to other users easily,” explains Tippr’s introduction.
20,000 Tips Worth $71K of Bitcoin Cash Sent Across Reddit
Additionally, Tippr sees a lot of use on Reddit according to the bot’s stats. Users on Reddit are sending anywhere between $200 to $4600 in BCH per day using Tippr. The bot has transmitted approximately $71,036 (50.5 BCH) since it started offering tip services on Reddit. According to the data, there are some pretty big tippers as some accounts on the forum have sent between $5,000-7,300 worth of BCH. Out of 9,915 Reddit users sending BCH with Tippr over, 20,000 tips have been sent to users on the popular forum.
Tippr is operated by the digital goods merchant and payment processing firm Rocketr and individuals who have issues with the tip bot can reach out to the Rocketr team. The team is also helping merchants accept BCH with the company’s own gateway.
What do you think about Tippr? Have you tried to send a tip using the bot on Reddit or Twitter? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Tippr, and Tippr Stats.
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Bitconnect Shuts Down Its Exchange Citing a String of Excuses
In a move that will surprise few observers, Bitconnect has announced that it is closing its lending and exchange platform. The company has widely been accused of operating a Ponzi scheme and was recently rocked by cease and desist notices in two US states. Immediately after the firm declared its intention to wind things up, its BCC coin plummeted from $290 to under $10 before recovering slightly. With the exchange offline, many holders have been left locked out and powerless to sell their heavily deprecated assets.
Also read: Bitconnect Slapped with Securities Emergency Cease and Desist Order
Bitconnect Bids Bye Bye
Pressure has been mounting on Bitconnect for months, with leading figures within the crypto community, from Vitalik Buterin to Jameson Lopp, speculating that the exchange was not all it was cracked up to be. News.Bitcoin.com reported on these rumors back in November before revealing, less than a fortnight ago, that the company had been slapped with an emergency cease and desist order in Texas. Among many red flags to have set alarm bells ringing were Bitconnect’s extremely odd marketing videos, described by one commenter as being “like scientology merged with hillsong infused with dorks and used car salesmen”.
In an update posted on the Bitconnect website, the company said it was halting its lending and exchange service due to the spate of cease and desist notices coupled with “bad press” and a string of DDoS attacks. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing DDoS attacks, the blog post can’t be accessed at this time. The “bad press” that Bitconnect cites, otherwise known as accurate reporting, has been invaluable in helping guide crypto newcomers away from the platform.
A Secret Blend of Herbs and Spices
The exact workings of Bitconnect’s secret sauce that purportedly makes its investors generous returns has never been disclosed, but the general consensus is that the whole operation is little more than a pyramid scheme. It is almost certain that Bitconnect’s “intelligent trading bot” which makes profitable trades and then shares those dividends with the community, does not exist.
It is not clear whether the news of Bitconnect’s lending service shutdown heralds the end of the company altogether, although it is hard to imagine it being able to limp on in any shape or form after shuttering its main hub. DDoS attacks are a tactic that a number of deep web marketplaces have used to sow confusion ahead of an exit scam. It is impossible to ascertain the origins of the distributed denial of service the site is under, though it it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the attack may have originated from close to home.
Bitconnect Token Falls Through the Floor
Historically, Bitconnect’s BCC token has been remarkably stable, maintaining steady growth in a pattern not dissimilar from that of bitcoin. But as news.Bitcoin.com noted back in November:
With most of the BCC in existence locked in the company’s exchange, if its founders were to perform an exit scam or wind up behind bars, millions of dollars of bitcoin would instantly be locked up and BCC would be rendered worthless.
That prophecy has now come to pass. Coinmarketcap reports zero trade volume on the Bitconnect platform in the last 60 hours, leaving its token still listed at $290 there. On other platforms though, such as Coinexchange, which recorded 24-hour BCC trade volume of $1.26 million, the token dropped to $8 before recovering to around $25 at the time of publication. Coinmarketcap, the web’s go-to cryptocurrency checker, has previously come in for criticism for hosting ads promoting Bitconnect. Coincodex, in comparison, has elected to post a notice alongside BCC warning investors away. Its CEO Marko Stokelj previously told news.Bitcoin.com:
Bitconnect employs a number of dubious methods in order to operate and promote its business. The business model outlined by the company is economically unsustainable with the current level of returns unable to be validated by any legally known investment system.
While some observers in the crypto community may feel a touch of schadenfreude at Bitconnect’s demise, it is worth being mindful of the many victims who will have suffered heavy losses. Thanks to its marketing strategy, including use of referral schemes, Bitconnect preyed on newbs who lacked the necessary understanding to differentiate legitimate cryptocurrencies from get rich quick schemes.
If the news emanating from Bitconnect’s 404’d website does prove to be terminal – and it’s hard to imagine the company coming back from this – there will at least be some good to come out of this story. A number of similar sites with names such as Ethconnect have appeared in recent months, each with the same opaque business model. The fall of Bitconnect will hopefully serve as a warning to other crypto startups not to go down the same route. For Bitconnect bag-holders, though, this cautionary tale will provide little consolation.
UPDATE: This post has since been updated to include a screenshot of the Bitconnect statement in full.
Do you think today’s news spells the end for Bitconnect? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Coincodex and Coinmarketcap.
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Businessman Outright Buys Two Electric Power Stations to Do Bitcoin Mining in Russia
China has dominated the bitcoin mining industry for a couple of years, but fears of a government clampdown are signaling now might be the best time to enter the market elsewhere in the world. And someone just made a big bet that Russia, with its cold weather and plentiful fossil fuel energy sources, is the place to establish a mining venture.
Also Read: Big Chinese Bitcoin Miners Are Turning to Canada
Serious Mining in Russia
An investor has acquired a couple of electric power stations in Russia specifically to be used for bitcoin mining, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. It is purported to be the first time ever someone bought a whole power station for such a venture in the vast and natural resource rich country.
One power station is located in the Perm region, on the western slopes of the Middle Ural Mountains, and the other is located in the nearby Russian Republic of Udmurtia. The two facilities will be used to create a data center and a bitcoin mining farm, the newspaper reported. The deal was completed for an estimated 160 million rubles (worth approximately $2.8 million).
The reported buyer of the power stations, businessman Aleksey Kolesnik, has indirectly confirmed the acquisition. However, he said that cryptocurrency mining operation will only start after the Russian government approves a needed law to make it completely legal. The bill the Russian Ministry of Finance is currently drafting to regulate cryptocurrency and ICOs in Russia is expected to be adopted in March 2018.
Miners Go North
Chinese miners appear to be preparing for an exodus from their once hospitable homeland. As efficient mining requires cheap electricity and cold weather, locations that offer both are said to be the main benefactors, from Iceland to Canada. But, there are reasons to believe that the Russian government will be more open than others to hosting bitcoin mining operations in their territory.
In December, the Russian Duma hosted a global panel of cryptocurrency miners where people from fifteen countries explained to parliamentarians how cryptocurrencies are created and discussed different approaches to mining regulation. Some Russian politicians also think that bitcoin can help the country bypass Western financial sanctions. Lastly, a common mainstream media criticism of mining at the moment is that it wastes a lot of energy, supposedly exacerbating global warming – an obsession Russia does not share.
Can Russia be the leading new hub for the bitcoin mining industry? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Hackers Steal $400k from Users of a Stellar Lumen (XLM) Web Wallet
Another cryptocurrency service provider has been hacked, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of losses to Stellar users this time. DNS hackers have hijacked the Blackwallet server, redirected some of the traffic and made off with 669,920 XLM.
Also Read: Japan’s Largest Bank to Launch Cryptocurrency Exchange
Stellar Wallet Blackwallet Compromised
The Blackwallet creator commented: “I am sincerely sorry about this and hope that we will get the funds back. I am in talks with my hosting provider to get as much information about the hacker and will see what can be done with it. If you ever entered your key on blackwallet, you may want to move your funds to a new wallet using the stellar account viewer. Please note however that blackwallet was only an account viewer and that no keys were stored on the server!”
DNS Hacks on the Rise
This is not the first time such a method was used to defraud cryptocurrency users, and probably not the last as copycats see how effective it is. Only a month ago DNS hackers steal over $270,000 in ethereum and tokens from Etherdelta exchange users. The attackers have been linked with this ethereum address, which now contains almost $6 million of ETH.
What cryptocurrency wallets can be trusted to protect users’ funds? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Metropolitan Bank Denies Ceasing Cryptocurrency-Related International Wires
Just recently news.Bitcoin.com reported on the company Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp (NYSE: MCB) allegedly ceasing international cryptocurrency transfers. The bank is well known for being called the “Bitcoin Bank” and responded today to “erroneous statements” made by the media.
Also read: French Entrepreneur’s Case to Overturn the Bitlicense Dismissed
Various Reports State the ‘Bitcoin Bank’ Allegedly Ceased Offering International Cryptocurrency Transfers
Metropolitan Bank Responds to Erroneous Statements
On January 16:th the bank responded to “erroneous statements contained in articles that have recently appeared in some online publications” and stated that the company’s policies have not changed.
“As a matter of policy, the bank does not accept cryptocurrency-related wire transfers from non-U.S. entities,” explains Metropolitan executive Edward Nebb. “This is a long-standing policy of the bank and remains in effect today — Last week, the bank sent out a reminder to customers of its policy against accepting cryptocurrency-related wire transfers from non-U.S. entities.”
This reminder to customers is not a new policy for the bank and was not due to, nor did the bank experience, any “incident of international fraud.” The bank’s long-standing policy of not accepting cryptocurrency-related wire transfers from non-U.S. entities is part of its robust risk management program that is designed to ensure the safe and sound operations of the Bank in compliance with applicable laws, rules and guidance.
Metropolitan Bank-based cryptocurrency cards seem to be operating just fine, and users of both the Coinbase Shift card and Bitpay’s Visa services have not complained about issues. International cards issued by Wave Crest Holdings are still out of service which includes cards such as Bitwala, Tenx, Bitpay, Coinsbank, and Xapo.
What do you think about Metropolitan Bank’s statements towards reports about it ceasing crypto-related services? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Metropolitan Bank logo, and building and SEC archive.
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