Lyn Ulbricht: The Far Reaching Impact of the Silk Road Case

"Lyn Ulbricht is Ross Ulbricht's mother. Ross was the creator of the Silk Road website, which had a very important role in the history of bitcoin. Currently, Ross is serving a double life sentence without parole for all non-violent charges. Lyn has worked to bring awareness to the case and raise funds for Ross’s defense through www.FreeRoss.org. She has had many media interviews and public appearances and has helped bring awareness to the public of the case and Ross's appeals. Her efforts have shined light into the darkness of the justice system, proving it to be a darker place than anywhere found on the dark web."

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Governments Hate Bitcoin and Cash Because They Protect People’s Privacy

"If they're going to be so explicit in their hostility to the anonymity and liberty those means of exchange offer people, we should take them at their word. Let's be clear in response that what they see as problems are the precise features we like about cash and cryptocurrencies. We support our well-worn folding money and bitcoin and its successors to come precisely because they put at least some of our activities beyond the reach of control freaks who want to monitor, tax, and regulate our lives."

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China Cutting Access to Overseas Crypto Trading

"The move comes months after China formally banned investments in initial coin offerings (ICOs), deeming the blockchain use case to constitute a form of illegal financing. Authorities there also shuttered online websites for crypto-trading, with the 'Big Three' exchanges closing this past fall. The new reports show that China is now targeting overseas websites catering to local users. According to the translation from SCMP, the actions are begin taken because 'after the closure of the domestic virtual currency exchanges, many people turned to overseas platforms to continue participating in virtual currency transactions.'"

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Canada’s first blockchain ETF approved

"With the ticker HBLK, the fund has a management fee of 0.65 per cent and seeks to replicate the performance of the Harvest Blockchain Technologies Index; an index designed in-house to track the performance of issuers in both the large-cap blockchain segment and the emerging blockchain segment exposed to the development and implementation of blockchain technologies in North America. At the same time, two other providers are looking to access the ever-growing popular blockchain technology. Both First Trust Portfolios Canada and Evolve Funds Group Inc. have filed preliminary prospectuses with regulators this week for blockchain funds."

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YouTube Is Serving Covert Cryptocurrency Mining Ads

"It’s like someone figured out how to monetize the awful Flash ads everyone used to hate for eating CPU cycles. A true win-win! And now it’s even hitting YouTube. TrendMicro has released an updated report, showing a sharp rise in ads served by Google’s DoubleClick service being infested with mining software. Like other attacks, this one uses a Javascript miner to mine Monero via Coinhive."

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Making a Crypto Utopia in Puerto Rico

"Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars. They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it."

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Extortion, Police Raids and Secrecy: The Venezuelan Bitcoin Mining World

"Who would have ever thought that Bitcoin mining would be a cat and mouse game of trying to outwit and deceive government and police task forces? Then again who would’ve thought that Bitcoin mining would be so lucrative to where families are living off the Bitcoin ecosystem."

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Japanese Bitcoin Exchange Shuts Down After $723M Stolen

"On both English and Japanese social media, Coincheck promised users it would provide full details in due course, while in the meantime apologizing for the abrupt cut to services. Notably, Coincheck is not registered with Japan’s Financial Services Authority - a regulator responsible for overseeing exchanges in the country - unlike several other prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, such as bitFlyer and Quoine."

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Jamie Dimon says he regrets calling bitcoin a fraud

"'The blockchain is real,' Dimon added in the interview. 'You can have cryptodollars in yen and stuff like that. ICOs ... you got to look at every one individually. The bitcoin was always to me what the governments are going to feel about bitcoin when it gets really big. And I just have a different opinion than other people.'"

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