The CEO of the failed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has been arrested, and Ethereum has been launched. Here are the cryptocurrency highlights of week 31:
- More than one year after the once biggest Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy the Japanese police have arrested its CEO, Mark Karpelès, who is suspected of falsifying data on the exchange’s outstanding balance. It could mean that some of the 650,000 coins that were lost by Mt. Gox might never have existed in the first place. 650,000 BTC was worth more than $500 million when the exchange filed for bankruptcy in February 2014, but would “only” be worth around $182 million today.
- After eighteen month since Ethereum was announced the decentralized app network was finally launched this week. Ethereum is one of the most successful crowdfunding projects of all time raising $18 million in its ICO. Interestingly, Ethereum’s open-source software was already integrated in Counterparty which runs on the Bitcoin blockchain. Ethereum itself will be powered and secured by its own blockchain.
- “Mike Tyson’s fastest knock out in the ring was 30 seconds. The Mike Tyson Bitcoin ATM can turn your cash into bitcoin in under 20 seconds.” With these lines a new website is advertising the new Mike Tyson Bitcoin ATMs which will be launched in August this year. The move would certainly seem like good marketing for Bitcoin, although the project has immediately been accused of it being nothing more than a scam at Tyson’s expense. The domain’s owner has denied all accusations.
- Benjamin Lawsky, former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and the man behind the infamous BitLicense, has rejected accusations of creating a conflict of interest when he founded a virtual currency compliance consultancy firm after departing from the NYDFS. According to Lawsky there cannot be a conflict of interest because: “The rules are very clear. I can’t work at all for life on anything I ever worked on. If anyone said ‘I want to hire you to help get a BitLicense from DFS’, no can do”.
- The price of Bitcoin moved away from the $300 per coin line this week, trading almost three percent or $8 per coin lower than the previous week at a current rate of about $281 per coin.
