BY KAREN FREIFELD REUTERS
Circle Internet Financial, a Boston-based bitcoin startup backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, has received New York’s first BitLicense, allowing it to offer digital currency services in the state. The firm, founded in 2013, released a new version of its mobile payment service on Tuesday. The BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services is based on the first set of U.S. state guidelines for companies that operate in virtual currencies such as bitcoin, which is created and exchanged independent of banks. The guidelines, issued in June, are aimed at protecting consumers, preventing money laundering and boosting cyber-security. Circle uses bitcoin blockchain technology to allow consumers to send and transmit dollars, President and co-founder Sean Neville said in an interview.
bitcoin
Dread Pirate Roberts 2.0: An interview with Silk Road’s new boss
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by Ken KlippensteinArs Technica Silk Road, the infamous and anonymous online marketplace specializing in illicit goods, sells everything from pot to black tar heroin. If you can smoke it, inject it, or snort it, there’s a good chance Silk Road has it. Well, had it. Late last year, the FBI burst into a local branch of the San Francisco Public Library and arrested one Ross Ulbricht, the alleged kingpin who ran the site. It all happened while Ulbricht’s laptop was open and he was logged into his encrypted accounts.
bitcoin
We need anonymity to make democracy safe – Stallman talks bitcoin
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By Russia Today
Although enthusiasm for ‘crypto-currency’ bitcoin is expanding, it is not going to save people’s privacy from US NSA spy agency data mining. A truly anonymous online currency is needed, Richard Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation told RT. Just as bitcoin soared above $1,200 mark, almost matching current gold prices, some 1500 proponents of the digital currency gathered in London to discuss the problems of the ‘crypto-money’ and how it could change the world. The speakers included well-known freedom of information activists, such as Cody Wilson and Richard Stallman, bitcoin developer Michael Parsons, Cryptoauction founder Daryl Cusack, as well as RT’s Stacy Herbert of Keiser Report. Bitcoin supporters – from investors and academics, to political radicals and internet geeks – have apparently been keen to discuss the challenges that face the currency, which they believe could become a global alternative for cash.