MEGA
In a move reminiscent of http://motleybloggers.com/archive/ that time WikiLeaks had all donation methods shut down (except for bitcoin, naturally ), United States Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who previously wrote & sponsored legislation which would empower China-style internet censorship in the USA, applied just a bit of senatorial muscle to Visa & Mastercard (who in turn leaned on PayPal) to block all legacy payments to one of the world's largest cloud storage providers, New-Zealand based Mega.
Mega conforms with all relevant legislation and responds quickly whenever material owners want something removed. By any standard the firm lives up to the requirements of the DMCA."
So what is the matter then, if Mega complies with legal requests to remove content that is copyrighted? The problem, according to intermittent Batman celebrity Leahy, is that Mega encrypts all files uploaded to it in a way which not even Mega can view themmeaning users have the ability to keep copyrighted material that may or may not have been legally obtained. Leahy, who has https://maximumhorrors.com/archive obtained nearly half a million dollars in political contributions in the film, TV, and music industries in the last five years alone, appears to take issue with how the powers that be are, well, powerless to snoop a user's private files and detect whether they are hosting the intellectual property of others before they disperse the link. Leahy is basically disagreeing that people have to be protected in bitcoin news their persons and papers... and all of this for a company that is not even located in the United States.
That is, as one Reddit commenter put it, such as kicking a hornet's nest. Mega has over fifteen million customers around the globe, many of them presumably using the site precisely because of it's unique end-to-end file encryption attribute *. Mega has been accepting bitcoin since 2013, but in an superb real world example of their cryptocurrency's durability, the only means left to buy services from Mega is using BTC. The ever-flamboyant creator of the site, Kim Dotcom tweeted"Let's give Bitcoin a increase #Mega" soon after PayPal dropped them and immediately before the bitcoin price received an actual boost [see the price spike on the 27th preceding ]. A mainstream site that accepts only bitcoin is a pretty exciting prospect!
* Before anybody pulls the ol'"in case you do not have anything to hide..." card, file encryption is beneficial for a number of factors. Check out this great TED talk about why privacy matters. And should you want to look at the numbers, 99.7percent of files stored on Mega are less than 20MB in size (i.e., way too little to be films or TV shows).
Somalians living in the United States have lost their primary avenue of remitting money back home. I think it's improbable that bitcoin swoops to the rescue in this case, since there is very little bitcoin infrastructure for money recipients to convert BTC to local currency in Somalia, but maybe this event presents an chance for somebody to develop a bitcoin alternative for this particular remittance corridor.
Things aren't looking so good for Venezuela right now: With inflation soaring into a rate of 68 percent, the authorities are seeking to handle the financial crisis with a complex web of three official exchange prices. For instance, some fundamental goods are imported at speeds of 6.3 and 12 bolívars to the dollar, but a brand new floating rate of about 171 was introduced last week, effectively reflecting a devaluation of nearly 70 percent.
"In what was dubbed the"SwissLeaks" instance, serious allegations have been made against the Swiss branch of British-based banking giant HSBC. Jan Fritsche discusses the way the tax evasion and money laundering practices functioned." DW
+ In contrast to HSBC's long and storied history of helping criminals launder billions of dollars and getting off with slap on the wrist fines, here is what happens when a typical person attempts to launder small-time money: guys with guns drawn will kick down your front door and arrest you.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is preparing to charge big institutional customers for several deposits, citing new guidelines which make holding money for the clients too costly, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people knowledgeable about the strategy. MarketWatch
Tim Draper's son, Adam, had his bank account hacked and a $50,000 wire sent to the hacker. Surprise surprise, once the cash left his bank's hands (Wells Fargo), he was pretty much screwed as much as getting back it goes.
The ECB is set to kick off a new form of quantitative easing, to the tune of over a trillion euros.
WHAT'S NEW?
WSJ BitBeat
Rakuten Super Logistics U.S., an American subsidiary of the business, currently accepts bitcoin, but the parent https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bitcoin&ref=nb_sb_noss organization is the biggest online retailer in Japan and ranks among the largest in the world by sales. WSJ
Ecuador has started issuing new"digital dollars"... essentially a state-issued digital currency. The identical bill that approved the creation of this centrally-controlled funbux also prohibited bitcoin and other digital currencies. In a state with a roughly ten percent illiteracy rate, and fifteen million people, only 8,000 have bothered to sign up for the new money.
RE/MAX London has partnered with GoCoin to take bitcoin for land rentals.
Ryan Kennedy, also called Alex Green, who previously absconded with more than three thousand bitcoins in a market he was running, was arrested and held temporarily in the United Kingdom earlier this week in relation to the case.
JP Morgan is looking to hire individuals knowledgeable in bitcoin. So is Intel.
Same day cable transfers are now available on Coinbase.
+ Coinbase also published these comments on the latest BitLicense revision.
TAILS, the secure variant of Linux favored by privacy advocates around the world, today comes garnished with the Electrum bitcoin wallet.
This is lecture #2 from Princeton's bitcoin course on YouTube.
Video: The Way BitPesa Brings Financial Inclusion into Kenya.
