“The law is coming to Bitcoin.” We’ve heard Bitcoin inventor Dr. Craig Wright say it before and now it has come to light in two separate incidents.
ICO pumper John McAfee was arrested in Spain and is facing tax evasion charges. Reports say his extradition to the United States is pending. The U.S. Justice Department alleged McAfee “evaded taxes and failed to file tax returns” from 2014 to 2018. “The indictment came after a civil charge from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission saying McAfee failed to disclose 23.1 million U.S. dollars in compensation for promoting seven digital asset projects.”
Also making headlines, United States government authorities issued indictments to four executives at BitMEX, including its CEO Arthur Hayes. They have been charged with “violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and conspiracy to violate the act by willfully failing to monitor money laundering.” BitMEX was banned from serving U.S. customers since 2015 due to regulatory requirements but it allegedly operated a derivatives exchange illegally.
In other news, it’s a wrap for the three-day CoinGeek Live conference that took place from September 30 to October 2. The show was a huge success with guests speaking from every corner of the world. It broadcasted live simultaneously from the Manhattan Center in New York and Kennington Studios in London.
There were some exciting new developments unveiled at the conference. Among them, the new partnership between UNISOT and TAAL Distributed Information Technologies Inc. (CSE:TAAL | FWB:9SQ1 | OTC: TAALF), as well as a technical update on the development of the Bitcoin SV infrastructure given by nChain CTO, Steve Shadders.
Some other notable speakers at the conference are Managing Partner and the Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, Thomas Lee; Founder & CEO of Maxthon, Jeff Chen; and Queens College media professor and best-selling author, Douglas Rushkoff, among many others. The event culminated with a keynote speech from non-other than economist and writer George Gilder.
U.S. Representative Darren Soto also made a guest appearance. He announced two new pieces of legislation that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives recently on blockchain and digital currency. The new laws seek to introduce greater certainty in the legal environment around blockchain technology. Congressman Soto also talked about blockchain growth in the United States.
“The innovation and potential of blockchain in cryptocurrency among many other applications has exponential possibilities and growth and looking forward to a great conversation on the work were doing here in the US congress as we speak.”
Also announced at the CoinGeek conference were the winners of the Bitcoin Association 3rd Bitcoin SV Hackathon.
Taking the 1st prize of $50,000 in BSV is Will Devine’s Repzip. Repzip is described as a self-sovereign identity and decentralized identity solution in which your unique identifier is your public key. Coming in 2nd place and winning $30,000 in BSV is Aleksandar Dinkov’s STOTASK, a company that revolves around data labeling. In 3rd place winning $20,000 in BSV is Niels van den Bergh’s project Kyrt. It aims is to become the world’s blockchain integration partner of choice.
There were more than 400 participants in the hackathon with several projects receiving honorable mentions.
Watch CoinGeek Live Day 1.
Watch CoinGeek Live Day 2.
Watch CoinGeek Live Day 3.
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
