CryptoWorld

Federal courts now accepting cryptocurrency for bail

High-tech criminal charges call for high-tech bail in Silicon Valley.

A man charged with hacking the Redwood City video game company Electronic Arts has been ordered to pay his bail in cryptocurrency, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Martin Marsich, 25, a Serbian and Italian national living in Udine, Italy, was arrested at SFO on Aug. 8 and made his first appearance in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday (Aug. 16), when federal Judge Jacqueline Corley ordered him to pay $750,000 in Bitcoin or any other kind of cryptocurrency to be released to a halfway house.

U.S. Assistant District Attorney Abraham Simmons said he doubted it was the first time a judge had allowed cryptocurrency for bail. Judges can order many kinds of bail, including real estate owned by another person.

“It really is quite broad,” Simmons said. “The judge could order just about anything. What the objective is is to get the defendant to comply with an order to appear later.”

If the value of the currency were to fluctuate dramatically, Simmons said he was “certain” that either party could file a motion to change the bail amount.

“The idea is to get him to court, not necessarily to maintain the value of any particular asset,” Simmons said. “I would imagine that either side would alert the court of an extreme change in the value of the asset, but it doesn’t mean that the court would care one way or the other.”

*Crypto hedge fund Pantera on track to raise $175 million despite bitcoin’s price slump *
📍The firm is attracting long-term investors who see the latest dip in crypto as a buying opportunity.
📍Pantera has raised $100 million of the $175 million goal for its most recent VC-style fund.
📍The Menlo Park-based hedge fund recently made its first investment from that fund in a start-up called Bakkt, which is backed by Starbucks, Intercontinental Exchange and Microsoft.

Silicon Valley is still finding plenty of reasons, and money, to pour into the cryptocurrency industry.

Despite bitcoin slumping by half this year, crypto hedge fund Pantera Capital is well on its way to hitting a $175 million target for its third and largest fund yet. According to a SEC disclosure filed this week, the firm has raised at least $71 million. Pantera executives said the total is now closer to $100 million.

Investors appear to be drawn to the focus of the newest Pantera fund. It's more broadly about blockchain, which some pundits have called as transformative as the internet, instead of just cryptocurrency, which Warren Buffett famously called rat poison.

In the newest fund, which has 140 investors so far and a 10-year investment period, buyers get equity in a blockchain company instead of just investing in a "coin."

Initial coin offerings, or ICOs, often promise investors a piece of that company down the road or access to a product that might not even exist yet.

Third Largest Crypto Exchange Huobi Creates New Platform in USA

Huobi, the world’s third largest crypto exchange by trade volume, has created a new digital currency trading marketplace in the US, Financial Magnates reports Friday, June 8th.

The platform comes via a newly created San Francisco-based company called HBUS, which, as stressed in a Medium post earlier this week:

“...is not an “arm,” “subsidiary,” “division,” or any type of “affiliate” of Huobi. Nor is HBUS to be referenced as “Huobi US” or any variant thereof. HBUS is the “exclusive US strategic partner of Huobi.”

Official trading is set to launch June 15, although HBUS’ website suggests that “overwhelming demand” may postpone the launch, and appeals to the public to sign up for a newsletter and its Telegram channel to be notified when registration opens.

Huobi, originally founded in China, first revealed its plans to open an office in San Francisco in January this year. Now headquartered in Singapore, the exchange has been vigorously targeting overseas markets, launching a South Korean subsidiary, as well as announcing plans to open an office in London.

Bitcoin still a buy despite recent losses says blockchain venture capitalist. Here's why.

📍Blockchain venture capitalist Spencer Bogart says bitcoin's increased number of use cases is proof that the coin is becoming more institutionalized.
📍He says to sell coins like Cardano, TRON, IOTA and NEO.
📍But hold ethereum, ripple, bitcoin cash and EOS, Bogart says.

Bitcoin is still a buy despite its continued losses, blockchain venture capitalist Spencer Bogart told CNBC.
The digital currency's increased number of use cases is proof that the popular form of money is being institutionalized.

Still, the coin has seen better days. After surging last December to around $19,500, bitcoin has declined more than 50 percent since the start of the year. On Thursday, amid increased regulatory scrutiny in the cryptocurrency space, the coin fell yet again — this time below $8,000, where bitcoin had hovered for several weeks. Late Friday, bitcoin changed hands around $7,400.
Bogart recommended selling coins like Cardano, TRON, IOTA and NEO.

"A lot of those tokens are overvalued," Bogart said. "They could be go up significantly, but they also have significant headwind."

Alternatives like ethereum, ripple, bitcoin cash and EOS, however, he described as "neutral" — and he told investors to hold for now.

Bogart said he's especially cautious with ethereum, which he said has a lot of overhang because so many initial coin offerings (ICOs) have been built on top of ethereum. He pointed out that if the ICOs don't work out, that could be bad news for the platform its built on.

Bitcoin, however, should "at least" end above $10,000 by the end of the year, Bogart said, but he acknowledged that the even the large-cap coin could face some headwind.

Ethereum Could Be the Next Apple: Steve Wozniak

Blockchain platform Ethereum could be the next Apple, one of the iconic tech company’s co-founders said this week.

According to Forbes, Steve Wozniak made this bullish prediction in front of 5,000 people at this week’s WeAreDevelopers conference in Vienna.

“Ethereum interests me because it can do things and because it’s a platform,” he said, adding that it could prove to be as influential as Apple over the long-term.

At present, Apple has a market cap of $921 billion, which makes it approximately two-and-a-half times larger than the entire cryptocurrency market cap. Ethereum’s market cap is slightly below $68 billion.

“There is a certain finite amount of bitcoin that can ever exist,” he said at the Money 20/20 conference last October. That makes it “more genuine and real” than the dollar, which is “kind of phony” since it is often manipulated for political reasons. “Your house has value. And if it is a house today, 40 years from now, it still is a house in value, even if the price increases over time,” _ he added.

Wozniak has also said that bitcoin ranks favorably to gold:
“Gold gets mined and mined and mined. Maybe there’s a finite amount of gold in the world, but Bitcoin is even more mathematical and regulated and nobody can change mathematics.”_

Despite this bullish outlook, Wozniak said that he divested most of his holdings after finding that he spent too much time and energy following its volatile price movements.
Wozniak, meanwhile, continues to hold one bitcoin and two ether, funds that he says he uses to experiment with the technology — not as a speculative investment.

Facebook forming a new blockchain group, headed by Coinbase board member

📍"I'm setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch," David Marcus said in a post Tuesday afternoon on the social media site.
📍Marcus is leaving his role as head of Messenger. He is also a board member of cryptocurrency marketplace Coinbase.
📍The news came as Facebook implemented its biggest executive shakeup in 15 years, Recode reported Tuesday.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in early January that the company will begin looking into cryptocurrencies and "how to best use them in our services."

Blockchain technology quickly creates a permanent, secure record of transactions between two parties and eliminates the need for a third-party intermediary, such as a bank. Bitcoin is the first application of the technology.

Bitcoin Cash gets a boost after being added to a London exchange
📌London Block Exchange on Wednesday announced it would support two more cryptocurrencies: bitcoin cash and ethereum classic.
📌Bitcoin cash rose 8% on the news, while ethereum classic was up just under 1%.
📌Follow the price of bitcoin cash in real-time here.


Bitcoin cash was up more than 7%, outpacing other major cryptocurrencies, Wednesday morning after London Block Exchange said it would support trading of the fourth-largest cryptocurrency.

"As we open our doors to UK crypto enthusiasts, we’re listening and acting on what the community wants - and that’s an array of good quality coin options to trade; all backed by a reliable, comprehensive and user-friendly service that they can trust," Benjamin Dives, CEO of the exchange, said in a press release.

Bitcoin and ethereum, the two largest coins, were up just over 1% at the time of writing, while Ripple's XRP was up 2%.