Chief Investment Officer Haefele says risk of terror funding
Says bitcoin not reached critical mass to be seen as currency

Evercore ISI upgrades Square to outperform, highlighting the company’s bitcoin testing as a potential revenue source down the road.
Analyst Rayna Kumar also underscores Square’s new technologies like Square Register, saying the new products should advance the company upmarket.
Shares of Square closed at an all-time high Thursday and are up more than 200 percent since January.

Bitcoin pushed past $8,000.
Prices rebounded after it fell as low as $5,600 over the weekend.
The surge comes amid more regulatory developments in the cryptocurrency market.

Score one for the poetic irony pages.

Just after an announcement by the CME Group’s marketing team that the company is planning to start testing Bitcoin futures trading next Monday (20th of November), prices started rallying heavily.

Coinbase is already storing more than $9B of digital currency on behalf of our customers, and we’re excited to bring a new product built specifically for institutional investors.

Bringing MtGox up through japanese civil rehabilitation under a new management and ownership sounds actually more and more easily done than before. This could work, joined with a solution similar to what Bitfinex did, where liabilities are covered with tokens issued to creditors, and can be cashed out anytime based on current liabilities status while said status progressively improves over time as MtGox makes money and/or coins are recovered (could take years just to maybe see Vinnik get his ticket to the USA, so no need to hold your breath there).

Next, however, we are working to integrate other cryptocurrencies into OpenBazaar. Work on this has already begun and several community members from other coins have been working on integration. Initially we’ll likely offer just two or three other cryptocurrencies in addition to Bitcoin, but the long term goal is for OpenBazaar to be coin agnostic and allow payments in any cryptocurrency.

In a statement, the financial technology firm said it has secured a certification from the regulator to formally operate in the Philippines as an electronic money (e-money) issuer.

“The new license allows Coins to accept and hold customer funds, and extend the functionality of its online and offline payment services. The company already has a very active customer base using its existing payments, remittance, air-time, and bill-pay services,” the non-bank firm said.

Last week, the Segwit2x development team announced they would no longer continue with the project. In addition, a significant portion of miners and other community leaders withdrew their support for…

I try to assume good intentions in people. Unfortunately, I can no longer do so for @jgarzik. My judgement is that he is acting to disrupt the bitcoin network to advance his own interests.

Although still in testing phase, the lightning network can now be used to send transactions across different blockchains. The Lightning Labs development team successfully swapped testnet bitcoin for testnet litecoin through a lightning channel this week: ownership of the coins changed hands, while no transaction was recorded on either blockchain.

The truly innovative feature of Paxful that endears it to most Nigerians is that it offers more than 300 ways to pay for Bitcoin. Nigerians, most of whom don’t have access to bank accounts can now buy and pay for Bitcoin with gift cards, cash deposits, online transfers, debit cards, Western Union, and MoneyGram among others. Paxful notes that it does more than $10 million volume transactions a week in just iTunes Gift Cards from Nigeria to China alone. Interestingly, Nigeria has become Paxful #1 market ahead of the USA.

In a simultaneous blitz, Dutch cops arrested eight men, three of them Irish, as they seized 175 kilos of cocaine, cannabis, vacuum-packed cash, computers, encrypted phones and €3million worth of the bitcoin cryptocurrency.

In co-operation with the Federal Criminal Police Office, drug traffickers of the detention center in Ingolstadt, Germany were able to arrest a 19-year-old last week when he was sent a package containing narcotics.

In October, a massive breach hit Malaysians that saw over 46 million records put up on sale on the dark web. Authorities said on Thursday (16 November) that they have identified several suspects that perpetrated the historic data breach.

WICHITA, Kan. - A Coffeyville man will spend two years in federal prison after trying to buy an explosive off of the Dark Web.

The experimental blockchain network mimblewimble has launched on testnet.

Many digital token sales are fraudulent, two prominent names in the cryptocurrency space warned
Joseph Lubin, co-founder of ethereum, said many initial coin offering (ICO) projects are copycats that do not intend to offer any real value to investors
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said token sales operate in a gray area while waiting for regulation to catch up

While startups launching initial coin offerings (ICOs) may be all too aware they’re working in a legal gray area, that might not be enough to stop lawsuits that could test their legality.

Code-named ‘Virtuoso,’ exchange’s backers include Sunil Hirani
Follows plans by CME and Cboe to create bitcoin futures

With the liquor and bass flowing through my body, I am left with a single parting thought: the cryptocurrency world is just like Silicon Valley, except the nerds are nerdier and the slimeballs are much, much slimier.

Bram Cohen explains how proofs of space and time can solve the sort of ASIC centralisation you find in Bitcoin.

Birdman, Black Mass, Hacksaw Ridge producer considers ICO
Ironically enough, Chris Woodrow made this year’s Tulip Fever

Perhaps because a controversial network split in Bitcoin was cancelled by its organizers last week, the cryptocurrency space has been left thirsting for some drama. Thankfully (or not, depending on how you see it), an anonymous person or group has delivered with a completely unexpected rebellion they’ve dubbed “Bitcoin Clashic.”

Dragon Corp wants to raise $500 million from an ICO that will finance a floating casino in Macau.
The digital coins will be exchangeable for non-negotiable gambling chips in the Dragon Pearl Hotel Casino.
Or buyers can hold the coins as they fluctuate in value.
The company got some bad publicity when a convicted gangster showed up at one of its events.

Speaking at the Ghana Blockchain Conference on behalf of the Minister of Communications, Mr Antwi Boasiako, said, “We have our fears about cryptocurrency but discussions are still going on. Our country is still hesitant to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender is the fear of the unknown.”

Turkish police are toasting their success after capturing an enterprising gang of crypto kidnappers. Their targets were major bitcoin holders. The quintet were caught as they prepared to pounce on their second victim, having already extorted 450 bitcoins, worth U.S. $3.3 million, from a wealthy businessman.

For Eddy Zillan’s bar mitzvah in 2012, his parents gave him $5,000 to start an investment fund. They expected him to start dabbling in stocks. Instead, he began buying cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

Eddy saved up another $7,000 from summers spent working at a tennis club and other jobs, adding that to his investment fund for a total $12,000 in principal.

Anybody who has been following cryptocurrencies knows where this story is going: Eddy’s $12,000 investment is now worth well over $500,000, a return exceeding 4,100% in just a few years.