10 Feb 2014 / Silicon Angle – Bitcoin has been hit by a spate of negative publicity in the last week or so, but while doomsayers will be rubbing their hands with glee yelling out “I told you so”, those who genuinely believe in the cryptocurrency will be quietly optimistic that this could all turn out rather well.
Bitcoin’s latest troubles began almost two weeks ago, when it was revealed that Charlie Shrem, the entrepreneur behind the exchange website BitInstant, was arrested on money laundering charges related to the infamous Silk Road online black market. It’s said that Shrem “knowingly contributed to facilitating the drug sales on Silk Road, earning substantial profits along the way”. In the wake of his arrest, BitInstant was promptly shut down, while Shrem resigned his position as the as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Move forward one week and Bitcoin was hit by a triple whammy, with Apple declaring war on the cryptpocurrency by removing the sole surviving Bitcoin wallet app, Blockchain, from its App Store, without any reasonable explanation. Just two days later, it was reported from various sources that Russia had “outlawed” the cryptocurrency, declaring that “the monitoring of the use of virtual currencies shows an increasing interest in them, including for the purpose of money laundering profit obtained through illegal means.”
“Russia’s official currency is the ruble. The introduction of other types of currencies and the issue of money surrogates are banned,” reported RT News.
Things finally came to a head at the weekend when Mt.Gox, the world’s best well known Bitcoin exchange, was forced to suspend all withdrawal requests. Once the go-to exchange for the virtual currency, Mt. Gox has struggled with government seizures and technical glitches in recent months, and many commentators are now speculating that this could be the beginning of the end….. Read more
http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/02/10/bad-news-is-good-news-for-bitcoin/
