Stories by Ben Munster
Erik Finman, teen Bitcoin millionaire, plans to launch “Libra competitor”
Erik Finman, the teen who made his millions betting on bitcoin as a 12-year-old, appears to be launching a “competitor” to Facebook’s Libra project. Finman, who bills himself as “TIME’s most i...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Binance announces globe-spanning Libra competitor, ‘Venus’
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is calling on governments, companies, and entrepreneurs around the globe to develop “localised stablecoins” on its proprietary Binance Chain netwo...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Call it a summer bargain: pay-for-play ICO reviews are selling at juicy discounts
Faking reviews for seedy ICOs used to be a lucrative little business. On supposedly impartial review sites like ICObench, for instance, startups were once offered glowing reviews on their pro...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Augur, the oracle of web3, plans its rise from the ashes
Joey Krug, the co-founder and now intermittent advisor of utterly unregulated betting platform Augur, has some serious complaints about...Augur. “It’s too slow both on the Ethereum and UI sid...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Judge finds Craig Wright’s testimony “not credible”
A Florida federal judge has denied self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit concerning the alleged theft of several billion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin from a ...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
IBM staffers file patent for blockchain-powered domain name service
Several IBM staffers are looking to patent a blockchain-powered domain-name system (DNS), according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office yesterday. It’s unclear whether IBM it...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Why was ‘dollar-pegged’ stablecoin BitUSD trading at $34?
A “stablecoin” called BitShares (BitUSD) was trading at an impressive premium yesterday. On the exchange OpenLedger, lucky traders could sell their BitUSDs for a whopping $34, a 3,400 percent ...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
BitMEX Times ad misled investors says UK watchdog
Remember when 100X leverage-offering crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX bought a double-page ad spread in the Times of London to mark the ten year anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper? The a...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
The Bitcoin bull is causing a spike in Twitter scams
As the price of Bitcoin goes up, so too do the Crypto Twitter scams, according to a new report by MyCrypto cybersecurity researcher Harry Denley. And the accounts associated with the scams hav...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Coinbase drops Zcash for UK users, despite apparent regulatory approval
Updated with comments from Zcash. Coinbase is pulling support for Zcash for UK customers, according to emails to investors made public on Twitter. The privacy coin, which contains provisions...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
The price of XRP falls to 2019 lows
Bitcoin’s frenetic run over the past few months hasn’t been enough to buoy the price of XRP. The cryptocurrency, focused on cross-border payments, has fallen below $0.30 after reaching recent...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Peter McCormack calls Craig Wright 'wholly discredited' in legal defense
Remember when podcaster Peter McCormack called self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright a "fraud" earlier this year, and Wright sued him for defamation? McCormack's lawyers have bitten b...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Institutional investors are powering Bitcoin’s bull run, says new report
A new class of “institutional investors”—spurred by large financial institutions such as Fidelity— is fueling this year’s dramatic bull run, according to the first biannual report from digital...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Kik denies (almost) everything
Messenger startup Kik came back swinging today against the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s claims that it ran an $100 million, unregistered securities offering in late 2017. In an 130-...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Number barely go up—has Litecoin’s halvening had the intended effect?
The much anticipated Litecoin “halvening” finally occurred at 10:16 UTC on Monday, with block rewards sinking from 25 litecoins to 12.5. But is the six percent price surge that attended the ha...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Spankchain launches instant payments service SpankPay
Spankchain, an adult industry blockchain company, has launched SpankPay, a new cryptocurrency-powered payment platform designed to offer lower transaction fees to porn consumers and performers...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
UK court strikes down Craig Wright’s Roger Ver defamation lawsuit
Self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright’s defamation case against Bitcoin Cash advocate Roger Ver has been thrown out by a UK court on the grounds that it is “weak” and “inappropriate.”...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
Huobi joins Coinbase, ConsenSys and Circle in combatting industry bad practises
Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi is joining major industry heavyweights including Coinbase, Circle and ConsenSys in partnering with Global Digital Finance (GDF), a collaborative body of crypto an...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
BitMEX, Jimmy Song lead funding round for Middle Eastern cryptocurrency exchange
Crypto industry heavyweights including Bitcoin booster Jimmy Song and derivatives exchange BitMEX have poured $2.5 million into Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange Rain, which just scored th...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster
US senator says crypto calls to mind the 2008 financial crisis
US senators want to help spur crypto innovation...but also think it could pose a massive systemic risk. In a hearing today before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, i...
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Cryptocurrencies
Ben Munster