Digital Currency

Payments entrepreneurs and veterans alike view Bitcoin and other so-called cryptocurrencies as the new land of opportunity, but with the territory comes a considerable amount of legal risk. Federal authorities busted the Liberty Reserve and Silk Road ventures, the latter because it attempted to hide illegal activity by requiring customers …

In an effort to prevent money laundering, New York State’s top financial regulator made history last year when he proposed that virtual-currency providers obtain a so-called “Bitlicense” to ensure that they have proper controls in place to protect consumers’ money. Now Benjamin M. Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department …

Braintree Inc.’s arrangement to allow its merchants to accept Bitcoin could significantly further a nascent trend among big merchants to take the digital money. Braintree, which PayPal Inc. acquired a year ago for $800 million, processes payments for such fast-growing merchants as house-rental service Airbnb, restaurant-reservation site OpenTable, and taxi alternative …

Bitcoin Shop Inc. runs an e-commerce marketplace offering about 140,000 products, which on the face of it isn’t all that remarkable. What sets the 1-year-old site apart, though, is that it accepts only digital currency. No cards or bank-account transfers, please, just Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Litecoin. But Arlington, Va.-based Bitcoin …

Already eyed with suspicion by various arms of the federal government and states, virtual currencies now are the subject of a warning issued Monday by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB released a six-page advisory about the risks consumers face when using new forms of electronic money. “Virtual …

  Bitcoin vault provider Xapo Ltd. is days away from sending debit cards backed by the digital currency to consumers with registered Xapo Bitcoin accounts. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup, which is incorporated in Hong Kong, also raised $20 million in a recent investment round, bringing its total investment bounty …

By Kevin Woodward Venture capitalist Timothy Draper wants to use the nearly 30,000 Bitcoins he won last week in an auction held by the U.S. Marshals Service to fund a Bitcoin trading platform targeting emerging markets, he said last week following the auction. He would not disclose the price of …

Online fraudsters are attacking a much wider variety of brands, including grocery stores and Bitcoin exchanges, showing a growing level of sophistication in their efforts to gull unsuspecting customers out of their money, according to the latest quarterly report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group Inc., an 11-year-old organization made up …

With Bitcoin ATMs now having been deployed in scores of locations around the world, merchants are starting to see how the machines could potentially drive traffic and sales—especially with a younger, hipper clientele. The latest merchant to install Bitcoin machines is Locali Conscious Convenience, a three-store deli and convenience-store chain …

One of the most unusual auctions ever is scheduled for Friday, but the event is largely shrouded in mystery. Beginning at 6:00 a.m. Eastern and continuing for 12 hours, the U.S. Marshals Service will take sealed online bids for 29,657 Bitcoins that the FBI seized in its bust last October …