A district court in Beijing has rejected monetary compensation in a Bitcoin (BTC) mining contract plea against a blockchain company. The Chaoyang District People’s Court on Wednesday deemed the Bitcoin mining contract between the plaintiff and the blockchain firm “invalid,” the South China Morning Post reported on Dec. 16. The plaintiff in the case reportedly paid 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) to the blockchain firm for deployment of mining machines, but incurred losses on his investment. The Beiijng based plaintiff claimed he earned only 18.5 Bitcoin on his investment and demanded an additional 217.17 BTC in compensation for his losses. …
A major governmental agency in Uzbekistan seems to be rethinking its stance on cryptocurrencies. The National Agency for Project Management under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, or NAPM, issued an official document proposing several amendments to licensing procedures for crypto trading. The NAPM proposed to officially allow local residents to conduct “all types of crypto exchange trades involving crypto assets and tokens in exchange for the national currency and the foreign currency.” The authority stressed that crypto investors would trade and invest at their own risk. The proposal also aims to establish processes for the registration, issuance and …
After years of extradition debates, Bitcoin (BTC) launderer Alexander Vinnik has finally been sentenced by a French court. According to a report on Monday by Novaya Gazeta, Vinnik has been sentenced to five years in prison for "money laundering as part of an organized criminal group and providing false information about the origin of the proceeds" in addition to a fine of 100,000 euro ($121,000). According to the BBC, the court partially dropped charges related to the ransomware known as Locky. As of publishing time, online reports do not specify whether Vinnik’s sentence is related to his alleged senior role …
Mark Karpeles, former CEO of now-defunct Mt. Gox crypto exchange, has appealed his conviction on charges of manipulating data, The Associated Press (AP) reports on March 29. On March 15, Karpeles was acquitted of charges of embezzlement, but was found guilty of tampering with financial records, with the court stating that he manipulated data to harm his clients, betraying their trust and abusing his engineering skills. The Tokyo District Court reportedly found Karpeles guilty of combining his personal assets with those of the exchange in order to conceal the platform’s losses to hackers. Karpeles reportedly received a two and a …
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is reportedly seeking to ban all cryptocurrency transactions in Pakistan. Pakistan’s Sindh High Court reportedly held a hearing related to the legal status of cryptocurrencies in the country, in which several Pakistani authorities including the SBP submitted a document to the court, arguing that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) are illegal and cannot be used for trade. According to local news channel Samaa TV, the document cited at least eleven countries including China and Saudi Arabia that have opted to ban cryptocurrencies. The Pakistani central bank reportedly urged the court to not only ban cryptocurrency …