Watchdog: Uh, sit down, AriseBank. This crypto-coin looks more like a $600m crypto-con

Rice pleaded guilty to felony theft and tampering with government records, for which he was out on probation, according to the complaint, while Spencer spent five years in jail for felony robbery.

Natural born bankers all right. What was the old saying - steal a penny - you are a thief, steal a million - you are a banker.

Roll up, roll up

I got some magic beans for sale. They're very rare so obviously worth a punt

Not so many true believers left around here Ive noticed.....

Still, hopefully they realised a few weeks ago and got out reasonably intact, iperhaps even with a small profit,

I noticed tonight that the Daily Telegraph is still running an entire SECTION devoted to breathlessly hyping it up every day (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/bitcoin/) which is probably worth checking out for a laugh before it mysteriously disapears and their readers get angry that all the money that they shovelled in has vanished. Maybe the 'penis' website will be remembered as the ultimate summation of this entire waste of electricity. Or it'll be this ArseBank. I do hope so.

Other headline from their online edition today, clearly a place for all the ones who were born every minute : "I paid £6,595 to a dating agency and in two years met just one man (who looked like Donald Trump)"

Craptocurrencies.

They're all full of shite. Don't trust 'em, won't buy 'em, & wouldn't accept 'em in trade for actual goods nor services. But then what do I know, I'm just an old fart that prefers cold, hard, cash.

According to Bloomberg, another watchdog agency, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), last week subpoenaed cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and Tether, a cryptocurrency company that says it pegs the value of its digital coins to the dollar.

The CFTC has not disclosed the nature of its inquiry.

I believe it is along the lines of the pegging being *bullshit*. I read somewhere there is $2.3bn worth of the shit outstanding. No chance they have that sitting in Escrow somewhere.

I have to admit that I'm left marvelling at some of the shit these con artists come up with and even more so at the FOMO dickheads that buy into it.

Wonder how much I could raise with TwatCoin? Maybe a coin that uses the blockchain to verify that the jazz artists in the video you're currently strumming over have been properly financially compensated. Yep, TwatCoin ensures the egalitarian funding of smut.

ArseBank, ArseCoin ?

I didn't mis-read that did I ?

Obviously the Customers are the Product.

BitCoin is in a storm, it seems

Looks like the honeymoon is over, and now BitCoin is being labelled for what it is : a perfect platform for scammers, thieves, criminals and drug lords.

Nothing is secure with BitCoin. Echanges are not subject to banking charters and are run by either rank amateurs who get hacked or hardened criminals who disappear with the loot. Blockchain is as well and and good, but it is not security since it does not prevent your wallet from being hijacked.

There are apparently many levels of vulnerability in cryptocurrencies, and a lot more work is being done in taking advantage of them than in fixing them.

I still think BitCoin is a good idea, but we need a BitCoin 2.0 that puts a lid on scams if this thing is ever to actually be useful.