Disclaimer: this article has been updated to include comments from Vanbex. Canadian police have frozen assets of the founders of blockchain consulting firm Vanbex, which raised $22 million in an alleged fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO). The development was reported in a court document released on March 14. According to the document, Vanbex founders Kevin Hobbs and Lisa Cheng claimed to the public that they operated a Vancouver-based cryptocurrency firm, starting from 2017. The firm, which was interchangeably called Vanbex and Etherparty, is actually a shell company that developed no useable products, the court document argues. The police have now …

Major United States energy firm Ameren and Canadian software engineering and solutions company Opus One Solutions will explore the potential use of blockchain technology. The participants announced the news in a press release on March 28. Ameren, which currently services around 2.4 million electric and 900,000 gas consumers, will examine blockchain as one of a range of options in its clean energy initiative. As of May 2018, Ameren was listed among the top 20 U.S. gas and electric utility firms, based on market value. Blockchain is set to feature in the firms’ so-called Transactive Energy Marketplace (TEM), a microgrid built …

The Ontario town of Innisfil, Canada, is now running a pilot program which will enable residents to pay property taxes with cryptocurrencies. The Innisfil Council voted to approve the program on March 27. Per the CBC, Innisfil, in partnership with cryptocurrency payment processing project Coinberry Pay, will allow its residents to pay property taxes in Bitcoin (BTC), wherein the latter will convert cryptocurrency to Canadian dollars and transfer payments to the town. The initiative may reportedly extend support to other cryptocurrencies including Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ripple (XRP) at a later date. Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin …

The Premier of Bermuda, David Burt, has argued that a QuadrigaCX-like situation could not have happened in Bermuda because of the country’s existing legislation in regard to cryptocurrencies. Burt made his statements in an interview on Fortune’s “Balancing the Ledger” show on March 25. Burt delivered his comments following QuadrigaCX’ founder, Gerald Cotten’s sudden death last December, and financial difficulty the exchange subsequently faced. QuadrigaCX has not been able to access its cold wallets where it kept most of its assets, because Cotten was apparently solely responsible for the wallets and corresponding keys. Burt stated in the interview that QuadrigaCX’s …

A new committee appointed by law firms Miller Thomson and Cox & Palmer will provide guidance in representing affected clients of major Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX. The development was announced in a court notice on March 19. In the filing, Miller Thompson reveals that it has established the Official Committee of Affected Users of now-shuttered QuadrigaCX, comprising of seven users affected by the shutdown of the trading platform following the sudden death of its co-founder, Gerald Cotten, last December. At the time, the exchange reported that it was not able to access its cold wallet holdings, as Cotten had purportedly …

A co-founder of controversial QuadrigaCX exchange was reportedly involved in multiple criminal activities in the past, Bloomberg reports on March 19. Michael Patryn, who co-founded Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX along with Gerald Cotten in 2013, was previously known as Omar Dhanani, a person that was involved in multiple crimes in the United States, Bloomberg states. $145 million in clients’ crypto assets was found to be missing from the QuadrigaCX exchange after its co-founder and CEO Cotten died at the age of 30 from complications of Crohn’s disease in December 2018. The exchange is now ongoing legal and financial proceedings amid …

Québec’s financial markets regulator has asked investors in the firm Laboratoire Blockchain to come forward, now that the firm and associated individuals face a sweep of injunctive orders over their alleged violations of securities laws. The appeal was made in an official statement published on March 18. The AMF (l'Autorité des marchés financiers) states that the Québécois Financial Markets Administrative Tribunal (TMF) issued a series of injunctive orders against Laboratoire Blockchain (also known as Blockchain Lab) and three associated individuals — Jonathan Forte, Benjamin Forte and Nicolas Barbasch-Bouchard — on March 12. The orders, issued due to alleged breaches of …

Canadian online retailer Overstock.com said it would counter its significant losses for 2018 with a return to profits this year in its Q4 earnings report released on March 18. Overstock, which is famous as being one of the first major retailers to accept Bitcoin (BTC), saw profitability dive through last year as a result of a change of strategy, something CEO Patrick Byrne says he will now reverse. “Our retail arm lost money last year because I gunned things in an attempt to create a conventional high-growth/money losing e-commerce business, but the losses were nauseating and we reverted back to …

Two national securities bodies in Canada have issued a joint consultation paper on March 14, aiming to gather industry feedback about cryptocurrency token regulation. In a summary press release about the paper, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) and Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) said it was necessary to adapt existing laws in order to cope with the emergence of new trading platforms specializing in crypto-assets. The CSA is a national standards group covering 57 different areas, while the IIROC is a self-regulatory body overseeing investment dealers and trading platforms. “This consultation outlines a proposed regulatory framework that provides …

Canadian police are seeking information on individuals alleged to be involved in defrauding Bitcoin (BTC) ATMs (BTMs), according to an announcement published by the Toronto Police Service on March 13. The Calgary Police Service (CPS) Cybercrime Team has asked the public to assist in the identification of four individuals allegedly involved in multiple fraudulent transactions made within the country and targeting one Canadian Bitcoin firm. The CPS initially received the information in October 2018. The press release states that in September of last year, the suspects allegedly made 112 fraudulent transactions at BTMs in seven Canadian cities, including Calgary, Toronto, …

The late founder of Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, Gerry Cotten, was purportedly funding the exchange with his own money while it was in litigation with a major Canadian bank. Cotten’s widow Jennifer Robertson revealed details about the exchange’s financial situation in a statement published on March 13. The statement reads that Cotten was putting his own money into Quadriga to fund user withdrawals in 2018, after the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) had frozen five accounts holding $21.6 million. Robertson stated: “While I had no direct knowledge of how Gerry operated the business, he told me that he had …

The United States is the world’s leader in blockchain-related jobs, according to a research by The NextWeb (TNW) published on March 8. To prepare the report, TNW gathered information from job and recruiting site Glassdoor, finding all the job offerings that had the term “blockchain” in the job listing in countries around the world. The results reportedly showed that the U.S. is leading the world in terms of blockchain-related jobs, having about half, or 2,616, of a total of 5,711 blockchain jobs listed on Glassdoor globally. The U.S. is followed by the United Kingdom, with 1,015 blockchain-related job ads, while …