Startup BuyAnyCoin (BAC) wants to hang a prepaid crypto card next to prepaid phone and debit cards in convenience stores. They're currently holding an Indiegogo fundraiser, hoping to raise US$10,000 for merchant outreach and continued backend development. Thor Thurneau, BAC founder, writes: “Imagine this: You walk in to your local convenience store, grab a drink and head to the register. In your peripheral vision you catch a glance of a card on the counter that says BuyAnyCoin Voucher. You ask the cashier about the card. She tells you, 'You just redeem it at their website for any of the popular …

A 17-year-old jihadist teenager from Virginia faces up to 15 years in prison for blog and Twitter posts about encryption and Bitcoin, Bitreserve has announced that it is dropping fees for currency conversions, and more top stories for June 12. Jihadist US Teen Faces Prison for Blog and Tweets About Encryption and Bitcoin A 17-year-old Virginia teenager faces up to 15 years in prison for blog and Twitter posts about encryption and Bitcoin that were geared at assisting ISIL. The teenager, who contributed to the Coin Brief news site, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of providing material support to …

American Banker reported that batches of FinTech startups are relocating to London to engage with large financial institutions and banks through connections from accelerators and mentorships, such as Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab, or accelerator Level39. Global investments in FinTech ventures have reached US$12.21 billion, a large portion in London. Sir Edward Lister, chief of staff for the mayor of London, told American Banker: "What is most interesting for London is that, as a city, we are leading on the development of specific subsectors that build on London's historical strengths as a financial services hub. Throughout London, more than 44,000 people …

Clinkle Implodes As Employees Quit in Protest Of CEO Lucas Duplan, CEO of payment rewards startup Clinkle, allegedly withheld key information from company employees regarding a possible acquisition from Apple. As a result, several employees have left the startup. TechCrunch reported: “As suspicions of a hidden Apple offer swirled, Duplan fired the company’s CFO and VP of engineering, which is said to have been the last straw for quite a few employees. Duplan has tasked the remaining team with stopping development of Clinkle’s debit card product to pivot the company into a business to business API for payment reward.” Google's …

The financial services technologies (FinTech) industry has had over 45 venture capital investments, equivalent to US$3 billion in global ventures in 2013. Kantox reported that the number of deals in 2014 and 2015 is projected to hit around 60-70, as the global growth rate of the industry reaches a 26%. Moreover, Accenture’s “The Rise of Fintech: New York’s Opportunity for Tech Leadership” report on global investments in Fintech is expected to rise to US$8 billion by 2018 in wake of open-source software and cloud technology lowering the barriers to entry for startups. Many startups have emerged since 2013, with new …

Bitcoin payments startup Yellow has launched a bitcoin voucher service in Egypt, as an alternative solution for “costly and inconvenient” payment platforms in the Middle East. Bitcoin voucher service Yellow’s voucher service allows its customers to purchase vouchers as “tickets” on eventtus.com with credit cards (Visa, MasterCard), PayFort (an online payment gateway in the Middle East) and Vodafone point-of-sale machines. As the Egypt’s credit card penetration rate is below 2% and only 10% of the country’s population holds bank accounts, bitcoin vouchers may not be enough to increase the liquidity of bitcoin in the nation. However, it is the first …

The government of Honduras will partner with Houston-based Bitcoin 2.0 startups Factom and Epigraph to build a land registry database for the Central American nation using the Bitcoin blockchain, according to Reuters on Yahoo News. The details of the project are currently still a bit fuzzy, as it is not entirely clear how, or to what degree, the Bitcoin blockchain will be used. Based on Factom's advertised model, however, it does seem likely that the construction involves a symbiosis of both decentralized databases build on top on the blockchain and centralized ones stored by either Factom, the Honduran government, or …

According to mathematician Meni Rosenfeld, Israel is a Bitcoin “forerunner.” With large numbers of users in the country, the number of startups and merchants continues to grow. Rosenfeld says: “I think the Bitcoin community in Israel is more coherent than in many other places in the world, which can be attributed to the small size of the country. Everyone is in driving distance from anyone else, so its much easier to breed communities that actually meet up and cooperate.” Among the list of Israel-based startups, Bits of Gold — in which Rosenfeld is an investor — GetGems and Polycoin lead …

In order to boost the Lebanese startup scene, the United Kingdom, in collaboration with Lebanon's central bank, the Banque du Liban (BDL), has launched the UK Lebanon Tech Hub, a two-year international initiative looking to support entrepreneurship and the SME landscape, while stimulating the local economy. The tech hub will act as an accelerator and mentoring hub for local startups, and falls under the BDL's Circular 331, a larger program announced in August 2013, aiming to help boost Lebanese startups by injecting some US$400m in equity funding. In an inaugural event that occurred last Thursday, the UK Lebanon Tech Hub …

The Bitcoin Foundation Board has elected Bruce Fenton to the position of Executive Director; Kaspersky releases a decryption tool in the battle against ransomware and more top stories for April 14. Bitcoin Foundation Appoints Bruce Fenton as New Executive Director In a vote consisting of five ayes and one abstention, the Bitcoin Foundation Board has elected lifetime member Bruce Fenton to the position of Executive Director, replacing Patrick Murck. In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Fenton stated: “The first order of business will be both getting the most accurate picture of where we are [financially] and communicating with members and …

JP Morgan Chase & Co., the largest bank in America and one of the world's major provider of financial services, recently issued its 2014 annual report, in which the firm's chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon suggests that new competitors are "looking to compete with banks," and that his firm is "keeping an eye on [these emerging players]," most particularly on Silicon Valley's startups. "Silicon Valley is coming," warns Dimon. "There are hundreds of startups with a lot of brains and money working on various alternatives to traditional banking." What the executive is referring to is nothing else but the financial-technology …

Popular wallet and online payment platform Coinbase has raised US$75 million in a series C funding round. Arriving on top of US$30 million raised in series' A and B, the company is now being valued by the investors at around US$400 million. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported the story this morning: “Investors included banks and the New York Stock Exchange, apparently the first time any traditional financial institutions have taken direct stakes in a bitcoin enterprise.” Coinbase has raised a total of US$112 million. WSJ says the latest investment may represent “a new front for Bitcoin,” as the news …