A former employee at Microsoft has been found guilty of 18 federal felonies in connection with a complex scheme to embezzle $10 million using cryptocurrency. The man — a 25-year old Ukrainian national, Volodymyr Kvashuk — worked as a full-time software engineer at the firm from August 2016, before being fired in June 2018. Kvashuk was convicted in the United States District Court in Seattle, the Department of Justice revealed on Feb. 25. “A house of lies” The multi-count conviction reveals the complexity of Kvashuk’s scheme, in which he hid behind accounts tied to his fellow employees and resorted to …

In a U.S. courthouse for the Southern District of New York, Judge Katherine Failla heard this afternoon from three plaintiff teams suing iFinex et. al. and vying to serve as lead counsel in the emerging class action with potentially tens of thousands of injured members. IFinex’s Tether (USDT) stablecoin firm and its Bitfinex subsidiary are charged with manipulating the Bitcoin market in 2017 — something the firm strenuously denies. Kyle Roche, representing plaintiffs Leibowitz et. al., argued that his firm Roche Cyrulnik Freedman LLP was the first to investigate the alleged market manipulation, the first to file a complaint, and …

Newly published court documents reveal that an anonymous venture capital firm identified as “Investor F” sought to have evidence redacted from the first court hearing for the dispute between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Telegram. On Feb, 18, Investor F asserted that emails directly requested by the SEC contain “confidential and commercially sensitive documents” detailing the firm's strategic considerations regarding prospective cryptocurrency investments and custody solutions. The request states that the firm operates in a “highly competitive market” in which “discussions about investment strategy are commercially sensitive.” Investor F sought that the SEC be permitted to …

Another United States regulatory agency has weighed in on Telegram’s ongoing legal battle with the Securities Exchange Commission. Following a request by the New York Southern District Court, a division at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a letter with the court on Feb. 18, expressing its views on the complicated case involving Telegram’s digital currency Gram. CFTC says digital currency is a commodity According to the letter, the CFTC’s stance on the case is “relatively straightforward” and stipulates that a “digital currency is a commodity.” Submitted by the CFTC’s Office of General Counsel, the letter represents the …

An alleged drug dealer lost 52 million euro (over $56 million) in Bitcoin (BTC) after the Irish High Court ruled that they were criminal proceeds and should be confiscated. Local news outlet Independent.ie reported on Feb. 19 that the court accepted that Clifton Collins was involved in drug trafficking. Collins did not contest the Criminal Assets Bureau’s (CAB) application for the seizure of his assets. Authorities began investigating Collins when police found a quantity of cannabis in his vehicle during a traffic stop. This led police to search an address in a village in Galway and discover a large number …

Larry Harmon, the CEO of Bitcoin media site Coin Ninja and founder of crypto wallet provider DropBit, is facing federal charges related to his use of Bitcoin privacy tools. United States federal prosecutors are charging Harmon with conspiracy to launder money and operating a money transmitting business without a FinCEN license. According to an arrest warrant filed earlier this month, Harmon allegedly laundered over 354,468 Bitcoins (BTC) (worth $311 million at the time of the transactions), allowing the users of a privacy tool named Helix, and a darknet search engine named Grams, to make transactions on AlphaBay, a known dark …

Following three years of development, Aragon Court has launched aimed at operating as a digital jurisdiction and an online decentralized court. The launch was announced in a blog post on Feb. 10, detailing that over the past three years the team behind the project had created and launched relevant tools for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) to exist. At that point, the platform counted more than 1,000 DAO created with $8 million under management. How Aragon Court was born The post explained the origins of the idea of Aragon Court: “In 2017, we figured out that DAOs need to grow outside …

A Japanese court has demanded a man who infected website visitors with cryptocurrency mining malware face justice — after acquitting him. As local daily news outlet The Mainichi reported on Feb. 7, the Tokyo High Court overturned a previous ruling which cleared the man, who was not named, of any wrongdoing. Visitors “not informed” of malware According to the original indictment, the 32-year-old web designer installed the Coinhive miner on his own website in October 2017. It was active for a month, using visitors’ devices to mine cryptocurrency for his own benefit — a practice known as “cryptojacking.” The man …

The counsel for the estate of Dave Kleiman has accused self-proclaimed “Satoshi Nakamoto” Craig Wright of abusing attorney client privilege to withhold documents and confuse trial proceedings. On Feb. 2, plaintiff Ira Kleiman — the late Dave Kleiman’s brother and personal representative of the estate — filed a memorandum challenging Craig’s privilege designations with the United States Southern District Court of Florida. The memorandum is the latest turn in an ongoing litigation saga over Wright’s alleged misappropriation of over a million Bitcoin (BTC) that he and Kleiman ostensibly jointly mined in the early years of the cryptocurrency between 2009 and …

A senior adviser to the operator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace has pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics in a Manhattan federal court. According to a United States Department of Justice press release dated Jan. 30, Roger Thomas Clark was a key figure in the development of Silk Road, advising on all aspects of the enterprise, and even attempting to arrange a murder-for-hire to protect its interests. Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht described Clark, who used a number of online aliases such as “Variety Jones,” and “Plural of Mongoose,” as a “real mentor,” who …

A United Kingdom High Court ordered a proprietary injunction on Bitcoin (BTC) obtained through a ransomware attack on a Canadian insurance company. A proprietary injunction is an order which prevents a person from dealing with their own assets when it is subject of a proprietary claim. On Jan. 17, the UK High Court released documents concerning a ransomware attack, in which over 1,000 computers of the insurance company were rendered unusable through the use of malware that encrypted files, making them unaccessible. The unidentified attackers demanded $1.2 million in Bitcoin in exchange for decrypting the data. The firm’s insurer covered …

Imagine a future where conflicts and legal disputes are no longer settled between the four walls of a courtroom but by anonymous jurors of a blockchain network. The concept seems far-fetched, but it is already a reality as a result of some forward-thinking projects that are using the power of decentralized smart contracts and participants that are incentivized to make rulings as jurors. Kleros, a blockchain dispute resolution system, is already operational, and it has sparked heavy debate around blockchain technology and its application in the legal space. In February, Kleros will be joined by another platform with its own …