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posted by martyb on Monday April 23 2018, @01:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the eggs-and-baskets dept.

This hasn't been the best week for WikiLeaks, to put it mildly. Coinbase has shut off the WikiLeaks Shop's account for allegedly violating the cryptocurrency exchange's terms of service. In other words, the leak site just lost its existing means of converting payments like bitcoin into conventional money. While Coinbase didn't give a specific reason (it declines to comment on specific accounts), it pointed to its legal requirement to honor "regulatory compliance mechanisms" under the US' Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

This doesn't prevent WikiLeaks from accepting cryptocurrency, but it will have to scramble to find an alternative if it wants to continue taking digital money from customers buying shirts and coffee cups. Unsurprisingly, the organization is less than thrilled -- it's calling for a "global blockade" of Coinbase, claiming that the exchange is reacting to a "concealed influence."

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/21/wikileaks-loses-coinbase-account/


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 23 2018, @05:17PM (4 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday April 23 2018, @05:17PM (#670805)

    When your local sources of food, shelter, electricity and internet connectivity accept Bitcoin fungible cryptocurrency as payment for their services (and taxes), then Bitcoin will be the wunderkind that it is so often espoused to be. As long as proof of work is essential to the network, meh. Transactions are far too expensive for real-life use, it's just an entertaining form of speculation (aka gambling.)

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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @05:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @05:22PM (#670810)

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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @05:52PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @05:52PM (#670816)

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @08:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @08:18PM (#670862)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24 2018, @02:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24 2018, @02:13PM (#671158)

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