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WikiLeaks Loses Access to a Key Cryptocurrency Account

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

Fnord666 writes:

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: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 23 2018, @08:15PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday April 23 2018, @08:15PM (#670861)

    Anecdotally, I work in the US for a large multi-national corporation - 30% of our employees and 40% of our sales are outside the US. When I wanted to contract with a vendor for something priced at 25K Euros, it was a major act to get purchasing to process the PO - anxiety over shifting exchange rates, ignorance of how to make the PO pay in Euros, etc. Our systems are all in-place to handle these things, but the locals here just aren't familiar or comfortable with the process.

    So, you can imagine trying to do something new like accepting bitcoin. I think it might have a chance at high volume, high margin places like Starbucks - they may lose or gain on the volatility between accepting payment and cashing out, but it should even out in the end, and even if they end up discounting their lattes 30% to a big batch of customers, if they got more customers than they had before by accepting bitcoin, that's probably a win for them. I could also see it becoming a popular (asshat) tip mechanism, better than giving lottery tickets.

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