Chinese Ponzi scheme accused of lowering the price of Bitcoin

Analyst Dovey Wang claims that a Chinese Ponzi scheme called PlusToken is responsible for lowering the price of Bitcoin. Apparently, this scheme would have accumulated over 200,000 BTC and 800,000 ETH, which it is now gradually selling on exchanges.

Correction, this ###ing scam at Least scammed over 200K $ BTC as I dug out my old chats to compile all their wallet addresses this is nuts https://t.co/E8bJFIf8h8

– Dovey Wan @ ? (@DoveyWan) August 14, 2019

The PlusToken team was detained by police two months ago, but the cryptocurrencies worth nearly $ 3 billion have not been recovered.

Security audit firm Peckshield has been monitoring the flow of money from PlusToken wallets and found that as of early July, around 1000 BTCs had entered Huobi and Bittrex exchanges. The funds were transferred and sold in small lots of 50-100 BTC. Unconfirmed reports from Chinese traders suggest that other users connected with PlusToken have consistently sold lots of 100 BTC on Binance.

This week, the price of Bitcoin has dropped from $ 11,500 to below the $ 10,000 threshold, for no apparent reason.

Santander Bank denies disruption of relationship with Coinbase

In recent days, numerous media channels have claimed that Santander bank has broken off relations with the Coinbase exchange. The articles were based on more complaints from users on Reddit, regarding the delay in processing deposits and withdrawals through this bank.

Santander told The Block that this is not “the case” and added:

“We do not block payments to legitimate companies, but in certain circumstances these payments are subject to additional security checks, where we believe there may be a higher risk of fraud.”

This may suggest that users using the Santander bank will experience delays in depositing or withdrawing funds in fiat on Coinbase, especially for large amounts.

BTC ATMs in Nevada require an operating license

A recent amendment to the law in the state of Nevada states that companies operating BTC ATMs require a money transfer license. This license includes an insurance of $ 10,000 per company, plus $ 5,000 for each self-employed person.

The Nevada Financial Regulatory Authority initially said it would wait for the cryptocurrency regulation to be approved before taking action. The bill has been postponed, so the current regulations have been reinterpreted to impose this license for crypto ATM operators.

Currently, approximately 110 ATMs operate in the state of Nevada, according to coinATMradar. Most of them being located in Las Vegas.

Dallas Mavericks accepts Bitcoin

The Dallas Mavericks basketball team will accept Bitcoin as a payment method. Fans will be able to purchase tickets and promotional products online through a partnership with crypto payment processing company BitPay.

This is the second NBA team to accept Bitcoin, after the Sacramento Kings made the decision in 2014.