Loss attorney David Silver has filed a 2,000 person class action suit against the founder of the “Massive Adoption: Memphis” cryptocurrency conference.
Defendant Jacob Kostecki has yet to refund ticket sales after the event was canceled on January 31.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the founder of the “Massive Adoption” conference for bitcoin following his refusal to refund ticket sales.
According to the initial complaint filed on May 7, Ashley Gentry was named as the lead plaintiff in a 2,000 person lawsuit against Colorado native Jacob Kostecki, creator of the “Massive Adoption in Memphis: Blockchain and Digital Assets” event.
The cryptocurrency conference was originally scheduled to be held in November 2019, before being rescheduled to February 2020. The event was subsequently called off on January 31.
The lawsuit, filed in the District of Colorado by securities fraud and investment loss attorney David Silver, claims Kostecki promised event-goers a refund on tickets and packages within six months. The suit, referencing Kostecki’s promises, reads..
Silver accused Kostecki of causing “significant financial loss” to ticketholders after failing to carry out his promise of a refund. The class-action filing demands compensation for damages due to lost airfares, attorney fees and other applicable costs.
Twitter: @BeardsBitcoins Website: BeardsAndBitcoins.com Telegram: http://t.me.beardsandbitcoins Hosts BitBoy: @BitBoy_Crypto JChains: @CryptoJChains EPISODE 77: Crypto Fyre Fest Implosion & ICX Explosion Episode 77: Crypto Fyre Fest, ICON Pumps, & Greatest UFC Fighter JChains gets ready to go on a one week cruise vacation while the market is pumping. We take a look at the markets and how they could help everyone in crypto take vacations! In this episode BitBoy & JChains talk about the most interesting storylines from this week in crypto. This week on Beards and Bitcoins: JChains is going on vacation. BitBoy discusses the market & how the stock to flow chart looks like Bitcoin is heading to at least $90k in 18 months. Token Time this week features Celsius Token $ICX – https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/… Icon has been on an absolute tear and shows no signs of stopping. At one point it was down 98% and was the face of the bear market. But finally it looks like altcoin season is upon us. This week for News Break.. we talk about what is being dubbed the crypto Fyre Fest. The Massive Adoption conference in Memphis has been postponed several times. People have asked for refunds, and now founder Jacob Kostecki has announced he is cancelling the conference. People have claimed he is scammer from Poland who is currently on the run and people will never get their money back. For Manspreading today, the boys give their picks for the best UFC Fighter of all time. BitBoy is taking Jon Jones while JChains goes with the classic Chuck Liddell. This week, the Beards & Bitcoins podcast has announced their new telegram group t.me/BeardsBitcoins
Most people know little about Bitcoin. It’s a brand, like the internet was in the late 1990s that created great excitement in a small fanatical audience but confusion, indifference and often hostility in the mainstream and establishment.
“I don’t need email,” people said, while many would look blank and not know what it was. It wasn’t until the social media floodgates opened that the mainstream piled in. Now all the marvelous benefits and distractions of being connected are taken as read.
The benefits of crypto are not well understood or even considered beyond the possibility of a life change rising in value for coins that an investor might ride to riches. This may well be the future for Bitcoin so to start a list of reasons why you should hold some Bitcoin must start with:
1) A lottery ticket to a ride that some see having a 1,000% upside.
It could happen. There are only going to be 21 million bitcoins (BTC), many of which like Roman gold coins are already lost forever. If bitcoin was to be worth just half of the gold in the world it would be about $200,000 a coin. If all the BTC was worth $1 trillion then the price would be north of $50,000.
With BTC currently at $7,400 and the ability for people to buy tiny amounts, there is a fun dividend in actually holding.
2) Blockchain is “the next big thing.”
If you want to catch that wave when it lands, you need to know a bit about it. Buying crazes on the basis of zero knowledge is the short cut to the poorhouse. Owning bitcoin and going through all the stages to “get” crypto will position you perfectly for the day “crypto IPO” hits. That day will come and it will be big. Owning bitcoin will position you to take advantage of that boom.
3) Portfolio diversification is crucial.
Everyone should have a little gold, for example, to buffer the roller coaster of other financial instruments. Bitcoin and gold are very similar in as much as they are havens. “Physical” bitcoin however is easier to store, faster to sell and has much greater upside if you are laying in assets for what you see as being extremely volatile times in the future. If you are not in the “bullets and corn beef” legion, the gold, silver and bitcoin are must haves, with bitcoin the king if you feel you might have to jump on a plane to safety. It’s easy to travel with bitcoin; with gold bars and sacks of silver, not so much.
4) Bitcoin is currently a great hedge especially for equities.
This is because for now at least, bad news for equities is good news for bitcoin. That bad news is currently the China trade war. The trade war is bad for equities and there is a clear link to moves in BTC and emergent good/bad news on the trade negotiations. Bitcoin sends the signal then the news appears, which one would imagine is because of the insider news flow in crypto-hungry China.
5) Bitcoin is useful money.
You can buy things with bitcoin, and with bitcoin debit cards you can use it to buy things anywhere that takes Visa/Mastercard. While this can prove expensive, a bitcoin debit card is another off ramp for holders wishing to spend their profits. Bitcoin is also a useful currency for B2B and while currently niche, bitcoin use for international payments is quickly expanding when products need to be bought quickly and the vendor needs to establish transfer of funds fast to cut out delays. For large sums bitcoin beats credit cards hands down as a bitcoin transaction can’t be reversed unlike a credit card payment that is always vulnerable to charge backs. Transfers can take days to materialize, so for anything that’s a “rush job” bitcoin is the best possible way to pay if the vendor takes BTC.
Every investor should buy some bitcoin, even if it’s just $1. It is always best to be too early to a financial phenomenon than too late and it turns out the bitcoin story is still in its early chapters.
The Bitcoin story is still unfolding.
Credit: ADVFN
If you are an investor, it was obvious you need to hold equities, bonds, gold and cash. That is still true but these days, you need to hold a little crypto, because it is a new positive sum financial instrument. If you don’t have Bitcoin, the world won’t end, but you will be less diversified and more at risk than an investor that does hold some. Bitcoin will continue to be the ‘kingpin’ of the emergent blockchain industry and everybody needs a little bit of exposure to that in the same way as they needed a little Amazon in 2002.
I am the CEO of stocks and investment website ADVFN . As well as running Europe and South America’s leading financial market website I am a prolific financial writer. I wrote a stock column for WIRED – which described me as a ‘Market Maven’ – and am a regular columnist for numerous financial publications around the world. I have written for titles including: Working Money, Active Trader, SFO and Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities in the US and have written for pretty much every UK national newspaper. In the last few years I have become a financial thriller writer and have just had my first non-fiction title published: 101 ways to pick stock market winners. Find me here on US Amazon. You’ll also see me regularly on CNBC, CNN, SKY, Business News Network and the BBC giving my take on the markets.
Now, the U.K.’s financial services watchdog has warned potential investors that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have “no intrinsic value,” with some taking the caution as a signal the country could be moving towards a bitcoin ban.
“This is a small, complex and evolving market covering a broad range of activities,” said Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which oversees London’s huge banking industry.
“Today’s guidance will help clarify which crypto-asset activities fall inside our regulatory perimeter,” Woolard added, with the FCA warning: “Consumers should be cautious when investing in such crypto-assets and should ensure they understand and can bear the risks involved with assets that have no intrinsic value.”
The FCA branding bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as without “intrinsic value” is likely to rile many bitcoin believers who have long argued blockchain technology, which underpins bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies, gives the digital tokens value.
“It is technically true that cryptocurrencies have no ‘intrinsic value’ when compared to share ownership in actual companies, however there are many examples where a marketplace bestows value on an intangible asset,” Jon Ostler, of comparison site Finder.com, told the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper. “For example, the brand of ‘bitcoin’ itself has value and although its future place in society is still unclear, it is one of the most likely coins to stay the course.”
It’s thought that Trump’s attacks on bitcoin and crypto were in direct response to Facebook’s libra cryptocurrency project, which, if successful, could undermine the international dominance of the U.S. dollar.
“Although not a ban, [the U.K.’s FCA warning is] a move in that direction,” said Herbert Sim, head of business development from Broctagon Fintech Group. “This lack of enthusiasm is shared by several countries; the U.S. with its scrutiny of libra, and India, who are looking to implement a similar ban on cryptocurrencies which are not state regulated. These movements could end up coming back to bite. The international competition on cryptocurrencies is heating up and there are huge risks in being left behind.”
The bitcoin price climbed to around $13,000 per bitcoin earlier this year but has since fallen back, with the price still far from the near-$20,000 per bitcoin it reached in late 2017.
CoinDesk
Meanwhile, the watchdog warned investing in what it called “unregulated crypto-assets” will not be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which pays out if the investment collapses.
“It remains possible in the future that if an unregulated token is subject to common acceptance and usage in the U.K. then either the FCA or the Bank of England will reconsider this position in order to ensure that adequate consumer protection exists,” said Tim Dolan, partner at law firm Reed Smith.
I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk
Committee chairman Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) listens to ranking member Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) during a hearing before Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee July 16, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Those who have been longtime critics of Bitcoin usually have one key theory in common, which is that governments will eventually ban Bitcoin and cryptocurrency will then cease to exist in any meaningful form. For examples of this point of view, just look at economist Nouriel Roubini and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
That said, implementing such a ban is no easy task. After all, Bitcoin was built by cypherpunks as a form of digital money that would be unaffected by the desires of politicians and regulators around the world.
Lately, it appears that lawmakers in the United States are starting to realize the difficulties associated with a potential Bitcoin ban.
Bitcoin Ban Deemed Unlikely During Congressional Hearings
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology regulation. During that hearing, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) shared his belief that the United States would not be able to succeed in banning Bitcoin.
“If the United States were to decide — and I’m not saying that it should — if the United States were to decide we don’t want cryptocurrency to happen in the United States and tried to ban it, I’m pretty confident we couldn’t succeed in doing that because this is a global innovation,” said Crapo.
This statement came in the form of a question to Jeremy Allaire, who is the co-founder and CEO of global financial services company Circle. In his response, Allaire explained the new reality created by the creation of Bitcoin.
“I think the challenge that we all face with this is some of these cryptocurrencies — they’re literally just a piece of open-source software,” said Allaire. “There’s nothing else. It exists on the internet, it’s open-source software, anyone can implement it, it runs wherever the internet runs, and these have a monetary policy where these assets are algorithmically generated . . . That is a challenge that every government in the world now faces — that money, digital money, will move frictionlessly everywhere in the world at the speed of the internet.”
These remarks made during Tuesday’s hearing follow comments made by U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) from earlier in the month when he stated “there’s no capacity to kill Bitcoin” during an interview with CNBC.
Back in May, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) claimed that Congress should implement a ban on Bitcoin, but Sherman did not share specific details as to how such a ban could be effectively achieved.
The difficulties associated with implementing a ban on Bitcoin are behind one economist’s theory that the best way to kill the cryptocurrency would be for governments to become more competitive in terms of monetary policy and financial freedom.
On the other hand, more centralized cryptocurrency systems like Facebook’s Libra project, which is really a cryptocurrency in name only, would be much easier for governments to control.
I’m a writer who has been following Bitcoin since 2011. I’ve worked all over the Bitcoin media space — from being editor-in-chief at Inside Bitcoins to contributing to Bitcoin Magazine on a regular basis. My work has also been featured in Business Insider, VICE Motherboard, and many other financial and tech media outlets. I’m mostly interested in the use of Bitcoin for transactions that would be censored by the traditional financial system (think darknet markets and ransomware) in addition to the use of bitcoin as an unseizable, digital store of value. Altcoins, appcoins, and ICOs don’t make much sense to me. Find all of my work at kyletorpey.com. Disclosure: I hold some bitcoin.
Polish cryptocurrency exchange Coinroom has reportedly shut down its operations and disappeared with customer funds, local business news outlet money.pl reported on May 31.
Money.pl received an email from one of its readers, who stated that Coinroom — which was registered in 2016 — ceased operations overnight and disappeared with customers’ money in April. Some users say they had up to 60,000 zloty (around $15,790) in their accounts.
Before ceasing its operations, Coinroom reportedly sent emails to its customers, containing information about contract terminations. Coiroom customers had only one day to withdraw their money, which was in accordance with Coinroom regulations signed by users. However, customers reportedly claim that some of them got only part of the money, while most of them did not receive their funds back at all.
One of the exchange’s customers told money.pl that he had lost 2.005 bitcoins (BTC) (nearly $15,000 at press time). Another user stated that “on the second day after sending the e-mail I went to the Coinroom headquarters. The lady at the reception did not want to let me in, she claimed that nobody was in the office. Instead, she called someone from the company. I was asked to leave my details. Nobody contacted me.”
Spokesman for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, Łukasz Łapczyński revealed that the office had initiated proceedings against Coinroom in connection with unauthorized activities providing payment services that intermediates in the exchange of cryptocurrencies. The office is also reportedly identifying other possible victims.
CoinMarketCap’s cryptocurrency exchange index shows that Coinroom has terminated its activities. The firm’s Twitter page has also seemingly been deleted.
As reported in mid-May, blockchain startups RepuX and JoyToken reportedly pulled a joint initial coin offering (ICO) exit scam. The companies reportedly ran their ICO promotions during March and April of 2018, and got away with $4.7 million and $3.3 million, respectively.
