11 years ago his hard drive ended up in a U.K. landfill — with 8,000 bitcoin. It's now worth $800 million... and James Howell wants it back.

The Guardian reports that his "bid to become extremely rich reached a judge on Tuesday with a team of lawyers arguing that it was still possible to launch a hunt for his missing hard drive containing the bitcoin." They claimed that rather than searching for a "needle in a haystack", the position of the bitcoin hoard had been narrowed down to a small area and there was a "finely tuned" plan to retrieve it... [Howells] has been asking Newport city council for help in getting the hard drive back, and even said he would share the money with the authority, to no avail... James Goudie KC, representing the council, said Howells had no legal claim to the hard drive. He said: "Anything that goes into the landfill goes into the council's ownership."

Goudie said Howells' offer to share some of the bitcoin with Newport council amounted to a bribe. He said: "He is trying to buy something the council is not in a position to sell...." Before the hearing, a spokesperson for Newport council said: "The council has told Mr Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area. "Responding to Mr Howells' baseless claims are costing the council and Newport taxpayers time and money which could be better spent on delivering services."
Howells was 28 when he lost the hard drive, and has said he may as well keep trying to recover it — because he'll always know that it's out there. Howells' legal teams are "working pro bono," the article notes, "on the basis that they get a share of the bitcoin profits if successful..." And TechSpot points out that "There's also the question of whether the data on the drive would still be accessible after more than a decade of sitting under a pile of rotting garbage.

"Howells has a team of data recovery engineers who are also working pro bono..."

Thanks to Slashdot reader jjslash for sharing the news.

Bitcoin just broke $100,000 USD for the first time and reached as high as $104k, and is now sitting at $102,857 at the time of this writing.

Slashdot was pretty early on Bitcoin.

Thoughts, nocoiners?

59-year-old Alex Mashinsky, the founder/former CEO of cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, "pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of fraud," reports Reuters.

He'd been indicted in July on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and market manipulation charges, according to the article, and federal prosecutors in Manhattan "said he misled customers of Celsius to persuade them to invest, and artificially inflated the value of his company's proprietary crypto token." On Tuesday, during a hearing before U.S. District Judge John Koeltl, Mashinsky said he pleaded guilty to two out of the seven counts he was initially charged with: commodities fraud, and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of CEL, Celsius' in-house token. In court, Mashinsky admitted to giving Celsius customers "false comfort" by giving an interview in 2021 in which he said Celsius had received approval from regulators for its "Earn" program, which it had not. That program offered to deploy customers' cryptocurrency assets to yield investment returns. He said he also failed to disclose that he had been selling his holdings of CEL, the platform's in-house token.

"I know what I did was wrong, and I want to try to do whatever I can to make it right," Mashinsky said. As part of his plea deal with prosecutors, Mashinsky agreed not to appeal any sentence of 30 years or less — the maximum he faces for the two counts. Koeltl is set to sentence him on April 8, 2025.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have said Mashinsky also personally reaped approximately $42 million in proceeds from selling his holdings of the Cel token. "Mashinsky made tens of millions of dollars selling his own CEL at artificially high prices, while his customers were left holding the bag when the company went bankrupt," Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement on Tuesday... Founded in 2017, Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2022 after customers rushed to withdraw deposits as crypto prices fell. Many were initially unable to access their funds... Celsius' former chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, pleaded guilty in September 2023 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors' investigation.
"The company exited bankruptcy on Jan. 31, and has pivoted to Bitcoin mining..."

Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has integrated Apple Pay into its Onramp service, enabling third-party apps to offer direct cryptocurrency purchases through Apple's payment system.

The move significantly streamlines the traditionally complex process of converting traditional currencies to cryptocurrencies, eliminating multiple steps and extra fees previously required. It also marks a notable shift in Apple's historically cautious stance toward cryptocurrency, following years of restricting crypto-related features and removing major exchanges from its App Store in certain markets.

November 5: Bitcoin's price reaches an all-time high of $74,200.

November 11: Bitcoin sets a new record of $84,000.

November 12: Bitcoin pushes past $90,000. And Friday, CNBC reported: Bitcoin is on pace to post a 38% gain for November, according to Coin Metrics, which would make the month its best since February, when it gained 45% following the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs... Bulls expect bitcoin's price to reach $100,000 by the end of 2024 and potentially double by the end of 2025.

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled that sanctions against Tornado Cash, a crypto transaction anonymization service, must be abandoned, stating that its immutable smart contracts do not constitute "property" under U.S. law and that the Treasury overstepped its authority. The ruling is available here (PDF). CoinDesk reports: The decision answers a controversial privacy debate on whether the government -- via a sanctions list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department -- has a right to target the technology because it's associated with criminals. The ruling reversed a district court's August ruling that had sided with the government's pursuit of what it had characterized as a "notorious" crypto-mixing service.

OFAC had sanctioned Tornado Cash last year, contending that it was a vital tool used by bad actors including North Korea's Lazarus Group to launder crypto tokens pilfered from platforms and games such as Axie Infinity. Coinbase (COIN) and others had sued the government, claiming it had overreached. Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of crypto exchange Coinbase, cheered the ruling in a Tuesday post on X, calling it a "historic win for crypto." "These smart contracts must now be removed from the sanctions list and U.S. persons will once again be allowed to use this privacy-protecting protocol," Grewal wrote. "Put another way, the government's overreach will not stand." "We readily recognize the real-world downsides of certain uncontrollable technology falling outside of OFAC's sanctioning authority," the judges said, referencing the ineffectiveness of a law that was established well before the world moved online. "But we must uphold the statutory bargain struck (or mis-struck) by Congress, not tinker with it."

Tornado Cash's TORN token has since rallied 500%, passing the $20 mark.

A new rule passed in Texas requiring cryptocurrency miners using the grid maintained by the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to register and report key details about their facilities. CoinTelegraph reports: Under the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT) rule (PDF), passed on Nov. 21, Bitcoin miners must share the location, ownership information and demand for electricity of their facilities with the state agency. Miners have only one working day after the date their facility connects to the ERCOT grid to register and must renew every calendar year on or before March 1.

ERCOT is an independent system operator representing 90% of the state's electric load. According to PUCT Chairman Thomas Gleeson, the new rule was designed to help manage the power grid as more mining facilities come online. "To ensure the ERCOT grid is reliable and meets the electricity needs of all Texans, the PUCT and ERCOT need to know the location and power needs of virtual currency miners," he said. Bitcoin miners who fail to register under the PUCT rule will face a Class A violation, which can result in up to $25,000 in daily fines.

Gary Gensler will step down as chair of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission at noon on Inauguration Day, the agency announced on Thursday. From a report: Gensler has had an aggressive tenure, marked by controversial rulemaking and a combative approach with the cryptocurrency industry.

More than 120,000 bitcoin were stolen in a 2016 breach of Bitfinex. Seven years later the perpetrator pleaded guilty.

And Thursday he was sentenced to a five-year prison term, reports the Associated Press: Ilya Lichtenstein masterminded one of the largest-ever thefts from a virtual currency exchange before he and his wife, Heather Rhiannon Morgan, carried out an elaborate scheme to liquidate the stolen funds, according to federal prosecutors... "Over half a decade, the defendant engaged in what IRS agents described as the most complicated money laundering techniques they had seen to date," prosecutors wrote... The couple successfully laundered about 21 percent of the funds stolen from Bitfinex. The laundered money was worth at least $14 million at 2016 prices. Its value would have exceeded $1 billion at the time of their 2022 arrest.

Authorities seized the remaining funds, collectively valued at over $6 billion at current prices... An attorney for Bitfinex said the hack "devastated" its finances and its reputation with its customers, with the stolen funds accounting for approximately 36% of the company's assets at the time of theft. "Bitfinex had to take unprecedented and immediate action to ensure that any losses from the Hack would ultimately be borne by Bitfinex and its shareholders alone, not its customers," the lawyer, Barry Berke, wrote in a letter to the judge.

A prosecutor said Lichtenstein immediately began cooperating with federal authorities after his arrest, helping them with other cybercrime investigations. Over 96% of the stolen funds have been recovered, with help from Lichtenstein, according to defense attorney Samson Enzer. The "vast bulk" of the stolen money was never spent, the lawyer said.
Lichtenstein also "pleaded with the judge to spare his wife from prison, blaming himself for her involvement," according to the article. His wife — a rap artist who records under the name Razzlekhan — will be sentenced Monday, but has pleaded guilty to the same charge, and prosecutors are recommending an 18-month sentence.

After setting a record high yesterday, Bitcoin continued its remarkable rally, briefly surging past the $90,000 mark. Since Election Day, the cryptocurrency has gained nearly 30%, adding approximately $20,000 to its value. From a previous report: Bitcoin hit a peak of $90,000 on Coinbase at 12:56 PST on Nov. 12 and is up 11% over the past day, per TradingView data. The cryptocurrency is now just over 11% away from reaching $100,000.

The FTX estate has filed a lawsuit against Binance and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, seeking to recover $1.76 billion, alleging a "fraudulent" 2021 share deal that involved funding from FTX's insolvent Alameda Research. The suit also accuses Zhao of misleading social media posts that allegedly spurred customer withdrawals and contributed to FTX's collapse. CNBC reports: In a Sunday filing with a Delaware court, FTX cites a 2021 transaction in which Binance, Zhao and others exited their investment in FTX, selling a 20% stake in the platform and a 18.4% stake in its U.S.-based entity West Realm Shires back to the company. The FTX estate alleges that the share repurchase was funded by FTX's Alameda Research division through a combination of the company's and Binance's exchange tokens, as well as Binance's dollar-pegged stablecoin.

"Alameda was insolvent at the time of the share repurchase and could not afford to fund the transaction," the suit claims, labeling the deal agreed with FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried -- who's now serving a 25-year sentence over fraud linked to the downfall of his exchange -- a "constructive fraudulent transfer." Binance denies the allegations, saying in an emailed statement, "The claims are meritless, and we will vigorously defend ourselves."

Cryptocurrency backers continue to bid up Bitcoin prices, pushing the digital token to a new high of about $84,000 on Monday. The New York Times: The cryptocurrency has surged since Election Day, on investor hopes that President-elect Donald J. Trump and his appointees would be friendlier to the industry after the Biden administration's aggressive enforcement of securities law that targeted several crypto companies.

Cryptocurrencies have become a major component of the so-called Trump trade. Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which got the regulatory green light to trade this year, have been booming over the past week. Crypto-related companies have also jumped in value: Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin miner, is up 68 percent since Election Day and Coinbase, a crypto exchange, is up 69 percent over the same period.

Block will abandon development of its Web5 decentralized internet project and reduce investment in music streaming service Tidal to focus on bitcoin mining hardware and self-custody wallets, the payments company announced in its third-quarter letter to shareholders. The Jack Dorsey-led firm cited strong market demand for its bitcoin mining products and Bitkey wallet as key drivers behind the strategic shift.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: The head of a company specializing in cryptocurrency was kidnapped and held for ransom in downtown Toronto during rush hour Wednesday. Police were called about a kidnapping in the area of University Avenue and Richmond Street W. just before 6 p.m., says a spokesperson with the Toronto Police Service. The suspects forced the victim into a vehicle and made a demand for money, the spokesperson said. The man was later located in Centennial Park in Etobicoke uninjured.

CBC Toronto has learned the victim is Dean Skurka, the president and CEO of Toronto-based financial firm WonderFi. He was released after a ransom of $1 million was paid electronically, a source close to the investigation said. Police say the investigation is ongoing and have not released any further details. [...] The alleged kidnapping happened the same day WonderFi released its third quarter earnings results, showing a 153 per cent increase compared to its third quarter in 2023.

Bitcoin surged over 9.2% to an all-time high of over $74,200 on Tuesday evening as early results showed favorable outcome for Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has promised crypto-friendly policies if he wins.

Leading fintech and digital asset firms, including Robinhood, Kraken and Galaxy Digital, have introduced a joint stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. Called the Global Dollar Network, it seeks to enhance the stablecoin market by lowering transaction costs, boosting consumer protections, and facilitating cross-border transactions with rewards for institutional participants. Crypto Briefing reports: The network will utilize Paxos's new stablecoin, the Global Dollar (USDG), which complies with the Monetary Authority of Singapore's upcoming stablecoin framework. USDG is designed to return yield on reserve assets to participants who contribute to its adoption, encouraging the development of crypto and financial solutions using the token. The Global Dollar Network aims to address shortcomings in the stablecoin market, such as high transaction costs and limited consumer protections.

The network has opened an invite-only phase for select custodians, exchanges, payment processors, merchants, and banks to develop new solutions using USDG. Initial distribution is available on Anchorage Digital, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, and Paxos platforms, with plans to expand access through additional partners in the coming months.

Former FTX executive Nishad Singh was ordered to forfeit $11 billion, reports CNBC — and is subject to three years of supervised release, making him "the fourth ex-employee of the collapsed crypto exchange to be punished."

But while he'd faced a maximum sentence of 75 years, he'll serve no time, according to this report from the Associated Press: Singh, the company's former engineering director, was sentenced in Manhattan by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who said his cooperation was "remarkable." The judge noted that Singh did not learn of the billions of dollars that were misappropriated from FTX customer accounts and investors until two months before the fraud unraveled... Singh, 29, testified a year ago at Bankman-Fried's trial, saying he was "blindsided and horrified" when he saw the extent of the fraud behind the once-celebrated and seemingly pioneering firm. At sentencing, Singh said he was "overwhelmed with remorse" for his role in the fraud. "I strayed so far from my values, and words can't express how sorry I am," he said....

The sentencing came a month after Caroline Ellison, another key witness at Bankman-Fried's trial and a former top executive in his cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time, Kaplan praised her cooperation but said it wasn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. On Wednesday, Kaplan drew a distinction between the cooperation by Ellison and Singh's work with prosecutors, saying Ellison had participated in the fraud "from the beginning" and had been aware of all the wrongdoing for years... [Defense attorney Andrew Goldstein] said leniency would encourage future cooperators in other criminal cases to come forward.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos credited Singh with providing information within weeks of the fraud being publicly revealed, saying he helped prosecutors learn about crimes they might otherwise have never discovered, including his own. Roos said, for instance, that Singh told prosecutors about campaign finance violations that occurred as FTX executives made tens of millions of dollars in donations to political candidates. The prosecutor also said Singh revealed private conversations with Bankman-Fried that strengthened the government's case and enabled it to bring charges more quickly against multiple people. Singh gave prosecutors "documentary evidence the government did not have and likely never would have had," Roos said.
Bankman-Fried, of course, began a 25-year sentence last November. And three weeks ago FTX executive Ryan Salame made an update on his LinkedIn profile. "I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as Inmate at FCI Cumberland!"

"His post quickly went viral," notes CNN, "prompting Salame to joke on X: "Today I learned people still use LinkedIn."

The feds have indicted Aleksei Andriunin, a 26-year-old Russian national and founder of Gotbit, on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation. Crypto News reports: According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the indictment alleges that Andriunin and his firm participated in a long-running scheme to artificially boost trading volumes for various cryptocurrency companies, including some based in the United States, to make them appear more popular and increase their trading value. Andriunin allegedly led these activities between 2018 and 2024 as Gotbit's CEO. He could face up to 20 years in prison, additional fines, and asset forfeiture if convicted, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Prosecutors say the scheme involved "wash trading," where the firm used its software to make fake trades that inflated a cryptocurrency's trading volume. This practice, called market manipulation, can mislead investors by giving the impression that demand for a particular cryptocurrency is higher than it actually is. Wash trades are illegal in traditional finance and are considered fraudulent because they deceive investors and manipulate market behavior.

Court documents also identify Gotbit's two directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, as co-conspirators. The indictment claims Gotbit documented these activities in detailed records, tracking differences between genuine and artificial trading volumes. The firm allegedly pitched these services to prospective clients, explaining how Gotbit's tactics would bypass detection on public blockchains, where transactions are recorded transparently. The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that it seized over $25 million worth of cryptocurrency assets connected to these schemes and made four arrests across multiple firms. If you've been following the crypto industry, you're probably familiar with "pump-and-dump" schemes that have popped up throughout the years. Although it's a form of market manipulation, it's not quite the same as "wash trading."

In a pump-and-dump scheme, the perpetrator artificially inflates the price of a security (often a low-priced or thinly traded stock) by spreading misleading or exaggerated information to attract other buyers, who then drive up the price. Once the price has risen due to increased demand, the manipulators "dump" their shares at the inflated price, selling to the new buyers and pocketing the profits. The price typically crashes after the dump, leaving unsuspecting investors with overvalued shares and significant losses.

Wash trading, on the other hand, involves simultaneously buying and selling of the same asset to create the illusion of higher trading volume and activity. The purpose is to mislead other investors about the asset's liquidity and demand, often giving the impression that it is more popular or actively traded than it actually is. Wash trades usually occur without real changes in ownership or price movement, as the buyer and seller may even be the same person or entity. This tactic can manipulate prices indirectly by creating a perception of interest, but it does not involve a direct inflation followed by a sell-off, like a pump-and-dump scheme.

Russia has enacted a new law expanding control over cryptocurrency mining, granting multiple federal agencies access to digital currency identifier addresses, among other things. The country is also advancing its regulatory framework and experimenting with crypto in international trade. From a report: Taking effect on Nov. 1, the legislation includes several amendments designed to strengthen oversight and impose limitations on crypto mining activities based on regional needs. The law enables the Russian government to implement mining restrictions by location and define specific procedures and circumstances for banning mining operations. A notable provision in the law gives the government the power to stop digital currency mining pools from functioning in certain areas. Additionally, the government now has the authority to regulate infrastructure providers supporting mining operations.

This legislation also grants multiple federal agencies, beyond the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring), access to digital currency identifier addresses. This expansion includes federal executive agencies and law enforcement, bolstering their capability to track transactions that may be linked to money laundering or terrorist financing activities. Moreover, the amendments transfer responsibility for the national mining register from the Ministry of Digital Development to the Federal Tax Service, which will now oversee mining registrations for businesses and remove those with repeated infractions. While individual miners can continue without registering if they adhere to specific electricity consumption limits, companies and individual entrepreneurs must comply with new registration requirements.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: When Canadian developer Peter Todd found out that a new HBO documentary, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, was set to identify him as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, he was mostly just pissed. "This was clearly going to be a circus," Todd told WIRED in an email. The identity of the person -- or people -- who created Bitcoin has been the subject of speculation since December 2010, when they disappeared from public view. The mystery has proved all the more irresistible for the trove of bitcoin Satoshi is widely believed to have controlled, suspected to be worth many billions of dollars today. When the documentary was released on October 8, Todd joined a long line of alleged Satoshis.

Documentary maker Cullen Hoback, who in a previous film claimed to have identified the individual behind QAnon, laid out his theory to Todd on camera. The confrontation would become the climactic scene of the documentary. But Todd nonetheless claims he didn't see it coming; he alleges he was left with the impression the film was about the history of Bitcoin, not the identity of its creator. Since the documentary aired, Todd has repeatedly and categorically denied that he created Bitcoin: "For the record, I am not Satoshi," he alleges. "I think Cullen made the Satoshi accusation for marketing. He needed a way to get attention for his film."

For his part, Hoback remains confident in his conclusions. The various denials and deflections from Todd, he claims, are part of a grand and layered misdirection. "While of course we can't outright say he is Satoshi, I think that we make a very strong case," says Hoback. Whatever the truth, Todd will now bear the burden of having been unmasked as Satoshi. He has gone into hiding. [...] Todd expects that "continued harassment by crazy people" will become the indefinite status quo. But he says the potential personal safety implications are his chief concern -- and the reason he has gone into hiding. "Obviously, falsely claiming that ordinary people of ordinary wealth are extraordinarily rich exposes them to threats like robbery and kidnapping," says Todd. "Not only is the question dumb, it's dangerous. Satoshi obviously didn't want to be found, for good reasons, and no one should help people trying to find Satoshi." "I think the idea that it puts their life [at risk] is a little overblown," says Hoback. "This person is potentially on track to become the wealthiest on Earth."

"If countries are considering adopting this in their treasuries or making it legal tender, the idea that there's potentially this anonymous figure out there who controls one twentieth of the total supply of digital gold is pretty important."