The U.S. continues to be a less and less friendly place to do
Bitcoin related business, with
this awful report from Business Insider this
morning:
The CEO of BitInstant, a Bitcoin exchange, has been arrested at
JFK airport and charged with money laundering.Charlie Shrem, along with a co-conspirator, is accused of
selling over $1 million in bitcoins to Silk Road users, who would
then use them to buy drugs and other illicit items.According to the criminal complaint, Shrem himself bought drugs
on Silk Road.“Hiding behind their computers, both defendants are charged with
knowingly contributing to and facilitating anonymous drug sales,
earning substantial profits along the way,” DEA agent James Hunt
said in a release.Shrem is a vice chairman at the
Bitcoin Foundation. He is listed as a speaker at a Bitcoin
conference in Miami that ended Sunday.Shrem is
believed to own a substantial amount of bitcoins.BitInstant, which is backed by the Winklevoss
twins, is currently
offline. It was recently the
subject of a class-action suit alleging misrepresentation
of its services.
The Business Insider story contains a full press
release from the Justice Department.
I wrote back in May about how, although there is no way for the
government to destroy the decentralized Bitcoin network, it can
certainly
do its worst to hobble those trying to use the digital
currency. And it is, alas.
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