High drama in the Bitcoin community is happening right now over the control of the Bitcoin.com domain name as Roger Ver, well-known Bitcoin evangelist and entrepreneur, and OKCoin duke it out over an apparent contract scandal. Currently Bitcoin.com is not going to waste, of course, as it redirects to Blockchain.info (the Bitcoin blockhain explorer and wallet service.)

The US stock exchange service Nasdaq is stepping up its service trials that will use the Bitcoin blockchain as a ledger to track securities for private and public enterprise. A ground-up open source project designed to allow easy livestreaming, Streamium, has launched with the intention of providing pay-per-minute peer-to-peer streaming services from browser to browser. Circle has released ease-of-use and security updates to its Bitcoin wallet mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Finally, if you trade on Bitfinex, check your e-mail: last week the exchange had its hot wallet hacked and bitcoins stolen. The hack and theft should not affect customer funds (as the hot wallet represented only approximately 0.5 percent of Bitfinex’s holdings) but until the issue is resolved the exchange asks that customers not fund their wallets.

Roger Ver takes on OKCoin over Bitcoin.com breach of contract

Bitcoin entrepreneur and major investor Roger Ver got into a skirmish with Bejing-based Bitcoin exchange OKCoin over a contract breach when OKCoin announced that the company would cease operating Bitcoin.com for Ver.

Much of this drama came to a head late last week after the company stopped paying Ver for Bitcoin.com in April 2015, and began a long-winded complaints about the contract. See below for the behind-the-scenes historical sordid details, but the salient points start with a tweet from Ver stating that he could prove that OKCoin had forged a contract.

First, Ver discovered that OKCoin claimed that the company could terminated the contract based on a new version of the contract (named Bitcoin.com_v8.pdf), which appeared to be a modified copy of a previous cryptographically signed contract, Bitcoin.com_v7.pdf. Ver signed the document with a PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) cryptographic signature that was then used to show that the new version was not in fact signed by him or OKCoin.

I have cryptographic proof of @OKCoinBTC forging my signature onto a fake contract, and then trying to present it as the truth. More soon…

— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) May 23, 2015

Next, OKCoin announced in a blog post, that Ver had contracted with an ex-employee of the company and that the contract was void because it failed to name a real business entity. “The contract was signed between Mr. Ver and ‘OKCoin’, failing to detail the legal entity with which Mr. Ver entered into a contractual agreement with.” Of course, this announcement came after Ver employed forensic cryptographic analysis to show that the v8 document had forged his signature.

Roger Ver via Twitter

In an exclusive interview with CoinTelegraph, Ver went on to offer a $1 billion USD bounty to anyone who could prove that he signed the forged document. The bounty comes because OKCoin offered $20,000 USD as a bounty as part of a response on Reddit to Ver’s statements. To hammer the point home, Ver even signed the bounty offer with his PGP signature. Anyone who can prove that he signed the v8 document has Ver’s promise of a lot of money.

Ver told CoinTelegraph that he went public with his evidence because OKCoin forced his hand.

“I didn’t decide to go public. OKCoin went public first with a blog post,” Ver said. “I have no idea why they chose to do that since anyone can see with cryptographic certainty that they have presented a forged document with my forged signature on it.”

The drama is still ongoing, but Ver has released a great deal of evidence that all but confirms his claims. He has released an alleged transcript of e-mail communication with OKCoin on Imgur and further evidence of the cryptographic proof of forgery on Dropbox (PDF files.)

Currently OKCoin is past due on about $20,000 USD and, according to Ver, owes a minimum of $550,000 USD more on the life of the contract.

For a not-so-condensed timeline of the Roger Ver vs. OKCoin, Reddit user cryptoanalyst1 did a brilliant job of producing a blow-by-blow rendition in the Reddit thread “Truth Behind the Dispute Between Roger Ver and OKCoin.”

Nasdaq steps up Bitcoin blockchain technology trials

Earlier this year in May, Nasdaq, the major US stock exchange operator, announced that Nasdaq.com was going to use the Bitcoin blockchain as an underpinning for asset management and deliver that as a product to enterprise clients.

Yesterday, Nasdaq announced that trails of the technology would sweep forward, and the New York Group expects that three or four trials of the ledger technology would take place in the next 12 months.

The group’s chief executive explained that he believes that using blockchain technology could move the settlement of securities from what the industry calls “T+3″, or a maximum of three days, to something a bit more instantaneous.

“I am a big believer in the ability of blockchain technology to effect fundamental change in the infrastructure of the financial services industry,” said Greenfield. “Clearing houses are a wonderful invention, but if you have a public ledger that is trusted, you can evolve back to a bilateral (trading) world but proceed with instantaneous settlement. We currently settle at T+3. Why not settle in 5-10 minutes?”

Stremium looks to take streaming with bitcoin pay-per-minute

New livestreaming platform Stremium.io just launched and seeks to disrupt the nature of livestreaming by adding a service that allows streamers to run pay-per-minute streams that pay in bitcoin.

Streamium is designed by a loose collective of Argentinian developers seeking to create an open source platform (see the GitHub repository) that could compete with personal streaming applications such as Meerkat and Periscope. Although Streamium does not have a dedicated mobile app currently, except as HTML5 browser-only.

The service has captured so much interesting that a directory has already launched to keep track of who is streaming and for how much at Stremium.directory. The number of total streams at the moment is somewhat small, but it’s still figuring itself out.

Bitfinex exchange hot wallet hacked for an estimated 1474 BTC

Last week, Friday, Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex warned customers to stop depositing bitcoin into their accounts while a hot wallet compromise was being investigated. An estimated 1474 BTC has been pilfered from the hot wallet of Bitfinex, representing only 0.5 percent of the total bitcoin holdings of the exchange.

At time of writing, the warning announcement still stands and no information on the fixed hot wallet has appeared yet.

Circle announces iOS and Android app updates

Circle Internet Financial Ltd. took it’s time in 2014 to launch it’s Circle Bitcoin web and mobile wallet service to compete with Coinbase, Blockchain.info, and Xapo. Today, Circle has a full range of ease-of-use wallet products aimed at less Bitcoin savvy consumers including an iOS and Android app and the company just announced a series of upgrades to those apps.

Circle now links to bank accounts, credit and debit cards faster than before to provide instant access to bitcoin funds. Apps include phone contact integration as well as Bluetooth and NFC support to streamline sending and requesting money. It is now also possible to scan QR codes and, on Android, use NFC-based touchless payments. Finally, push notifications have been added to alert users when payments come in.

Security has also been enhanced with 1Password and TouchID on iOS devices. Users will have the added ability to configure PIN codes for securing the Circle account in app. Circle has also added the option of multi-factor authentication for specific withdrawal and spending thresholds.

And, in the case of a lost or stolen device, Circle users can now remotely disable the app.

Read more about this update announcement on Circle.com or get the app.

photo credit: Mr.TinDC via photopin cc