2013-12-01 Crypto-Timeline

Here is a log with relevant legal, regulatory, law enforcement and business risk milestones in the crypto-currency race to maturity with links to trusted sources.

The  Key November 2013 Crypto-Events were:

• 11/1/2013 – Founder of Lliberty Reserve admits guilt and faces 75 years in prison
• 11/5/2013 – Bitcoin at risk of network attack, say Cornell researchers
• 11/5/2013 – Problem for Bitcoin in China as Hong Kong trade shuts down
• 11/6/2013 – Bitcoin is not broken (BF’s Andresen responds to selfish-attack researchers)
• 11/6/2013 – US Senate committees to hold hearings about virtual currency
• 11/6/2013 – Homeland Security Committee chairman responds to “Silk Road 2.0”
• 11/7/2013 – Hackers steal $1.2m of bitcoins from a supposedly secure wallet service
• 11/7/2013 – Bitcoin boom: virtual currency hits all-time high (1 BTC=$309)
• 11/7/2013 – Federal Reserve economist on Bitcoin: ‘Small phenomenon but growing’
• 11/8/2013 – Man arrested for selling guns on Black Market Reloaded, where only bitcoins are accepted
• 11/9/2013 – Canada Revenue Agency says tax rules apply to bitcoin
• 11/11/2013 – ItBit launches Bitcoin exchange with $5.5M in funding
• 11/13/2013 – Bitcoin online exchange in Czech Republic hacked
• 11/14/2013 – New York State DFS to hold hearings on virtual currencies, including potential issuance of a ‘BitLicense’
• 11/14/2013 – Bitcoin value skyrockets, cause unclear (1 BTC = $450)
• 11/15/2013 – Apple bumps Coinbase’s Bitcoin app from the App Store
• 11/18/2013 – Founder of ‘Assassination Market’ wants to destroy ‘all governments, everywhere’
• 11/18/2013 – Bitcoin hits new all-time high ahead of hearings (1 BTC = $618)
• 11/18/2013 – Senate hearings on virtual currency: Authorities see worth in Bitcoin
• 11/20/2013 – NJ Settles Bitcoin case vs. online gaming company
• 11/21/2013 – The University of Nicosia in Cyprus becomes the first university to accept bitcoins
• 11/22/2013 – Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic starts taking bitcoins for space travel
• 11/22/2013 – Someone transferred $148 million worth of bitcoin
• 11/27/2013 – Bitcoin quadruples its value in less than three weeks (1 BTC = $1,000)
• 11/29/2013 – Bitcoin hits new all-time high on Thanksgiving Day (1 BTC = $1,200)
• 11/29/2013 – Bitcoin ‘millionaire’ dumps hardrive containing $7.5m worth of bitcoins

Please point me to any events that you consider important and would like to see on the log.

For ease of tracking I’ve decided on the following discrete categories to classify all events:

1. Banking: Refers to decisions made or stances taken by banks and other traditional financial institutions with respect to crypto-ventures, including adopting a digital currency strategy and banking operators
2. Businesses: Includes decisions made by operators and businesses as a result of regulatory pressure or other risks facing them, as well as overall market-related news
3. Enforcement Actions: Includes actual law enforcement actions on virtual currency operators anywhere in the world
4. Rules & Regs: Refers to decisions made or stances taken by regulators, supervisors and policy-makers around the world