The independent financial technology newswire Finextra reported on Friday that a residential developer in Shanghai is promoting sales by accepting virtual payments with Bitcoins. Accordingly, in late October, the Shanda Group opened sales of 300 planned apartments, which were sold out only minutes after they were offered.
Due to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, one of the city’s entrepreneurs has organized the first Asian conference on the virtual currency, scheduled for Friday in Singapore. An increasing interest, especially in mainland China, is not only reflected in the Shanda Group’s Bitcoin operations. It is also evidenced by an increasing number of companies accepting virtual payments.
At the same time, Business Insider reported a major Bitcoin theft, where the Australian Bitcoin bank TradeFortress was hacked and deprived of an amount equal to approximately USD 1 million.
The news recalls the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) takedown of the Silk Road, an online black market that operated as a Tor hidden service in the underground of the Internet. The criminal platform offered a broad range of illicit goods from drugs to arms for payment in Bitcoin. In the course of their investigations, the Feds seized the largest amount of Bitcoins ever.
As virtual currencies, most notably Bitcoin, gain macro-economical relevance, they also offer compelling opportunities for criminal enterprises. A real estate market open to Bitcoin might attract money laundering on a level that virtual currencies have not yet experienced. The following comment by TradeFortress, quoted by Business Insider, indicates that the challenges for law enforcement are not constrained to forensics and technology:
The police don’t have access to any more information than any user does when it comes to [B]itcoin. Some say it gives them control of their money[.]
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