Michael K. Hamilton

RippleLabs, along with host organization Bitcoin Foundation, is holding a contest for digital currency entrepreneurs, and the price is the BTC equivalent of $10,000.

Yes, this is a sensationalist headline, but we figured we would pre-empt the “Bitcoin-drug dealers” narrative here before someone else ran with it.

Austin, Texas’ bow-tied Bitcoin evangelist Paul Snow has been working with computers for more than 30 years. So perhaps we can forgive him for scooping up a bunch of Bitcoins back in 2011 at 77 cents apiece and then promptly forgetting about his investment until 2013.

Over the weekend, The Economist offered its take on Bitcoin’s (and other altcoins’) China problem.

A user in the r/Bitcoin subreddit shared his wife’s complaints about their house being cold after selling off his Bitcoin miners.

“Utilizing Bitcoins for adult entertainment offers clients a degree of anonymity exceeding even the use of cash for such transactions,” reads a post on the website for Bunnies of Las Vegas [NSFW], an escort service that just announced Wednesday it would begin accepting Bitcoin payments.

Berlin-based Aaron Koenig has done a lot in the German and English-speaking communities to evangelize Bitcoin.

Libertarian-leaning TV host John Stossel had an interesting segment called “Want to Bet” on his show last Thursday.

The Chicago Sun-Times, one of America’s 10 largest newspapers by readership, rolled out Bitcoin payment processing this week, becoming the first major newspaper to do so.

The Cypriot Bitcoin community has been talking about this for some time, and now it’s finally here: The University of Nicosia in Cyprus has opened up registration for its massive free online open course, “Introduction to Digital Currencies.”

The United States’ tax agency, the Internal Revenue Service, clarified its position on cryptocurrencies Tuesday in a statement. The full text is below.

At a speech in Rome yesterday, Yves Mersch of the European Central Bank reiterated the bank’s stance on cryptocurrencies from 2012, but warned that such currencies should not be ignored.

Bitcoinexaminer reports that Colombia’s central bank, the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia, has issued a document that suggests all Bitcoin activity in the country will soon be illegal.

The Phnom Penh Post is reporting that the Cambodian government, or at least the central bank there, will not recognize Bitcoin as a currency.

Reuters is reporting that the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced it would look into whether it has the authority to regulate cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Ron Paul, a former US Congressman from Texas and presidential candidate, has long rallied libertarians in the United States behind ideas that, honestly, many in the Bitcoin community would embrace but that fail to resonate at the mainstream level.

The ruling party in Japan, the Liberal Democrats, have formed an investigative committee that will look into Bitcoin from a governmental perspective, the party said in a statement.

As we reported Thursday, Newsweek magazine dropped a bomb on the Bitcoin community by either outing Satoshi Nakamoto or doxing an innocent man in California...

It sounds as if the man, who has worked as a contractor on classified projects for the US government, felt he had reason to be paranoid even before he developed the idea for Bitcoin.

Federal Reserve Board chair Janet Yellen told Congress last week that the Fed has no authority to regulate Bitcoin.

In mid-February, the Vietnamese government issued a statement explicitly prohibiting residents from using Bitcoins at all within the country.

Hungary has joined the parade of European countries whose central banks have issued warnings recently about the risks associated with cryptocurrencies.

Italian business publication Il Sole reported last week on an automatic withholding measure on all transfers from abroad that the government says will be retroactive to February 1.

A Reuters journalist got access to an EU document that suggested a move was necessary “to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing.”

The central bank of Lithuania has issued a statement that the possibility of regulation for digital currencies is being discussed, but no action is likely to be taken as the country monitors other such decisions throughout Europe.

Without a hint of irony, the central bank of Cyprus warned citizens against cryptocurrencies, noting that such money is not government-backed, volatile and ripe for money laundering.

The man prosecutors believer to be Dread Pirate Roberts, the creator of the Silk Road, has plead not guilty on all charges in a Manhattan court Friday.

Last week, Argentina began to allow its citizens to purchase US dollars through official channels for the first time in two years.

Peter Ward argues that the 100 Bitcoins seized from him in the US government’s raid on the Silk Road last year were taken unlawfully, and he has announced a plan to lawyer up and try to get them back.

In light of his arrest and conspiring-to-launder-money charges, BitInstant Charlie Shrem has stepped down as vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation.