The Leftover Bits 14/5/15: Tip Musicians, SEC Charges Ex Circle Exec, Russian Seek To Ban What They Don’t Understand

The Leftover Bits is the web’s most digestible daily bitcoin news column.

ChangeTip Adds SoundCloud to Supported Platforms

ChangeTip clearly has more reach than any other tipping app in the Bitcoin ecosystem. With integration into everything from Slack to GitHub to Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and more, if someone you want to tip is “on” the internet, it is likely they are on a social platform supported by ChangeTip.

Now, you can add one more to that list. SoundCloud, the “social sound platform” that enables users to upload and share sounds of just about anything. It is a great way to get your music out there as an artist and share it with other creative types and let them utilize it, if you so choose.

If bitcoin is going to become mainstream, it needs to become useful to people outside of the bitcoin ecosystem. Soundcloud, along with YouTube, GitHub and tumblr allow users to tip content creators who may not otherwise have any need to use bitcoin.

SEC Charges ‘Former’ Circle Executive

Iftikar Ahmed has been charged a second time by the SEC and has had his assets frozen pending the outcome of the case. Ahmed is charged with fraud and self-dealing during his time at the Venture Capital firm Oak Funds. Ahmed has “Circle Internet Financial” listed as his employer on his LinkedIn page (along with nomorerack aka Choxi and Attivio) and Crunchbase still lists him as a director at Circle. However, Circle’s website doesn’t list him on either their management or on their board and Coindesk reports that he stepped down due to a previous SEC investigation dealing with insider trading.

The bottom line is this: A guy who used to work at Circle and was involved influential in Circle getting its funding, is being brought down by the SEC, but not for anything he did at Circle. Ahmed is being accused of Fraud and Self-Dealing, reading the press release that accompanied the actual complaint, his alleged crimes seem to follow a consistent pattern. Ahmed would allegedly invest in a company, then he would direct the venture capital firm he controlled to invest into that same company at an inflated rate and would rake in the profit. In other cases, he simply had Oak Investments over pay for stock and then would profit the remainder himself.

The SEC is seeking the return of Ahmed’s ill-gotten funds and to levy fines.

It is probably a good thing if this guy leaves crypto sooner rather than later.

More Russians Want to Ban Bitcoin Than Have Heard About Bitcoin

According to a new study, only 20% of Russian citizens have heard about Bitcoin, but a surprising 40% of those same respondents are in favor of banning Bitcoin.

I know, it is shocking, Russians in favor of overbearing governmental policy banning something they don’t understand, who could imagine such a scenario?

The study was performed jointly by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, ProResearch and the National Agency for Financial Studies. It found that only 28% of men and 18% of women reported hearing about Bitcoin before the study began. Nevertheless, after being told of Bitcoin’s function, a full 40% of them stated they would be in favor of banning the digital currency.

Only 24% of respondents said they would oppose such a ban, while the remaining 36% stated that they were unsure.

A more complete write up can be found here (in Russian) but one thing is clear: a lot of education is needed if the Bitcoin community wants to convince the Russian population that blockchain technology is a good thing.