Weekend Roundup: Ulbricht Guilty, BitPay Deal Opens Interesting Opportunities and Africa’s 1st Bitcoin Conference

1. Ross Ulbricht Found Guilty on All Charges
Early Thursday, Aaron von Wirdum reported that a jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty of all charges brought against him by the US government.
‘For the pastfourweeks, prosecutors in New York have sought to prove that Ulbricht is the (in)famous Dread Pirate Roberts, and is therefore guilty of drug trafficking, running a criminal enterprise, orchestrating a conspiracy to sell fake IDs, conspiring to sell hacking tools, and involvement in money laundering. A mountain of evidence was presented throughout the sittings, including Ulbricht’s personal diary, loads of chat logs, a trail of hundreds of thousands of bitcoins from the Silk Road to his laptop, confessions of an old friend, and public details about Ulbricht’s life.’
2. Facebook, Spotify, Uber, Airbnb Can Now Accept Bitcoin after BitPay Deal
On Tuesday, Charlie Richards reported on a major deal between BitPay and payment processor Adyen that opens up some big names to Bitcoin acceptance.
‘BitPay will be hoping to see conversions among some of Adyen’s 3,500 merchants globally including, Groupon, Evernote, Facebook, Spotify, Uber, Vodafone, Booking.com, Yelp, AirBnB, KLM, Abercrombie & Fitch, Soundcloud, Ryanair.’
3. Africa to Hold Its First Ever Bitcoin Conference
On Monday, William Suberg reported on an upcoming Bitcoin conference in Cape Town, scheduled for April 16 and 17 that ‘will bring together merchants, investors, venture capitalists, start-ups and Bitcoin enthusiasts who are all looking to move Bitcoin forward in Africa.’
‘An official gathering for the extremely active Bitcoin community across the African continent has been a long time in the making. Projects such as P2P SMS payments in Kenya and remittance studies in Botswana have gained considerable media attention over the past 12 months, and advocates will eager to gain a further platform through which to showcase the many innovations taking place in Africa as of 2015.’

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2015-02-08.