The ex-CEO of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, who faced charges of alleged embezzlement, denied guilt in a Tokyo court during closing arguments, Coindesk reported. The cryptocurrency exchange failed after it reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of bitcoins worth $480 million. Although the ex-CEO isn’t facing accusations over the losses from hacking, prosecutors contend that he moved 340 million yen to a personal account from an account at the exchange in 2013. It is reported that the court could make a verdict public in mid-March and that prosecutors are looking for a sentence of 10 years, while he originally faced a 5-year sentence.
On another note, Paytomat, Shopping Cart Elite, and Bitcoin Diamond are helping to bring a new cryptocurrency called Chimpion (CHIMP) to fruition, according to a press release. The project says that its technology can enable merchants to take payments through digital currency and make “their altcoin of choice as the base currency denomination.” The company also claims that its platform is “simple to use with no need for advanced technical knowledge, making the platform accessible to nearly any merchant.” Still, the company plans to roll out a CHIMP Academy to help owners of small businesses make their own storefronts for digital currency eCommerce.
In other news, a survey of just over 900 people in Russia found that 13 percent of consumers use digital currencies for eCommerce payments, Kryptomoney reported. Even so, the outlet reported that a lion’s share of respondents in the study still “confirmed that they often pay with methods by the traditional banking system.” At the same time, the outlet reported that Russia electronic payment service Yandex Money along with the city of Moscow’s Digital Technologies Department suggested that 5 percent of respondents were open to testing out payments in digital currency even though they hadn’t “owned digital coins before.”
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