During the last couple of months, Bitcoin has become more of a taboo subject over in Russia, especially due to the numerous government tries to discourage the use of the digital currency. Regardless of this, recent reports indicate that there is some room for improvement.

With this in mind, Russian authorities are reportedly considering the idea of abandoning the efforts to institute criminal penalties for those who use the cryptocurrency within the country. Surprisingly enough, it seems that representatives from the country's Central Bank, government bureaus and the Ministry of Finance agree with the idea, and have become more supportive Bitcoin.

During the last couple of months, Kraken has managed to become the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Europe, with tens of thousands of people exchanging bitcoin and other currencies on a daily basis.

According to recent reports, Kraken has just acquired the Dutch Bitcoin exchange known by the name of CleverCoin. This move will allow the company to further consolidate its place in Europe, with CleverCoin being the third exchange to be wholly swallowed by Kraken this year, after Coinsetter and Cavirtex which were both acquired less than six months ago.

Since Bitcoin was created, there have been numerous questions referring to who its creator really is. Popularly named as Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious man has disappeared in the last couple of years, after leaving Gavin Andersen in his place.

Four months ago, the Internet blew up with news saying that an Australian computer scientist known by the name of Craig Wright is actually the creator of Bitcoin. Numerous publications such as Wired and Gizmodo have showcased various forms of proof, but the community remained sceptical and wouldn’t buy the story at that time.

Less than two weeks ago, Bitcoin exchange Kraken announced the purchase of U.S. Coinsetter and the Canadian CaVirtex exchanges, in what may just be, one of the biggest acquisitions in the bitcoin sector.

Prior to this purchase, Kraken focused on their European market, where they traded around 5000-7000 bitcoin per day. Now, that the companies have all integrated into a single one, the traded amounts have increased considerably.

Well, recent reports indicate that a new deal has been made. With this in mid, Kraken, the global bitcoin exchange has managed to secure a multi-million dollar agreement with the folks behind SBI investment, which is the venture capital arm of the SBI Holdings department. For those who do not know, this represents the world’s first web-based financial conglomerate, uniting financial firms from all around the world. The company has also reported that they have an operating revenue of around $2bn, thus placing them in the same list with some of the top world’s companies.

We are glad to announce the highly anticipated VPS improvements that include the following new features:

- new VMware ESXi hypervisor setup

- DDoS protection up to 10 Gbps free of charge

- minimum billing cycle is 1 month

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a large number of developments from the bitcoin market, with companies showcasing interest towards the digital currency’s underlying system, US institutions declaring bitcoin a commodity and more.

However, we’ve also seen some negative developments, which we ought to discuss about, as the Europol has just issued a report stating that it believes that it’s likely for bitcoin to become the go-to currency for internet criminals throughout Europe. Based on a report outlining the top cybercrime treats which the European Union faces, we can see how the cryptocurrency is used in illegal activities, alongside with how extortionists use bitcoin to seize funds from people.