‘Bad News for Bitcoin? Feds Shut Down ‘Paypal for Criminals’ – ‘Mashable’

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai says, “In what could be a bad sign for the future of Bitcoin, the feds have shut down Liberty Reserve, a virtual currency exchange system that prosecutors claim was a $6-billion money-laundering scheme designed to help criminals and hackers conceal the origin of their illicit money.

Liberty Reserve is a Costa Rica-based online payment network that U.S. authorities dubbed the “financial hub of the cyber-crime world.” According to the indictment (.PDF) unsealed on Tuesday, the service was one of the world’s largest digital currency systems with more than 1 million users and more than 12 million transactions”.