Bitcoin Daily: Xapo Stops Credit Payments for Crypto; Former CoinFlux Owner Pleads In Crypto-Laundering Case

Xapo, a crypto wallet and bitcoin custodian, will no longer deal in credit card payments for digital asset purchases, according to an email from the company, as reported by CoinDesk.

Xapo will also implement new restrictions on bank transfers, depending on a user’s location.

In the email, the company said those who make a transfer will then have their country detected and the minimum amount will be specified, according to CoinDesk.

The move comes after the news of Xapo’s transition to a digital bank announced for this year. The company is also moving from its California base to Gibraltar, which boasts a regulatory framework for crypto firms but higher standards for approval.

In other news, Vlad-Calin Nistor, former owner of the now-defunct Romanian crypto exchange CoinFlux, was one among 15 defendants who pled guilty to laundering $1.8 million in a scheme that involved fraudulent eBay ads and a car wash, CoinDesk reported.

Nistor and the other defendants, including the owner of a car wash, pled guilty in the Eastern District Court of Kentucky. The defendants reportedly defrauded Americans out of millions of dollars by posting fake eBay ads for items that didn’t really exist, using detailed fabricated stories to make it all seem as real as possible.

The ringleader was reportedly a Bucharest-based car wash owner, Bogdan-Stefan Popescu, who would transfer the illicit funds out of bitcoin and into bank accounts under the names of friends and family.

CoinFlux, which provided a local fiat gateway for Romanian traders, was readying to celebrate its third anniversary less than a week before Nistor’s arrest in late 2018.

And, after reports that Chinese banks were considering shutting down cryptocurrency accounts, leaders have clarified that they have no intention of closing legal fiat to crypto operations, according to Cointelegraph.

In a statement, China Merchants Bank, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China all said they wouldn’t be looking to crack down on legal operators.

“As long as the operation is legal, the channel is legal, the virtual currency source is legal [and] the page supports bank card service, bank card users’ funds will not be voluntarily frozen unless it involves illegally related cases such as money laundering and fraud,” according to a China Times report.