The Leftover Bits 14/5/15: Tip Musicians, SEC Charges Ex Circle Exec, Russian Seek To Ban What They Don't Understand

The SEC charged Iftikar Ahmed a second time this week, freezing his assets while pursuing fraud and self-dealing allegations from his tenure at Oak Funds, a venture capital firm. Ahmed lists Circle Internet Financial as his current employer on LinkedIn, along with nomorerack (also known as Choxi) and Attivio. Crunchbase identifies him as a Circle director. Circle's own website removes him from both its management page and board. According to Coindesk, Ahmed resigned following an earlier SEC investigation into insider trading.

The new charges don't relate to Circle. The SEC alleges Ahmed followed the same pattern at Oak Funds repeatedly: he would invest his own money in a company, then use his control of the venture firm to inject capital into that company at inflated valuations and pocket the gap. Sometimes he simply directed Oak Investments to overpay for stock and kept the excess. The SEC wants restitution and penalties. His removal from crypto amounts to housekeeping.

A Russian survey found that 40 percent of respondents wanted bitcoin banned despite only 20 percent ever having heard of it. The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, ProResearch, and the National Agency for Financial Studies conducted the poll together. Twenty-eight percent of male respondents had encountered bitcoin before the study; 18 percent of women had. After learning what bitcoin does, two in five backed a ban. About a quarter disagreed. The rest had no opinion. The bitcoin community must educate Russians if bitcoin is to gain acceptance there.