More Russian spies using Bitcoin?

Good evening. I'm Mark Hoxstein, and this is late confirmation from CoinDesk, bringing you the top stories from October 4th, 2018.

On today's show, the U.S. Department of Justice issues new indictments of alleged Russian operatives said to use cryptocurrency.

Customs officers track drug dealers who use crypto. A possible bribing scandal at EOS. And on a lighter

note, more funding has arrived for lightning network development, specifically for a startup in France.

And finally, some real talk from the Crypto Springs Conference. network development, specifically for a startup in France.

And finally, some real talk from the Crypto Springs Conference.

First, Vitalik warned you, and here we go.

The EOS community is having its first voting fraud scandal.

At the end of September, a Twitter account going by the name of Maple Leaf Capital produced screenshots from a leaked Excel spreadsheet that supposedly show the exchange

Hwobie got money for supporting certain EOS block producers. Hwobie promptly denied this in a

medium post. But truthful or not, the allegations once more

raise questions around EOS's still not yet established governance system. The blockchain has

21 so-called block producers, nodes maintaining the history of the blockchain for rewards,

who are periodically elected by users.

But the rules of their behavior, the so-called Constitution, which forbids buying votes,

haven't been ratified yet. One of the biggest unsolved questions is the issue of exchanges

that are the biggest holders of EOS balances now. As EOS wallets are anonymous by default,

there is no way to detect if some exchange would vote for one or another block producer

with the token of its users, staking a large portion of coins that can dramatically impact the

competition. The danger of vote buying was indicated early on by Ethereum creator Vitalik Boutherin, who

wrote in March that for users, the only incentive is to vote for whoever offers the highest

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