Federal court orders alleged hacker to pay for bail with cryptocurrency

Defendants in US federal court cases now have another option for staying out on bail: emptying their virtual wallets. A district court in San Francisco has ordered alleged hacker Martin Marsich to pay the equivalent of $750,000 in cryptocurrency if he wants to live in a halfway house while facing trial. It's not clear if this is the first instance of an American court accepting digital currency for bail (Assistant District Attorney Abraham Simmons e xpressed doubt about it to the Daily Post). However, it's likely a novelty at the federal level.

Marsich is expected to confirm the bail payment on August 20th.

To some extent, the cryptocurrency option might have been necessary. Police arrested Marsich, a resident of Italy accused of hacking game giant EA to access accounts, while he was at San Francisco International Airport. Marsich wasn't swimming in US funds, in other words -- this gave him an incentive to show up in court.

This probably won't be the norm for a long time, if ever. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency formats are still quite volatile. A bail requirement that seems harsh one day could be trivial the next if the money's value crashes. While lawyers could likely ask for a change in the bail amount in one of those scenarios, that's something that rarely if ever creeps up when conventional cash is involved.

Source: Daily Post



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