Company News

Sensei Article Featured in VBA Journal

April 30, 2019

“The Blockbuster That is Blockchain: What it Means to the Practice of Law” by Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek was featured in the Spring 2019 issue of the VBA Journal. The VBA Journal is a publication of the Virginia Bar Association.

Excerpt: Several years ago, a Canadian attorney and good friend of ours, invested $10,000 in bitcoin when it was dirt cheap – several hundred per bitcoin. Clearly, he is a lot smarter than us. We can’t even imagine the extent of his profit – the price of bitcoin has been all over the map. It hit an all-time high of $19,343.04 on December 16, 2017. We’re not sure if our friend cashed out, but we suspect he is still holding on to at least part of his “stash” of bitcoins. As of November 15, 2018, one bitcoin is worth $5,465. That’s quite a drop in eleven months.

We become aware of bitcoin wallets a few years ago, as husbands (mostly) began to hide assets from their soon-to-be ex-wives in those wallets. And then came a barrage of ransomware attacks. Law firm after law firm was paying the ransom ($300-$500 in the early days and $1500- $3000 today). The cybercriminals usually want the ransom in bitcoin. To our amazement, there are now bitcoin ATMs available in local gas stations and laundromats complete with posted instructions on creating a bitcoin wallet for the Bitcoin novice.

In July of last year, there were reports of a Citrix UK study which found that a third of UK companies were stockpiling digital currency, mostly in bitcoins, to pay the ransom (an average of approximately $176,000) if they became victims of a ransomware attack.

Why talk about Bitcoin when the title of this article references blockchain? Because Bitcoin rides on blockchain technology – that is the technology that powers Bitcoin – along with all the other cryptocurrencies.

See the entire article here.