Republican Attorney General Dave Yost says former Republican State Treasurer Josh Mandel skirted state law when he launched a Bitcoin program called "OhioCrypto.com" last year for paying business taxes.
Yost says Atlanta-based BitPay, the third-party processor that converted bitcoins to U.S. currency, was functioning as a "financial transaction device." That meant Mandel was required to use a competitive selection process before hiring them. Current Treasurer Robert Sprague shut down the site in October after an internal review raised issues. The Board of Deposit he chairs must now decide how to proceed.
