Suspected North Korean hackers on Monday moved 12 bitcoin, worth about $140,000, from one of 280 accounts the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has targeted for seizure.
The funds have been wired into an anonymous wallet, according to Whale Alert, a bot that tracks notable crypto transactions.
“One of the inputs of this transaction has been listed by the U.S. government as forfeited. It is unclear who made the transaction,” Whale Alert tweeted, attaching a DoJ civil forfeiture complaint of August 27.
In the complaint, the DoJ alleges that the accounts were used by the North Korean government to launder almost $3 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen in two separate hacks in 2019. The U.S government alleges that such funds are used to help Pyongyang undermine sanctions and sponsor its development of weapons of mass destruction.
“The forfeited address is possibly a Huobi deposit address that received 2.97069728 BTC a few days ago. The address was swept today [Aug. 31] together with deposits made by other users,” Whale Alert further tweeted.
The DoJ complaint says the two crypto heists occurred on July 1, 2019, and September 25, 2019, prejudicing unidentified exchanges of $272,000 worth of altcoins and tokens and more than $2.5 million worth of multiple virtual currencies, respectively.
U.S. investigators said hackers used a technique known as “chain hopping”, whereby one form of cryptocurrency is transferred into another, to cover their tracks. Chinese over-the-counter traders are accused of helping to launder the funds.
“Despite the highly sophisticated laundering techniques used, IRS-CI’s Cybercrimes Unit was able to successfully trace stolen funds directly back to North Korean actors,” Internal Revenue (IRS) Criminal Investigation chief Daniel Fort said.
The 280 addresses are frozen because of the investigation, with exchanges cooperating so that the stolen funds are not converted to fiat and lost forever.
The UN previously reported that North Korea has made $2 billion from cyberattacks.
What do you think about North Korea’s alleged hacking syndicates? Let us know in the comments section below.
Tesla’s Elon Musk has said the company recently foiled attempts to infect its computer network with malicious software, after an employee cooperated with the FBI in an investigation. The malicious software would create an opportunity for criminals to extort money from Tesla.
Musk’s revelation comes after the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) had brought charges against a Russian national, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, 27. Although the U.S. government is not naming the targeted corporation in the sealed court documents, Musk in a tweet, confirms that Tesla was the intended victim of the botched attack.
According to court records, an investigation into the alleged conspiracy started after an unnamed Tesla employee informed the company of an approach by Kriuchkov. The accused reportedly asked the employee to participate in a “special project,” and in exchange, the employee would get $1 million worth of bitcoins as payment.
In return, the “executed malware would provide criminals with access to Tesla’s data. Once the data is accessed, the criminals would then “threaten to disclose this data online” unless Tesla acceded to their ransom demands. Kriuchkov and his accomplices expected to get $4 million from the botched conspiracy.
Meanwhile, after being informed of the conspiracy by Tesla, the FBI launched a sting operation to catch Kriuchkov and his accomplices. In a case replete with espionage overtones, the unnamed employee is asked to continue working with Kruichkov and his accomplices, while law enforcement agencies were building charges.
On August 17, the employee met with Kriuchkov and an unidentified accomplice. The two advised the Tesla employee of certain steps that had to be taken to ensure the successful deployment of the malware.
“Kriuchkov and the co-conspirator advised the employee that the computer used to receive the malware transmission should remain running for six to eight hours. The unidentified co-conspirator stated that once the group received access to Victim Company A (Tesla’s) data, they would execute a simulated external attack of the company,” reads the court record.
After assisting the employee to download the Tor Browser Kriuchkov then “advised the employee to set up a bitcoin wallet” using the same browser. According to the agreement, the employee would only receive his bitcoins once the task had been completed.
The FBI sting operation started sometime in late July and appears to have ended August 22.
Meanwhile, court records show that the “conspiracy intentionally cause damage to a protected computer” charges have been preferred against Kriuchkov alone. FBI special agent, Micheal J Hughes is the complainant.
What are your thoughts about the foiled malware attack? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
The decentralized exchange (dex) Uniswap has seen a massive amount of trade volume during the last seven days. Following Uniswap’s rapid increase in global trade volumes, the platform’s founder Hayden Adams celebrated the dex outpacing the centralized exchange Coinbase’s volumes this past weekend.
News.Bitcoin.com recently reported on the decentralized finance (defi) economy’s total value locked (TVL) assets nearing $8 billion in value. While a mad rush toward defi coins and applications has been taking place during the last few months, dex trade volumes have been soaring.
Data from Dune Analytics shows that close to $11 billion has been swapped on dex platforms like Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, and 0x. But Uniswap is commanding most of the trade volume and on Monday the exchange captures 62.8% of all dex swaps.
This past weekend Hayden Adams, the creator of Uniswap, tweeted about the massive trade volumes that have been settled on the platform in recent days. “Wow, Uniswap Protocol 24-hour trading volume is higher than Coinbase for the first time ever,” Adams said. “Hard to express with how crazy this is,” the Uniswap founder added.
Defi proponents congratulated Adams and said: “Huge congrats to Uniswap team – When NYSE flippening?”
On Monday, August 31, Uniswap is still capturing significant trade volumes with $537 million swapped during the last 24 hours. Uniswap captured over $2 billion in global trade volume during the last seven days.
The number of Uniswap traders (unique addresses that traded, maker and taker) on Monday is roughly 78,027. The two dex applications that trail behind Uniswap include Curve and Balancer respectively.
Curve captured 16.6% of Monday’s dex trade volume with $71 million in global swaps. Balancer has 8.71% of today’s global dex trade volume and has seen $66 million in trades. Most of the other dex platforms behind Uniswap, Curve, and Balancer only represent 1-3.38% of the dex swaps on August 31.
These smaller dex platforms in terms of trade volume include 0x, Kyber, Dydx, Idex, and Synthetix.
Uniswap is essentially two smart contracts on Ethereum and an open-source market that allows for onchain market maker swaps. Uniswap allows traders to utilize lists of ERC20 token pairs that they can swap for in a noncustodial manner.
The platform supports coins like ETH, MANA, BAT, WBTC, YFI, DAI, KNC, LEND, MKR, USDT, USDC, and more. The aggregate of all the dex platforms has seen $22.7 billion swapped in the last 12 months and a 107% increase in 30 days.
Much of these trades are taking place on Uniswap and this trend doesn’t seem to be abating anytime soon.
What do you think about Uniswap’s massive volume in recent days? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
The blockchain surveillance firm Ciphertrace claims to have created the “world’s first” monero tracing tools for law enforcement. According to the company announcement, Ciphertrace developed forensic tools for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to track illicit monero transactions. Despite the firm’s claims, there is zero evidence provided that prove the company actually has such tools.
Since the open-source cryptocurrency was first invoked in 2014, the Monero (XMR) project has been heralded for privacy-centric techniques. The digital asset network uses enforced privacy for all transactions by leveraging concepts like ring signatures, bulletproofs, and stealth (one-time) addresses.
Due to the privacy-centric enhancements, the digital currency XMR has gained notoriety on darknet markets (DNM), as monero represents a great share of DNM transactions.
However, Ciphertrace, a blockchain intelligence firm that works with global law enforcement and regulators, claims it has a tool that can “trace and visualize Monero transaction flows.”
“Ciphertrace developed tools to explore monero transactions to assist in investigations,” the firm detailed in a press release on August 31. “These tools include transaction search, exploration, and visualization tools for Monero transaction flows that have been integrated with CipherTrace’s Inspector financial investigations product. This provides ways to track stolen Monero currencies or Monero currencies used in illegal transactions.”
Ciphertrace notes that monero is represented on 45% of all DNMs and calls it the “second-favorite cryptocurrency of choice among criminals.” Dave Jevans, CEO of Ciphertrace says that while people think it is nearly impossible to identify true sources, the company has been working for a year studying the Monero network.
Jevans reveals the company has created tools for law enforcement to help uncover illegal monero transactions but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.
“Monero (XMR) is one of the most privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies,” Jevans stressed. “Our research and development team worked for a year on developing techniques for providing financial investigators with analysis tools. There is much work still to be done, but Ciphertrace is proud to announce the world’s first Monero tracing capability. We are grateful for the support of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate on this project.”
However, the press release provided by Ciphertace published on August 31, 2020, provides zero evidence of any monero-tracing tools. The announcement is merely a claim that the company has such tools, but there are very few reasons provided in the announcement to believe it.
Information security engineer and Monero proponent, Seth Simmons, does not believe Ciphertrace’s claims without actual proof.
Despite the announcement, crypto-community members have a hard time believing that Ciphertrace actually has a grasp at tracking XMR transactions. “There’s no reason to believe that Ciphertrace has discovered a substantially novel or effective method of tracing Monero transactions,” one individual wrote on Twitter.
Monero proponent and information security engineer, Seth Simmons, also did not believe Ciphertrace’s latest announcement.
“There is no reason to think there is anything novel going on here until proven otherwise,” Simmons tweeted. “The most likely answer is they’re using methods developed *by the Monero community to improve Monero* to de-anonymize some specific transactions with external data. The Monero community has long been at the forefront of privacy research in an effort to build stronger tools, as evidenced by the ‘Breaking Monero’ series.”
Simmons continued with a scathing critique of Ciphertrace’s alleged tracing tool statements in the press release and highlights there are “numerous errors in the understanding of Monero in the article.”
“Without details, there isn’t really anything to discuss. Some vague information provided by Ciphertrace in this article is not possible without external data (like KYC information from exchanges),” the monero proponent said.
What do you think about the alleged tools Ciphertrace claims to have against monero’s transaction privacy? Let us know in the comments section below.
Venezuelans have become increasingly interested in cryptocurrency as their country faces dire economic crisis and hyperinflation, a new study by blockchain data analytics firm Chainalysis shows. The firm’s Global Crypto Adoption Index ranks Venezuela third as “The country has reached one of the highest rates of cryptocurrency usage in the world.”
Cryptocurrency Adoption Soars in Venezuela
Chainalysis published its study of Venezuela’s bitcoin usage Thursday, which is part of its upcoming 2020 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report.
“Venezuela is suffering through one of the worst economic crises in modern history, with its national currency, the bolivar, becoming practically worthless,” the firm wrote. “Under these circumstances, cryptocurrency has taken on an important role in Venezuela’s economy … As the Venezuelan bolivar has lost value in the midst of hyperinflation, Venezuela has become one of the most active cryptocurrency trading countries on earth.” The firm elaborated:
The country has reached one of the highest rates of cryptocurrency usage in the world, placing third on our Global Crypto Adoption Index, as many Venezuelans rely on cryptocurrency to receive remittances from abroad and preserve their savings against hyperinflation.
Most of the crypto activity in Venezuela is driven by peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange activity, specifically on Localbitcoins, Chainalysis noted. “Venezuela is the third-most active country on the platform, or second-most active when we scale by the number of internet users and purchasing power parity per capita. Venezuela ranks 3rd for P2P trading volume in USD, after the U.S. and Russia.” Venezuelans are also using Bitcoin.com’s P2P marketplace to buy and sell bitcoin cash.
Venezuela’s P2P volume in USD and bolivar during the period between July 2019 and June 2020. Source: Chainalysis
Chainalysis also discussed Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency, the petro, launched by the country’s “contested government, led by OFAC-sanctioned Nicolas Maduro and known for its corruption and human rights abuses.” In May, the U.S. put a $15 million bounty on Maduro and charged a number of top Venezuelan government officials with “narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and other criminal charges.”
Superintendencia Nacional de Criptoactivos y Actividades Conexas (Sunacrip) is the regulator of crypto activities in Venezuela. So far, seven crypto exchanges have been licensed to trade the petro. According to the Maduro government, petro adoption has been rising significantly. Recently, 305 Venezuelan municipalities agreed to collect tax in petro.
One of the approved exchanges is Criptolago. According to financial intelligence provider Sayari, the exchange is owned by Venezuela’s Zulia state, with the state’s governor, Omar Prieto, occupying a top management position. “Prieto is a staunch Maduro ally who is personally under U.S. sanctions for refusal to deliver humanitarian aid,” Chainalysis asserted.
Over the last year, Criptolago addresses received more than $380,000 worth of bitcoin over 3,916 transfers and sent more than $360,000 worth over 2,297 transfers. While the platform’s transfer volume grew over 13x in the past year, “it doesn’t appear that Criptolago is helping the Venezuelans struggling most,” the Chainalysis claims. The firm pointed out that crypto transactions worth $1,000 or more accounted for more than 75% of total transfer volume, but “the average Venezuelan earns just 72 cents per day, meaning very few of them could afford such transfers.” Furthermore, the overall number of transactions was under 1,000 per month.
An expert on Venezuela told the firm that “Criptolago’s transaction activity suggests the platform may be used primarily by individuals connected to the Maduro regime seeking to launder funds or move them out of Venezuela.” Nonetheless, Chainalysis affirmed:
We do however, have a lot of anecdotal evidence that people in Venezuela have become increasingly interested in cryptocurrency.
“That fits with our interviews of cryptocurrency experts on the ground in Latin America — users not just in Venezuela, but in other countries facing harsh economic conditions, turn to cryptocurrency to preserve their savings in the face of monetary devaluation,” the firm emphasized. News.Bitcoin.com has also reported on several crypto initiatives to help people in Venezuela.
What do you think about Venezuela’s crypto adoption? Let us know in the comments section below.
Zeus Capital has doubled down on its doomsday predictions on Chainlink (Link). It is now warning investors: “don’t get fooled… exit your positions before its too late.”
The asset management firm’s involved assessment follows a sharp decline in the price of Link in the last couple of weeks. By August 28, the asset had tanked more than 20% from its all-time high of nearly $20 reached twelve days earlier.
Chainlink sprinted to its record high within a matter of weeks, as the community hyped the project. Since January, the crypto is up more than 860% – a drive that landed it position number five on the list of the world’s most valuable virtual assets.
However, the altcoin’s bull run had been driven in part by a campaign to liquidate Zeus Capital, which took a short position on the coin, the company alleges. In an August 28 report published on its website, Zeus Capital accuses Chainlink of orchestrating “the most spectacular pump in crypto history.” It charged:
Without material technological improvements or actual user onboarding, the price almost tripled within less than a month. Lured by the rapid price appreciation, naive investors were outbidding each other.
Zeus Capital detailed a four-part pump cycle that began on July 31 with Link enthusiasts on Twitter and Telegram rallying investors to buy the coin and liquidate the “common enemy.” In the second week of August, campaigners set a specific target of $11.28 to destroy Zeus Capital’s short position.
“Scared of missing out, numerous retail investors took part in the pump scheme,” Zeus Capital says. FOMO allegedly drove the campaign to exceed its mark into a third phase, peaking at $19.85 on August 16.
The firm characterizes the last phase as a gloomy aftermath for investors who had put savings and loans into the pump, using screenshots supposedly taken from Twitter to show investors bemoaning the loss of “savings, mortgages… and even families.”
The report ends by questioning the ethical value of the exercise. “As arrogant as it could get, the pace of Link tokens sent from Smart Contract’s development wallet to Binance intensified during the period,” it says.
Smart Contract is the team behind the development of Chainlink. An analytics firm, Trustnodes, has reported that Chainlink developers dumped up to $40 million of the Link token once the price peaked.
As Chainlink initially crashed from its ATH to $15.41 in 48 hours, crypto analyst Cryptowhale characterized the token as a bubble waiting to burst, predicting that it will eventually lose 99% of its value.
Meanwhile, the price of Link climbed over 11% in the last 24 hours spurred by news of the company’s acquisition of Deco, a system that is supposed to improve data transmission across the Internet, from Cornell University. At the time of writing, Chainlink is trading at $17.34, according to data from markets.Bitcoin.com.
What do you think about Zeus Capital’s comments on Chainlink? Let us know in the comments section below.
A lot has changed during the last month, as the popular decentralized finance (defi) ecosystem has swelled considerably in value. Since the first week of August, the total value locked in defi jumped over 85% in 27 days from $4.2 billion to $7.88 billion on August 30.
The total value locked (TVL) in the decentralized finance (defi) economy is nearing $8 billion in value, as crypto funds have poured into the surrounding infrastructure. Statistics from the website defipulse.com show that the current TVL on Sunday, August 30, 2020, is $7.8 billion. The defi lending platform Aave makes up 21.86% of that value.
Aave just recently jumped to the number one position as far as dominance is concerned. When news.Bitcoin.com reported on the defi economy crossing $4 billion, Maker captured 31.9% of the dominance on August 3.
Another defi project that has been making waves is the Yearn Finance protocol and the native token YFI.
Yearn Finance essentially lets users leverage a variety of defi applications like Curve, Aave, and Compound in order to maximize yield or lending schemes. Basically, yield farmers strategically utilize a number of liquidity pools, as Yearn gives the best returns on all the liquidity within the ecosystem.
The project’s token YFI has amassed great value recently and on Saturday evening, the YFI token topped a high of $39,189 per coin. On Sunday, YFI is hovering just above the $30k mark as the price dipped to $27k a touch after midnight (ET).
Decentralized exchange (dex) platforms have seen massive trade volume during the last 30 days. Dex stats on Dune Analytics show that there was $10.42 billion in global dex trade volume during the last month. $2.8 billion swapped on dex applications in the last seven days and $699 million in dex trade volume recorded today.
The last 30 day’s dex trade volume has increased by 142% and Uniswap is the most dominant decentralized exchange. The dex Uniswap captures 60% of the global dex trade volume which is followed by Curve (18.1%), and Balancer (8.9%) respectively.
Defi users over the last month have increased by 32% since August 1 from 293,475 users to 388,011 users recorded on August 29. Dune Analytics data considers each user as a unique address among the myriad of defi applications.
For instance, the count of unique addresses that traded in the last seven days on Uniswap was around 72,624 while Idex had around 4,007. Kyber (3,424), Curve (1,330), 0x (556), and Bancor (520) follow respectively with the trailing last seven days.
What do you think about the phenomenal growth defi has seen during the last 30 days? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Yellow Card has raised $1.5 million in a seed round. The Nigerian crypto startup said it will use the money to expand its operations in Africa while making it easier for people on the continent to buy and sell digital assets.
Investors in the new round include Polychain, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and Celo, through the Celo Ecosystem Fund.
In a statement, Yellow Card said it intends to “become the dominant exchange across the continent.” The company recently expanded into South Africa and Botswana and added 30,000 new vendors.
“Along with the fundraise, Yellow Card is announcing that it will be launching its services in Kenya and Cameroon starting September 1,” said the firm.
Kenya is already big on crypto traffic, ranking third, behind South Africa, in peer-to-peer bitcoin (BTC) transactions. Nigeria’s trade volume of $34.4 million in the second quarter of 2020 makes it Africa’s most active country in the digital asset space.
Founded in 2016 by Chris Maurice and Justin Poiroux on a financial inclusion pitch, Yellow Card boasts over 35 thousand merchants in Nigeria. The company says it has handled more than $35 million in transactions in the country. It offers users multiple payment options including cash, credit card, and bank transfer to via cryptocurrency.
In its statement, the firm also announced that Jason Marshall, former senior director of payment services at Walmart, has joined the team as its chief operating officer.
Yellow Card was initially pitched around developing a Bitcoin gift card but adopted the objective of “basic financial services for all” in 2018 after witnessing the high costs of sending money to Nigeria through the banking system.
What do you think about Yellow Card’s expansion plans? Let us know in the comments section below.
The CEO of financial advisory firm Devere Group believes that 2020 will be a breakout year for bitcoin, fueled by the U.S. presidential election and the weak dollar. Amid political uncertainty and the Fed’s new inflation policy, investors will pile into safe-haven assets not tied to any specific country, such as bitcoin.
2020: Breakout Year for Bitcoin
Devere Group CEO Nigel Green predicted last week that the U.S. presidential election and a weak dollar will drive the price of bitcoin for the rest of 2020. Following the Federal Reserve’s policy shift on inflation, he also warned about investing in the stock market. Devere Group, established by Green in 2002, describes itself as one of the world’s leading independent financial advisory organizations with more than $10 billion under advice from 80,000 clients in 100 countries.
Noting that “Bitcoin is already one of the best-performing assets of the year, up around 70% year-to-date,” Green asserted, “We can expect the world’s largest cryptocurrency to be further fuelled for the rest of 2020 by the U.S. presidential election and the weakness of the U.S. dollar, which will serve as high-octane price drivers.” The price of bitcoin stands at $11,613 at the time of writing.
“A U.S. presidential election always stirs uncertainty — but 2020 is seen by many as particularly important as not only will whoever wins be the CEO of the world’s largest economy, they will be in that role as the world economically readjusts following the global fallout of coronavirus,” Green opined. “As uncertainty heightens, investors will pile into safe-haven assets, in particular those not tied to any specific country, such as bitcoin and gold.”
Donald Trump (left) and Joe Biden, 2020 U.S. presidential candidates for the November election.
Recently, news.Bitcoin.com also reported that analyst and consultant Dan Popescu predicted how the outcome of the November presidential election could lead to a dollar collapse and a boost in the gold market. While the 2020 presidential election polls currently show Joe Biden in the lead, the analyst explained that the U.S. dollar stands to lose regardless of whoever wins the election and becomes the next president of the United States.
According to Green, “Bitcoin is currently realising its reputation as a form of digital gold. Up to now, the precious metal has been perceived as the ultimate safe-haven asset, but bitcoin — which shares its key characteristics of being a store of value and scarcity — could potentially in the future knock gold from its long-held top spot as the world becomes driven by the tech revolution … Decentralized, non-sovereign, secure digital currencies, including bitcoin, will become more attractive to investors as they will offer a hedge against turbulence in traditional markets.”
Analysts have been questioning gold’s safe-haven status and Goldman Sachs recently warned that the U.S. dollar risks losing its status as the world’s reserve currency.
The Devere Group CEO added, “Printing of historic sums of helicopter money that’s pushed into the financial system has devalued the dollar and prompted inflation fears,” emphasizing:
You can’t just print bitcoin.
On Thursday, the Federal Reserve announced a major shift in policy to “push up inflation.” Many investors will pile into equities, Green noted, warning of the “lack of balance” in the stock markets. “This will add fuel to global equities which are already on fire,” Green described, adding that “In this climate, holding bonds and sitting on cash will simply not provide the returns investors seek.”
The market has been expecting this inflation policy announcement by the Fed, prompting some companies to move cash reserves into bitcoin to hedge against inflation. One of them is the Nasdaq-listed Microstrategy, which moved $250 million of its cash reserves into bitcoin. The Fed’s new policy is also expected to boost the price of bitcoin, which some predict could be driven past $500K.
As for the U.S. dollar, Green continued: “The greenback could be in for a short-term boost, but in the longer term there are expectations it’s on a downward trajectory and that it could ultimately lose its global reserves status – and this environment will provide a powerful boost for the price of bitcoin.” The CEO concluded:
This explosive combination together with a growing number of millennials and Gen Z investors moving into digital assets could provide the perfect landscape for a multi-year bull market … History will show that 2020 was a breakout year for bitcoin.
Do you agree with Green? Let us know in the comments section below.
Russian authorities have blocked a number of websites related to cryptocurrency ahead of the country’s crypto regulation taking effect. A popular exchange aggregator website has already been blocked twice and has now received a third notice.
Russia Determined to Block Crypto Sites
Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) has blocked popular Russian cryptocurrency exchange monitoring website Bestchange.ru for the third time. The platform informed its users via Facebook on Wednesday:
Dear subscribers, our Bestchange.ru domain has again been blocked in the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, regional prosecutors continue to sue to block Bestchange and other sites for mentioning the bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Bestchange.ru further explained that it had been investigating how to unblock its domain but testing may take some time. The free website helps users find the best offers online, including the best rates for cryptocurrencies, electronic money, and internet banking. The service, launched in 2007, is not restricted to just cryptocurrency.
According to bits.media, this is the third time Roskomnadzor has blocked Bestchange.ru. The first time was in 2017, which was canceled in 2018. The second time was in March last year when the Kuibyshevsky District Court of Omsk issued an order to block Bestchange.ru along with other cryptocurrency exchange websites. It was canceled in May of the same year. “According to a court ruling, information about bitcoin was considered prohibited, as it contradicted federal laws of the Russian Federation,” the publication noted.
The third time started when the Kotlas city court ordered the blocking of seven cryptocurrency websites in January. Roskomnadzor reportedly received the court decision on June 23 and immediately sent out notices about the blocking.
The publication reported on June 24 that the owners of the sites bitok.shop, lavka-flowers.ru, cryptorussia.ru, prostocoin.com, cryptowikipedia.ru, bestchange.ru and coinpost.ru received notifications that they “distribute information prohibited in the Russian Federation” and will be included in Roskomnadzor’s registry of blocked websites. In addition, news.Bitcoin.com previously reported that six crypto websites and two news sites were blocked by the Russian media watchdog.
Bestchange.ru did not shut down, however, as the management decided to appeal the court decision. The court is expected to pass the case to a higher court on Aug. 27. Nonetheless, Roskomnadzor sent out another notice on Aug. 26 about the blocking of the site.
According to the news outlet, Roskomnadzor’s action is not related to the crypto regulation recently signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, which will enter into force on Jan. 1 next year. The new law gives legal status to cryptocurrency but prohibits its use for payments of goods and services.
What do you think about Russia blocking crypto-related sites? Let us know in the comments section below.
Beleaguered Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain suffered yet another 51% attack on August 29. The latest attack caused the reorganization of over 7,000 blocks and this corresponds to approximately two days of mining. At the time of reporting, it was not clear if there had been any double-spending as was the case in the last attack. In that attack, it was reported that the Okex exchange suffered a loss of $5.6 million directly as a result.
A statement revealing the attack adds that “all lost blocks will be removed from the immature balance and we will check all payouts for dropped transactions.”
Meanwhile, in their initial comments on the latest attack, developers working on ETC are attributing ongoing attacks to the network’s known vulnerabilities.
“ETC is ~3% of the overall ETH network hash rate. We are well aware of potential repeated attacks while solutions such as “reorg caps” and the subsequent ECIPs are being tested and evaluated. If you haven’t already please increase (which most have) please raise confs above ~10K,” reads a Twitter statement from the main ETC team.
Furthermore, the statement urges miners, exchanges, and other service providers to keep “confirmation requirements levels well above 7k for now.”
Meanwhile, the timing of the latest attack is certain to raise eyebrows. The latest network attack, which is the third time this has happened in a month, occurred shortly after some community members had announced the addition of two new Ethereum Classic Improvements Proposals (ECIP).
Proposed by Input-OutputHK, the first ECIP introduces a checkpoint system to prevent the possibility of another attack while the second one proposes a decentralized treasury.
However, following the last attack, the ETC community had been split on the way forward and particularly over the second proposal. After heated exchanges, it appears the Charles Hoskinson’s camp, which favors the controversial proposition, has prevailed.
Interestingly, however, news of the latest attack appears to have had a little effect on the ETC price. At the time of writing, the ETC traded at $6.71 marginally down from the $6.74 at around the time the breach was discovered.
Still, there is a real possibility that some exchanges will delist the token following this attack. Okex has already stated that it will “consider delisting ETC, pending the results of the Ethereum Classic community’s work to improve the security of its chain.” The latest attack might now force the exchange to act on the threat.
Do you think the ETC community is doing enough to stop these attacks? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
The Polkadot token, which recently underwent a redenomination, has seen its value more than double in less than seven days. Now with a reported (but unverified) circulating supply of 897,657,920 tokens, the Dot token claims its place as the fifth-ranked token.
At the time of writing, the token traded at $6.23, which translates to a market capitalisation of $5.63 billion. This market capitalisation is just about enough for Dot to displace the Link token from its current position.
Coinmarketcap officially ranks the token at number 2172. The market capitalisation of a token or coin is determined by multiplying the price of a token with the circulating supply. Information on the Coinmarketcap website suggests “the organisation has not sufficiently verified the circulating supply and resulting market cap yet.”
Still, there is another metric which seemingly supports Dot’s status as a top tier token–the traded volumes. According to Coinmarketcap data, the Dot token’s traded volumes on August 27 surged to $1,4 billion, a figure higher than Chainlink’s volumes of $1.28 billion on the same day.
In fact, Dot’s 24 hour traded volumes have been exceeding $480 million since August 22. Yet, before this spike, the token’s previous traded volumes did not exceed $50 million. According to the data, on August 20 and 21 the token’s traded volumes were $48.8 million and $49.3 million respectively.
These are the only known trades to occur just before the redenomination event.
Meanwhile, in a public notice explaining the process of redenomination on August 17, the team at Polkadot Network said: “the redenomination of the token (was) scheduled to occur on 21 August 2020 at 16:40 UTC block number 1,248,328.”
The Dot token is used for governance, staking and bonding on the Polkadot network. The community had voted for the redenomination to take place on August 21. The notice adds that after redenomination, the “New Dot is 100 times smaller than DOT (OLD).”
Similar to a Share Split
Similar to a share split, a redenomination ordinarily increases the circulating supply of a token while market capitalisation remains unchanged. The notice also attempts to clarify this point.
However, immediately after redenomination, the price of the token went up from the closing price of $2.88 on August 21 to $4.48 the following day. The token has since peaked at $6.79, which was recorded on August 27.
In the meantime, Dot’s price surge comes after the Polkadot Network team previously warned that “some unscrupulous exchanges may choose to enact the redenomination prior to the date agreed by the Polkadot community.”
At the time, the Polkadot team said such an act would result in the token trading “at approximately 100 times lower than the actual market price.” The statement, which does not provide the names of exchanges behind this plot, also adds:
“We believe such action is irresponsible, possibly constituting fraud through deceptive advertising and certainly puts Polkadot stakeholders at risk.”
Binance and Kraken are reportedly the two exchanges accused of listing the token on August 18, three days before the agreed-upon redenomination.
Although the notice explained the redenomination process, some supporters of the token were still not unsure of the circulating supply before August 21. For instance, one Reddit user, SalesFromTheCrypt asked:
I know tomorrow is redenomination day, so the total supply goes from 10M to 1B and I read on their website at least 20% (is) withheld for infrastructure. That means as of tomorrow it should be no more than 800M, could be less. But, it is also an inflationary token. Let’s hope someone more knowledgeable replies because I made sure to scoop up a bag.
However, other users (possibly holders of the token) expressed confidence it would be worth billions and that it would immediately feature in top ten of the best ranked digital assets.
Polkadot is the flagship project of Web3 Foundation, a Swiss Foundation founded to facilitate a fully functional and user-friendly decentralized web.
What do you think of Polkadot’s price pump? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
The science of mine and thine – the science of justice – is the science of all human rights; of all a man’s rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The essay “Natural Law- The Science of Justice” or a “Treatise on Natural Law, Natural Justice, Natural Rights, Natural Liberty, and Natural Society; Showing That All Legislation Whatsoever Is an Absurdity, a Usurpation, and a Crime” was published in 1882. It has been published on various venues and is reprinted here on Bitcoin.com for historical preservation. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any opinions, content, accuracy or quality within the historical editorial.
Section I.
It is the science which alone can tell any man what he can, and cannot, do; what he can, and cannot, have; what he can, and cannot, say, without infringing the rights of any other person.
It is the science of peace; and the only science of peace; since it is the science which alone can tell us on what conditions mankind can live in peace, or ought to live in peace, with each other.
These conditions are simply these: viz., first, that each man shall do, towards every other, all that justice requires him to do; as, for example, that he shall pay his debts, that he shall return borrowed or stolen property to its owner, and that he shall make reparation for any injury he may have done to the person or property of another.
The second condition is, that each man shall abstain from doing to another, anything which justice forbids him to do; as, for example, that he shall abstain from committing theft, robbery, arson, murder, or any other crime against the person or property of another.
So long as these conditions are fulfilled, men are at peace, and ought to remain at peace, with each other. But when either of these conditions is violated, men are at war. And they must necessarily remain at war until justice is re-established.
Through all time, so far as history informs us, wherever mankind has attempted to live in peace with each other, both the natural instincts, and the collective wisdom of the human race, have acknowledged and prescribed, as an indispensable condition, obedience to this one only universal obligation: viz., that each should live honestly towards every other.
The ancient maxim makes the sum of a man’s legal duty to his fellow men to be simply this: “To live honestly, to hurt no one, to give to every one his due.”
This entire maxim is really expressed in the single words, to live honestly; since to live honestly is to hurt no one, and give to every one his due.
Section II.
Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow-men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenceless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will, perform them. But of his legal duty – that is, of his duty to live honestly towards his fellow men – his fellow men not only may judge, but, for their own protection, must judge. And, if need be, they may rightfully compel him to perform it. They may do this, acting singly, or in concert. They may do it on the instant, as the necessity arises, or deliberately and systematically if they prefer to do so, and the exigency will admit of it.
Section III.
Although it is the right of anybody and everybody – of any one man, or set of men, no less than another – to repel injustice, and compel justice, for themselves, and for all who may be wronged, yet to avoid the errors that are liable to result from haste and passion, and that everybody, who desires it, may rest secure in the assurance of protection, without a resort to force, it is evidently desirable that men should associate, so far as they freely and voluntarily can do so, for the maintenance of justice among themselves, and for mutual protection against other wrong-doers. It is also in the highest degree desirable that they should agree upon some plan or system of judicial proceedings, which, in the trial of causes, should secure caution, deliberation, thorough investigation, and, as far as possible, freedom from every influence but the simple desire to do justice.
Yet such associations can be rightful and desirable only in so far as they are purely voluntary. No man can rightfully be coerced into joining one, or supporting one, against his will. His own interest, his own judgement, and his own conscience alone must determine whether he will join this association, or that; or whether he will join any.
If he chooses to depend, for the protection of his own rights, solely upon himself, and upon such voluntary assistance as other persons may freely offer to him when the necessity for it arises, he has a perfect right to do so. And this course would be a reasonably safe one for him to follow, so long as he himself should manifest the ordinary readiness of mankind, in like cases, to go to the assistance and defense of injured persons; and should also himself “live honestly, hurt no one, and give to every one his due.” For such a man is reasonably sure of always giving friends and defenders enough in case of need, whether he shall have joined any association, or not.
Certainly, no man can rightfully be required to join, or support, an association whose protection he does not desire. Nor can any man be reasonably or rightfully expected to join, or support, any association whose plans, or method of proceeding, he does not approve, as likely to accomplish its professed purpose of maintaining justice, and at the same time, itself avoid doing injustice. To join, or support, one that would, in his opinion, be inefficient, would be absurd. To join or support one that, in his opinion, would itself do injustice, would be criminal. He must, therefore, be left at the same liberty to join, or not to join, an association for this purpose, as for any other, according as his own interest, discretion, or conscience shall dictate.
An association for mutual protection against injustice is like an association for mutual protection against fire or shipwreck. And there is no more right or reason in compelling any man to join or support one of these associations, against his will, his judgment, or his conscience than there is in compelling him to join or support any other, whose benefits (if it offer any) he does not want, or whose purposes or methods he does not approve.
Section IV.
No objection can be made to these voluntary associations upon the ground that they would lack that knowledge of justice, as a science, which would be necessary to enable them to maintain justice, and themselves avoid doing injustice. Honesty, justice, natural law, is usually a very plain and simple matter, easily understood by common minds. Those who desire to know what it is, in any particular case, seldom have to go far to find it. It is true, it must be learned, like any other science. But it is also true that it is very easily learned.
Although as illimitable in its applications as the infinite relations and dealings of men with each other, it is, nevertheless, made up of a few simple elementary principles, of the truth and justice of which every ordinary mind has an almost intuitive perception. And almost all men have the same perceptions of what constitutes justice, or of what justice requires when they understand alike the facts from which their inferences are to be drawn.
Men living in contact with each other, and having intercourse together, cannot avoid learning natural law, to a very great extent, even if they would. The dealings of men with men, their separate possessions and their individual wants, and the disposition of every man to demand, and insist upon, whatever he believes to be his due, and to resent and resist all invasions of what he believes to be his rights, are continually forcing upon their minds the questions, Is this act just? or is it unjust? Is this thing mine? or is it his? And these are questions of natural law; questions which, in regard to the great mass of cases, are answered alike by the human mind everywhere.
Children learn the fundamental principles of natural law at a very early age. Thus, they very early understand that one child must not, without just cause, strike or otherwise hurt, another; that one child must not assume any arbitrary control or domination over another; that one child must not, either by force, deceit, or stealth, obtain possession of anything that belongs to another; that if one child commits any of these wrongs against another, it is not only the right of the injured child to resist, and, if need be, punish the wrongdoer, and compel him to make reparation, but that it is also the right, and the moral duty, of all other children, and all other persons, to assist the injured party in defending his rights, and redressing his wrongs.
These are fundamental principles of natural law, which govern the most important transactions of man with man. Yet children learn them earlier than they learn that three and three are six, or five and five [equals] ten. Their childish plays, even, could not be carried on without a constant regard to them; and it is equally impossible for persons of any age to live together in peace on any other conditions.
It would be no extravagance to say that, in most cases, if not in all, mankind at large, young and old, learn this natural law long before they have learned the meanings of the words by which we describe it. In truth, it would be impossible to make them understand the real meanings of the words, if they did not understand the nature of the thing itself.
To make them understand the meanings of the words justice and injustice before knowing the nature of the things themselves, would be as impossible as it would be to make them understand the meanings of the words heat and cold, wet and dry, light and darkness, white and black, one and two, before knowing the nature of the things themselves. Men necessarily must know sentiments and ideas, no less than material things, before they can know the meanings of the words by which we describe them.
What do you think about Natural Law? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below.
The decentralized finance (defi) crypto asset tied to the Yearn Finance project has smashed records this week, as the coin touched a high of $30,324 on Saturday evening. Yearn’s token YFI has been recently added to the Aave platform and the project’s founder, Andre Cronje, is currently talking about collaborating with the exchange FTX.
Yearn Finance and the project’s native token YFI has jumped significantly in value since news.Bitcoin.com last reported on the project. Last week, YFI made headlines for outpacing bitcoin (BTC) by price per coin, as the YFI token value spiked to $16k on August 20.
On Friday, YFI was averaging around $17-18k per coin, and the value leaped even higher during Saturday afternoon’s (ET) trading sessions. According to market data, YFI touched an all-time high of over $30,324 on August 29 at 8:15 p.m. ET. Presently, the value is hovering around $30,007 at the time of publication.
This week, an individual on Twitter, asked the Yearn Finance founder why he was talking with the FTX exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Andre Cronje did not detail what Yearn Finance and FTX were collaborating on, but he did confirm that some kind of partnership was in place.
“Guess the cat is out of the bag,” Cronje tweeted. “But just so that there is some expectation management, this is a long roadmap that we are working on, so it won’t be anything anytime soon. But there will be something very sexy in the future.”
The Ethereum-based token YFI crossed the $30,000 price zone on Saturday, August 29, 2020, at approximately 8:15 p.m. ET.
In addition to the FTX topic, the defi token YFI was also recently listed on the lending platform Aave this week. Aave has also been making headlines in recent days for its total value locked (TVL), and the project’s electronic money license granted by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Yearn Finance has also revealed a new insurance primitive this week called “yinsure.finance.”
The Yearn development team published an article about the yinsure.finance subject which states:
We will systematically be releasing yinsure.finance, a prototype for a new kind of tokenized insurance.
Over the course of the last 24 hours, YFI has gained over 44% in value outshining most other token assets. Despite the fact that YFI has climbed far higher than BTC’s all-time high in 2017 ($19,600), people should understand and be aware that there are only 30,000 YFI compared to BTC’s 21 million.
In fact, out of the current 30,000 supply of YFI, there are really only 29,962.791 tokens in circulation today. YFI has seen massive trade volume this week as well, as Saturday’s global YFI trade volume topped $500 million.
What do you think about YFI’s token topping $25k on Saturday? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
