btc - Pwim.Net

Beware Of Impostors: China Has Not Issued or Released A Date For Its Digital Currency

It has come to the notice of the People’s Bank of China that some online platforms have been spreading fake news claiming that China has issued its digital currency, “DC/EP” or “DCEP,” and as such, have established online trading platforms to process transactions. Owing to this, a statement released by the People’s Bank of China on October 13, warned the general public to beware of such fake platforms and organizations as they are not related to the Bank of China.

China’s digital currency is called the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DECP). An online website decpapi.com has been parading as the official website for launching the currency and has thus featured an API with a countdown, which indicates that the currency would go live on November 20. However, DECPAPI.com’s server has gone down at press time.

Following this, the People’s Bank of China issued two sound warnings to the general public who might fall victim to these impostors and fraudsters. First, the bank warned that it is yet to release any digital currency and has not approved any trading platform. Hence, the current market transactions “DC/EP” or “DCEP” are illegal coupled with inaccurate issuance time.

Second, the intention of DECPAPI.com may be fraudulent and may involve pyramid schemes. For the sake of preventing damage to interests, the public is asked to be careful in associating with the site.

As contained in the statement, the People’s Bank of China claimed it has been examining the legal digital currency since 2014 and is still researching and testing things out.

Image via Shutterstock

Iran Government Offers Up To 20% Reward To Anyone Who Exposes Illicit Cryptocurrency Mining In The Country

As stated by a news report on October 13, Iran just offered a reward to anyone who exposes illicit cryptocurrency mining in the country. This proposition arose as a result of new regulations by regulators which stated that the rate of electricity used by miners of cryptocurrencies should be calculated. Hence, individuals, corporations and companies are meant to report non-compliance to the new rule as it is expected that all cryptocurrency miners in the country should not use subsidized electricity to mine cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

In accordance with the report, a spokesman of Iran’s Energy Ministry, Mostafa Rajabi made the announcement in an interview, saying that anyone who reported defaulters would go home with up to 20% reward from the recovery of the damaged caused on the power sector by the said defaulters. As at press time, police had started hunting in places where the rate of electricity usage is subsidized.

The said spokesman claimed the new regulations that the activities of miners who use the national electricity distribution would be stopped during peak hours of usage which is roughly 300 hours per year.

More than three months ago, Iran launched a crackdown on illegal use of exorbitantly low electricity for miners of digital currency. And now, the new regulations have come to nail it.

Those who establish their own mining plants would receive incentives from the government and the national network would support plants that use renewable sources if they have a failure while attempting to generate power.

Image via Shutterstock

A Dragonfly Researcher Breaks Mimblewimble’s Privacy, Proving That The Model Is Flawed

It is quite a pity that the esteemed privacy of Grin has been tampered with by a Dragonfly researcher who was able to unearth the real addresses of senders and receivers of up to 96% of transactions carried out in Grin’s blockchain. The researcher shared this on a Medium post on Nov.18.

The researcher claimed that some other researchers have sometimes said that the privacy model of Mimblewimble, a privacy-focused blockchain protocol, is suffering from some weakness and, therefore, flawed. His recent live testing on Grin has proved the speculation to be true since he was able to uncover the sending and receiving of transactions with an estimated success rate of 96%. This made the researcher conclude that Mimblewimble is not a reliable privacy chain.

One major thing of concern about this faulty privacy protocol is that it is part of Mimblewimble; it is inherent to the protocol without much hope of being fixed. This unfortunate event made the researcher warn that Grin/ Mimblewimble should not be taken as an alternative privacy protocol with reference to Zcash or Monero.

The researcher claimed that Mimblewimble developers are aware of the technical issues and feasibility of an attack, they did not do anything even though he warned them on a Reddit post last year.

In the said post, the researcher did not spare any information regarding the attack, how it works, and what it means for privacy tech. He then provided technical details into this attack with open-source code to reproduce it, data collected, and a technical Frequently Asked Questions.

Image via Shutterstock

Scammers Hack Monero's Official Website and Infected It With Malware

Scammers have succeeded in hacking Monero’s official website and infecting its wallet with malware that’s capable of stealing user’s cryptocurrencies when downloaded and installed.

The attack was noticed when a user reported about supposed differences between the hash for the wallet and the hash listed on the page. First, users thought it was a simple error, but soon, they discovered it was a malicious attack that was made to infect the software wallet with malware.

According to the report, this then led Monero’s devs to check GitHub about the mismatching hashes coming from the website. It was then discovered that there was a deliberate, malicious attack that compromised the binaries of the CLI wallet had been compromised, which made it possible for a malicious version to being served instead.

However, Monero’s officials noted they fixed the problem immediately, thereby implying that the attacked files were online for a short time. This meant that the compromised files were removed almost immediately as soon as the issue was reported. They claimed that the binaries are now served from another safe and secure source.

They then recommended that all the users who downloaded the wallet from their website between Nov. 18, 2:30 AM UTC and 4:30 PM UTC, to check the hashes of their binaries to know whether they correspond with the official ones.

If the hashes don’t match the official ones, the users were encouraged to delete the files and download them again. The officials strongly warned users never to run the compromised binaries under any reason/circumstance.

To know the authenticity of their binaries, advanced users are told to use Linux, Mac, or Windows command line to verify them while beginners were told to use Windows. This would help them know when there are possible differences.

Image Via Shutterstock

Partner at Proof of Capital Presumes That China’s Digital Currency Could Go Live in No Time

In her view, Edith Yeung, fund manager, and partner at Proof of Capital, a blockchain-based venture capital fund, presumed that the Chinese Government could launch their digital currency, virtual yuan, in no distant time, assumably, within the next six to twelve months.

While speaking to reporters at East Tech West conference in the Nansha district of Guangzhou in China on Wednesday, Yeung stated that China has been working on creating its digital currency for the past few years.

“So I think definitely within the next 6-12 months,” she excitedly presumed. Yeung maintained that even though the US dollar remains the major global currency, the upcoming Chinese yuan has the possible potential to challenge it.

Yeung then said that she believed the Chinese government is being quite strategic in bringing about the adoption of the digital Yuan, which would make many countries to want to work with China.

“I think the Chinese government is being really smart about driving the adoption of RMB (renminbi, another name for the Chinese yuan),” Yeung said. “Can you imagine, especially for the One Belt One Road initiative, they (start) to lend all in virtual RMB? Many of these countries will want to work with China to start adopting virtual RMB.”

She then offered the United States to come up with better policies and strategies that will lead to the creation of a digital dollar. “I really think that the United States needs to hurry up to have strong thinking and policy, at least a direction for virtual USD,” she said.

Image via Shutterstock

Amun AG Obtained Approval from Swedish Regulator for ETP Offerings in EU

A press release issued early December confirms the approval given to Amun AG for a Base Prospectus it has filed with Swedish finance regulator, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (SFSA). The regulatory approval has allowed the firm to promote its various exchange-traded products to retail clients within the EU. The president of Amun AG, Ophelia Snyder adds, ‘We recognize that the regulatory framework in Sweden has been supportive of such initiatives and we welcome its deliberation.”

Furthermore, Snyder’s belief is that “The combination of strong demand for ETPs in Sweden – especially in crypto assets – among private investors and institutional clients and our strong expertise in these product categories create ideal conditions for Amun’s entry into the Swedish and European Union markets for ETPs.” Equally, Cointelegraph reported, “Amun has played a crucial role in the expansion of Switzerland’s crypto offerings both internationally and domestically.”

Image via Shutterstock

Alternatives of USDT Gained Wider Merchant Access including Microsoft

BitPay, the blockchain payments processor, now supports three stablecoins, namely, Circle’s USD, the Gemini Dollar, and Paxos Standard Token. This will allow over 30,000 merchants, including Microsoft and Avnet to accept payments in these three stablecoins.

Essentially, BitPay’s users, alongside its prepaid cardholders will have the choice to spend the above – mentioned stablecoins through supported merchants. Stephen Pair, the co-founder of BitPay, adds, “Businesses can invoice international customers without the need for costly, complicated cross-border wire transfers.

Customers can send and receive payments using fast, efficient, and volatility free dollar-pegged stablecoins”. At present, BitPay supports Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ether payments but will be looking to incorporate XRP cryptocurrency on its platform, following on from their partnership with Ripple’s developer program ‘XSpring.’

Image via Shutterstock

Bakkt Announces the Promotion of the Company’s Former Chief Product Officer to CEO

The futures exchange company, Bakkt, also owned by the Intercontinental Exchange, has replaced its CEO, and promoted Mike Blandina, from his previous position as Chief Product Officer. The announcement was through an official press release, and Blandina has already begun the transition into the new role since Dec. 20th. This change of position was vital as the company’s former CEO, Kelly Loeffler is due to commence her appointed position of United States senate. Blandina’s experience is vast as he has previously worked with giant firms such as Google and PayPal.

ICE’s chairman has expressed confidence in the newly appointed CEO and believes he will be ‘responsible for steering the company on its road to excellence.’ To quote accurately, “As CEO, Mike will chart Bakkt’s strategic direction, payment products, and markets, as well as overseeing the regulatory and financial performance of the company. His more than 25 years of experience across product, engineering, strategy, and operations will continue to serve us well.”

In its early stages, Bakkt was facing slow growth but since, has quickly regained itself and set new records. In the press release, it also states how at present, Bakkt has reached 6,226 Bitcoin futures contracts, showing 25% more growth than its records.

Image via Shutterstock

Telegram Resists the SEC Court Order to Reveal Financial Details of 2018 ICO

A recent court filing initiated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) compels Telegram to reveal bank records and other transactional documents showing how the raised funds have been used in the last two years.The filing stated: “Plaintiff respectfully moves to compel Defendants to answer questions and provide documents regarding the amounts, sources, and use of funds raised from investors in connection with the unregistered sale of securities at issue in this case, Defendants are now refusing to disclose the bank records concerning how they have spent the $1.7 billion they raised from investors in the past two years and to answer questions about the disposition of investor funds.”

In the early sale rounds in 2018, Telegram raised $1.7 billion for the development of its TON blockchain. It is worth noting that the company advised investors against participating in the rounds, yet many of them were able to access the tokens through external parties before the launch of Telegram’s blockchain.The SEC summoned the company to court for alleged claims that the tokens fell under the category of securities, which the company failed to make known to the regulators. As a result of this lawsuit, the company has equally been compelled to delay the release of its blockchain launch.

Image via Shutterstock

Baidu's Enterprise Blockchain Network Initiates Service for Developers and SMEs to Build Dapps

According to a Chinese media report, the reputed internet giant Baidu launched a blockchain-based service to aid developers as well as small to medium enterprises (SMEs) wanting to set up decentralized applications. The name of this new service roughly translates to ‘Open Network’ and will give access to users to develop and utilize applications without the need to create their own blockchain platforms. This initiative is a part of Baidu’s enterprise blockchain network, Xuperchain, which focuses on attracting smaller users dealing with lower cost and technological limitations.

Initiatives such as this are in accordance with the Chinese government’s adoption of blockchain technology and its usage throughout smaller businesses within the country. As for the costs, the new service could be valued as low as 1 Chinese Yuan (the equivalent of US $0.14) and will be under a quantity-based fee structure until March.

Additionally, the process has been made more understandable to customers by creating smart contracts templates to use and other components which will increase efficiency. It is worth noting that the Xuperchain network has approximately 3.5 million users and over 450 million processed transactions.

Image via Fortune