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Unlicensed Bitcoin Exchange Operator Faces Up to 5 Years in Prison in the US

William Green, a 46-year-old American citizen of New Jersey has been indicted on one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business through his website, Destination Bitcoin.

In a press release by the Department of Justice stated that Green was involved in the business of selling over $2 million worth of Bitcoin through his unlicensed money transmitting business. He received money from his customers, which he then deposited into bank accounts under his name. Green later converted the money he received into Bitcoin and charged his customers for a fee.

According to the US federal law, any individual who owns or controls money transmitting business must register with the Secretary of Treasury including when Bitcoin is sold for cash. This applies to all involved businesses whether or not the business is licensed as a money transmitting business in any state in the U.S.

The charges for Green’s alleged crimes of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Green is set to appear before the U.S district judge but the date has not been set.

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Polish Crypto Exchange BitMarket Co-Owner Found Dead

Polish Cryptocurrency Exchange BitMarket Co-Founder, Tobiasz Niemiro has been found dead, as reported by the local news outlet Radio Olsztyn on 25 July.

According to the local news, Niemiro was found dead in the city of Olsztyn near his residence, it was suggested that Niemiro had committed suicide. The local police stated that they found a wound in his skull, and the authorities claimed that they are still investigating the death case of Niemiro.

BitMarket had ceased its operation in early July. When trying to access the exchange website, users were greeted with the following message:

“Dear Users, We regret to inform you that due to the loss of liquidity, since July 8, Bitmarket.pl/net was forced to cease its operations. We will inform you about further steps.”

Niemiro told Money.pl during an interview that he fell victim to the exchange collapse incident. He said “I lost everything because somebody led to the collapse of the stock exchange. Now I’m losing face and good name for which I’ve worked all my life. I am one of the victims.”

Images via Shutterstock and Wyborcza.pl

Bitfinex and Tether's Appeal Rejected by New York Judge

Earlier this year, the New York Attorney General’s office has made allegations against Bitfinex of using up Tether’s cash reserves in April 2019. The accusations were made regarding the cryptocurrency exchange of losing $850 million, and thereafter taking funds from Tether’s reserves to cover the loss. The NYAG office started to investigate iFinex Inc, the company was registered in the BVI and owns both Bitfinex and Tether.

In a press release by New York Attorney General Letitia James, she stated:

“Our investigation has determined that the operators of the ‘Bitfinex’ trading platform, who also control the ‘tether’ virtual currency, have engaged in a cover-up to hide the apparent loss of $850 million dollars of co-mingled client and corporate funds. New York state has led the way in requiring virtual currency businesses to operate according to the law. And we will continue to stand up for investors and seek justice on their behalf when misled or cheated by any of these companies.”

The lawyers of Bitfinex and Tether asked Judge Joel Cohen of the New York Supreme Court to dismiss the case, the main argument is that both firms do not have any clients in the state of New York. It was later on revealed that on July 10, the Metropolitan Commercial Bank of New York shut down accounts associated with Tether.

Photo: Judge Cohen

Judge Cohen reportedly decided to give a 90-day extension to the case, which will give the New York Attorney General’s office to continue investigating. Judge Cohen also dismissed Bitfinex and Tether’s motion to appeal after the ruling.

The Government is Taking Action on Bitfinex, Who’s Next?

Judge Cohen image via Law.com, thumbnail image via Shutterstock

CertiK Announces the Completion of British Pound Backed Stablecoin on Binance

In a report by a blogging site, CertiK had announced it had completed an audit on the British pound backed stable coin on the biggest cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance, the BGBP. In an interview with Bloomberg some weeks ago the CFO of Binance Wei Zhou, had given hints about the exchange’s plan to issue its own stable coin.

According to the Exchangers representative, the token was going to be referred to as Binance GBP and was going to be fully backed by British pounds reserves. He also stated that in the nearest future more fiat currency backed stablecoins would be introduced on the platform.

After the completion of the verification process by CertiK and absolutely ensuring there are no vulnerabilities within the system they made a tweet on their twitter handle to this effect. BGBP being a dual-issue token was created on both the Ethereum (ERC-20) and Binance (BEP2) Chains. The Binance GBP is currently trading on the Binance.com and Binance.je exchanges.

Follow up: Almost 300,000 Addresses Hit in Binance Dusting Attack Launched Against Litecoin

Cryptocurrency exchange giant Binance had alleged that a dusting attack had been launched on Litecoin (LTC). Being the fourth-largest altcoin, this had gained substantial attention amongst cryptocurrency proponents.

The exchange had made a statement through a tweet on their social media account, on August 9, claiming that there had been a significant attack on the altcoin the previous day: “Approximately 5 hours ago, there was a large-scale dusting attack on $LTC @Litecoin users.”

This tweet had linked this attack with a previous transaction that involved sending a fraction of Litecoin (0.00000546 LTC which is approximately 0.04 cents at the time of this report) of a coin to 50 addresses.

Furthermore, the tweet issued by the Exchange also explained the concept behind a dusting attack by saying:

“A dusting attack refers to a relatively new kind of malicious activity where hackers and scammers try and break the privacy of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency users by sending tiny amounts of coins to their personal wallets.”

Co-founder of blockchain data provider Glassnode, Jan Happel had taken a thorough look into the situation and to ascertain the level of damage done. Although the Exchange had stated that only 50 wallets were attacked, Happel was of the impression that the extent of the attack was much more than that, as almost 300,000 LTC addressed was said to have shown signs of dusting. It was also discovered that this wasn’t the first time this kind of attack was launched, as it had occurred earlier this year in April according to a report.

Happel said:

“We have done a quick query into the LTC blockchain and analyzed the number of utxo’s that carry a smaller value than the mean tx fee that day. If a UTXO contains less balance than the minimum amount required to spend it (fee) that day, it becomes stuck/unspendable — this is what we technically define as dust.”

The graph shown in the tweet from Glassnode below was quite explicit on the details of the volume of the attack.

Source: glassnode

A plot to track down owners of accounts

The end game in this kind of attack as explained in this article is to be able to trace the identity of the owners of the wallets involved, through their transactional activities.

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BTI Report Reveals Kraken and Coinbase as the Cleanest Crypto Exchanges

The September issue of the Blockchain Transparency Institute’s market surveillance report shows that the cryptocurrency exchange volumes of Kraken and Coinbase are the cleanest in the industry.

The institute is also primarily responsible for filtering these volumes through its proprietary algorithm.

“Since the start of 2019, global wash trading has reduced by 35.7% among the real Top-40 exchanges. The process of sharing our data reports with many of these exchanges has resulted in enhanced mechanisms for detecting wash trading accounts and shutting them down.”

Evidence in the report reveals that the cleanest exchanges continue to stand with Kraken, Coinbase, Poloniex, and Upbit. In contrast, the exchanges with the highest rates of wash trading are: OKEx and Bibox.

Globally, the report shows that Japan and the United States are in the lead of exchanges with accurate volume reporting. The report claims:

“This can be due to several factors, the main of which is the legal and regulatory standards in these countries. However, stricter regulatory frameworks do not always produce the cleanest exchanges.”

Bitwise Asset Management published Bitcoin trading figures and admitted up to 95% of Bitcoin trading volume was due to wash trading.  

In a report published earlier this year by Bitwise Asset Management, revealed that up to 95% of Bitcoin trading volume seen on CoinMarketCap was due to wash trading.

Bittrex Leverages Chainalysis KYT Tool to Enhance Security and Regulation Compliance

Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex will use Chainalysis Know Your Transaction (KYT) to meet new and existing regulatory and compliance standards, and establish a safer, more secure platform for their users.

Yesterday, Chainalysis Inc. announced the deployment of its real-time transaction monitoring software solution to the US-based blockchain trading platform Bittrex.

Enhanced Compliance

Chainalysis KYT software enhances the compliance and transparency of cryptocurrency exchanges, like Bittrex, by monitoring large volumes of cryptocurrency activity and identifying high-risk transactions on a continuous basis, feeding the exchange more accurate data on each of their users. By leveraging the software, businesses can identify transactions that require the most immediate attention utilizing real-time data with alerts and filters for levels of risk exposure.

“As our business continues to grow, having a thorough and reliable transaction monitoring system in place is crucial in demonstrating our commitment to compliance,” said Bill Shihara, CEO, Bittrex. “Chainalysis KYT is an important tool in having an effective anti-money laundering program by helping us prevent, detect, and address unlawful behavior.”Earlier this year, Chainalysis expanded Chainalysis KYT, its anti-money laundering (AML) compliance solution, to cover the most popular cryptocurrencies, including Ether, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, top stablecoins and ERC-20 tokens such as Tether, Maker, and Dai, with additional cryptocurrencies coming soon.

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Swiss SIX Exchange Launches Bitcoin and Ether Exchange-Traded Product

Fintech firm, Amun and crypto custodian Bitcoin Suisse and announced today of the launch of its Swiss Franc denominated Amun Bitcoin Suisse BTC/ETH exchange-traded product (ETP). This ETP, a combination of Bitcoin and Ether, has gone live on the Swiss stock exchange, SIX.

The launch of the ETP will allow Swiss investors to add BTC and ETH to their portfolios. The composition of the ETP is 90% BTC and 10% ETH. Trading on SIX, the ETP is under the ABBA ticker symbol.

As described by Amun AG, “this physically-backed ETP is fully collateralized, which means that for every Bitcoin and Ether bought for the ETP, there will be an equal corresponding crypto amount stored securely in the Bitcoin Suisse Vault.”

Hany Rashwan, the co-founder and CEO of Amun, stated that the product had been designed specifically for the Swiss by the Swiss to address the need for a Swiss Franc (CHF)-denominated ETP. He said,

“It represents a unique way for investors to add the two major cryptocurrencies globally to their portfolio via a regulated product listed on SIX and backed by a Swiss-based custodian.”

Post-launch, Amun AG has added the seventh cryptocurrency ETP listed on the Swiss SIX exchange.

SDX sets up a global consortium for its initial digital offering in 2020

The Swiss Digital Exchange (SDX) has been reportedly setting up a global consortium of financial institutions for its plan to launch its initial digital offering (IDO) in 2020.

The IDO was explained to be similar to a traditional initial public offering, although the shares will be issued in the form of security tokens on SDX. The launch of the SDX was postponed to Q4 of 2020.

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Sofi Launches Into Cryptocurrency Trading with Sofi Trading

The existence and relevance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have stirred interest from different businesses across various sectors. Over the past few years, those interested have seen several innovative strides, inventions and blockchain-based solutions that are bridging the gap between financial services and income accrual the world over.

A recent launch into blockchain was announced by Sofi, a financial service provider specialized in brokering stocks and promoting Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Sofi now has a trading inclusion through which cryptocurrency assets can be traded.

The cryptocurrencies in question are offered through Sofi Digital Assets, LLC. The Sofi Crypto trading debut is one of its kind in that it is the world’s first trading platform to incorporate Stocks, ETFs and Crypto all in one platform. Sofis new novel cryptocurrency trading service empowers prospective customers to:

1. Learn about the Sofi model for cryptocurrency trading no matter your skill level;

2. Protect their investment as SoFi secures all crypto holdings from fraud or theft; and,

3. Help bolster learning on the go while being open to risks and how to turn them into strength.

Offered with the announcement of the Crypto trading option on the Sofi network is a $25 bonus offer is up for grabs for every $10 first trading done on the platform.

The success of the Sofi Crypto trading initiative is contingent upon the over 800,000 investors using the platform as well as others that would key into the opportunities.

While this may seem like a long shot, it is better seen as a positive projection as these new innovations are what would drive many people into adopting cryptocurrencies and all these alternative financial offers in the near future.

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Stealth Now Live on Altilly Crypto Exchange

The CEO of Altilly, Nayiem Willem announced on Oct.10, “we’re pleased to have Stealth (XST) join our exchange platform.” Willem added further noting Stealths strength as a formidable coin:

“As a well-established coin on their own chain, we believe that Stealth is a great addition to the markets we offer.”

The integration of Stealth XST coin is a welcome development and it’s projected to boost the trading activities on the Altilly platform.

Stealth provides the fastest cryptographically private digital currency possible. The Stealth blockchain provides almost instant transactions with absolute privacy protection using state of the art cryptography combined with streamlined blockchain execution. This new technology is called Quantum proof of stake qPoS.

Stealth is projected to be integrated into more exchange platforms once the full release of Junaeth, a new variant of qPoS has been achieved.

With Altilly, a Swedish based digital trading platform that boasts of fast and secure transactions owing to the deployment of cutting edge technology in the development of its protocols. Altilly has streamlined the cryptocurrency listing process in order to provide the means to reach more markets, a mission that aligns with Stealth push to be the number one private cryptocurrency in the world as properly described on its website,

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