Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By  Daniel Palmer Russian hackers, not North Korean, may be the bad actors behind probably the biggest ever theft from a cryptocurrency exchange. Japanese newspaper  Asahi Shimbun  reports Monday that virus variants known to be linked to Russian hackers have been found on employee computers at the Tokyo-based Coincheck exchange. Coincheck  suffered a breach  in January 2018 that resulted in the loss of 500 million NEM tokens worth around $530 million at the time – an amount even bigger than that  lost by Mt. Gox . According to the report, the malware found at the exchange had been emailed to employees and included types called Mokes and Netwire, which allow malicious distributors to gain access to victims’ machines and operate them remotely. Mokes apparently first appeared on a Russian bulletin board in 2011, while Netwire has been around for 12 years. The Coincheck hack has previously  been linked  with North Korea. In a report last February, South Korea’s National I

By Nicholas Say  Latin America (LatAm) has a complex monetary history. Today it represents one of the biggest potential markets for cryptos. Venezuela made headlines when it became the first major nation to introduce a sovereign crypto, though the Venezuelan Petro probably isn’t going to be used for much anytime soon. The reason why the Petro is a non-starter is the same reason why LatAm crypto use is likely to rise. LatAm governments are notoriously corrupt and have a long history of abusing their national financial systems. Today there is more monetary trouble brewing in LatAm. Venezuela introduced the Petro as a part of a Remonetisation, and there is rampant inflation across LatAm especially in Argentina. Cryptos offer people everywhere an option when it comes to how they make payments and store value. Cryptos Make Sense in Latin America Most of the countries in LatAm already have two financial systems. The state financial system is difficult to use, fi

By Helen Partz   Ethereum-based adult entertainment platform SpankChain has suffered a smart contract security breach that led to loss of around $38,000, the firm reported on its Medium page Oct. 9. The hack, which purportedly took place Oct. 6, was detected by SpankChain a day after, and was announced today in a post entitled “We Got Spanked: What We Know So Far.” Anonymous attackers managed to steal 165.38 Ethereum (ETH) or around $38,000 from the platform’s payment channel smart contract. Additionally, the security breach caused the immobilization of $4,000 worth of the SpankChain’s internal token called BOOTY. While most of lost or immobilized funds belong to SpankChain itself, the platform claimed that client reimbursements are of “immediate priority.” The company will shortly repay $9,300 worth of Ethereum and Booty coins directly to users’ SpankPay accounts via Ethereum airdrop. The SpankChain team has subsequently halted its camservice Spank.Liv

Daniel Palmer After news broke yesterday of yet another hack of a cryptocurrency exchange in Japan, the country's police authority has released figures revealing the rise in such attacks this year. According to a report from The Asahi Shimbun Thursday, the National Police Agency (NPA) has released data for the first six months of 2018 that reveal cyberattacks on crypto wallets and platforms tripled over the same period last year. The NPA said that, through 158 cyber-breaches, hackers had stolen a massive 60.503 billion yen (around $540 million) worth of cryptocurrency. That figure puts the total for January through June 2017 in the shade – a period when $5.9 million in cryptos was stolen in 149 cases of theft. As per the data, the majority of the losses for 2018's first half were stolen from exchange platforms, around $518 million. The remainder – just over $22 million – was taken from individuals' crypto wallets. In what should be a lesson for us all in what not to do