Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By Moris Beracha .-  The bitcoins and the main cryptocurrencies in the market were designed with some important security patterns, which make them quite difficult to steal. The fundamental aspects of cryptocurrencies include protecting user privacy, avoiding asset theft and avoiding harmful practices such as double spending. However, there are some failures that are sought out by hackers, which allow them to take over and empty some accounts, leaving losses, in some cases, of thousands or millions of dollars. According to the Bit2me cryptocurrency and blockchain academy, about a billion US dollars in Bitcoin have been stolen to date. They recall the thefts in Mt Gt I and II, for a total of 769,408 bitcoins; the 173,655 bitcoins seized by the FBI when closing Silk Road; the robbery known as “Pony” Botnet, which stands out due to the number of machines involved, and which amounted to a total of US $ 220,000 in various types of cryptocurrencies th...

By Leigh Cuen Bitcoin wallet and blockchain explorer provider  Blockchain just launched its first exchange platform. Blockchain’s head of retail products, TD Ameritrade alum Nicole Sherrod, told CoinDesk the custodial exchange, called The PIT , can connect to non-custodial Blockchain wallets for nearly instant transfers. Registration opens today, with the ability to trade up to 26 assets rolling out over the next two weeks. Sherrod said that with nearly 40 million wallets already created – and an exchange matching-engine set up in London’s Equinix LD4 data center – PIT could be posed to attract more liquidity than competitors. “That’s what market makers are looking for,” Sherrod said. “They want to co-locate [data center servers] with you, they want to directly connect to your matching engine. It’s the way it’s done on Wall Street.” Indeed, Tom Haller, previously the chief software architect for trading systems at the New York Stock Exchange, co...

By Adrian Zmudzinski Youniqx Identity AG, a subsidiary of the Austrian State Printing House, has developed a cryptocurrency hardware wallet, reveals a press release published on July 29. Per the report, the hardware wallet — named Chainlock — enables the offline storage of private keys allowing access to cryptocurrency wallets. The device is reportedly capable of generating the private key, and is also water and heat resistant. The wallet in question will be available via the firm’s partners, including Tokenize Exchange in Singapore and Coinfinity in Central Europe. The release further claims that the Austrian State Printing House is specialized in identity document manufacturing that “implements and offers personalisation solutions for identity documents such as the highly secure Austrian passport.” The printing house has been active in document management for over two-hundred years. As Cointelegraph recently reported, Daimler, the German multi...

By Ana Alexandre     The operator of now-defunct Bitcoin ( BTC ) exchange BitFunder, Jon Montroll, has received a 14 months prison sentence following federal charges of obstruction of justice and securities fraud , finance and trading industry news outlet FinanceFeeds reported on July 12. The proceedings against Montroll began last year. In July 2018, Montroll pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, admitting that he provided false balance statements to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in an investigation of the fake 6,000 BTC BitFunder hack in 2013. The proceedings against Montroll ended on July 11, 2019, wherein Judge Richard M. Berman of the New York Southern District Court ruled to imprison Montroll for 14 months and determined 3 years of supervised release. Although Montroll’s counsel argued in favour of a probationary sentence, the government made a case for a sentence from 27 to 33 months’ imprisonment. Recentl...

By Vildana Hajric   While U.S. lawmakers zero in on Facebook Inc.’s ambitious plan to upend the global financial system via its cryptocurrency project, technical indicators are flashing major warning signals when it comes to the price of digital assets. Based on the GTI VERA convergence-divergence indicator, the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index -- which tracks some of the largest digital assets and is comprised 30% of Bitcoin -- received its first sell signal since early June. The indicator detects positive and negative trends, and the last time it flashed a warning sign on June 4, the index fell about 10% in one trading session.  It’s been a volatile month for crypto assets. Prices surged in June after Facebook announced plans to launch its own digital coin called Libra, which the company hopes will one day trade much like the dollar. The launch added to optimism that digital assets are becoming more widely adopted by mainstream instituti...

By Max Boddy The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) outlined regulatory compliance issues for cryptocurrency custodians in an announcement on July 8. According to the joint statement, the organizations have yet to discover a set of circumstances in which a crypto custodian could comply with the SEC’s Customer Protection Rule, which is described as follows: “Put simply, the Customer Protection Rule requires broker-dealers to safeguard customer assets and to keep customer assets separate from the firm’s assets, thus increasing the likelihood that customers’ securities and cash can be returned to them in the event of the broker-dealer’s failure.” The report further claims that a crypto custody service may not be able to sufficiently demonstrate that it actually controls the assets it purports to hold. The SEC and FINRA discuss how simply holding a private key, for instance, is not sufficient to demons...

By Helen Partz European crypto exchange Bitstamp has set up its own Lightning Network (LN) node to boost the network’s capabilities, the company tweeted on July 8. As a second layer over the blockchain of the biggest cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), the LN is designed to enable fast and zero-fee transactions by creating payment channels between users. Specifically, the network aims to address bitcoin’s scalability problem by keeping the majority of transactions off-chain. By launching its own LN node, Bitstamp aims to promote the growth of the network, as well as encourage the crypto industry to adopt the technology, the firm wrote in an official announcement. Bitstamp said that bringing more nodes to the LN will keep the network active, describing the nodes as its basic building units. As more nodes generate payment channels, the total network liquidity increases, which in turn increases the transactions capabilities on the network, Bitstamp explained. Most recently, LN ser...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s markets watchdog is proposing banning the sale of derivatives based on crypto-assets to retail consumers from early 2020 due to what it considers the prevalence of market abuses. Prices of crypto-assets - which include currencies like bitcoin as well as tokens representing other tradeable assets - are very volatile, and there is a lack of a clear investment need for products referencing them, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Wednesday. The FCA “considers these products are ill-suited to retail consumers who cannot reliably assess the value and risks of derivatives or exchange traded notes (ETNs) that reference certain crypto-assets,” it said in a statement on its public consultation on the proposed ban. Such a blanket ban on crypto derivatives will force customers to use unregulated providers offering less protection, said Jake Green, a financial regulatory partner at law firm Ashurst. “The real question is whether the FCA is sho...

By  Daniel Kuhn    Monarch, una plataforma de billetera e intercambio, lanzó un mercado de activos digitales para admitir 1,900 fichas separadas. La compañía también anunció una asociación con el proveedor de servicios financieros Ambisafe para crear un sistema de comercio alternativo con licencia que permitirá la inversión en entidades de token.  Según la compañía, se ofrecerá un token previo a la IPO para SpaceX, que representa acciones privadas de la compañía aeroespacial, en el ATS. Monarch Marketplace consolida una serie de servicios que incluyen una cartera descentralizada, un intercambio ERC20, un rastreador de cartera y la integración de KYC universal en una plataforma que también permite servicios financieros como compras de crédito de criptomoneda y ofrece una tasa de interés anual (APR) del 7.1 por ciento en las tenencias de criptografías. El presidente de Monarch, Robert Beadles, espera que el conjunto de aplicaciones de su compañía opti...

Bitcoin fell nearly $2,000 in a matter of minutes in a sharp crash, a reminder of the cryptocurrency’s volatility even as it has soared this month to its highest level since last year’s boom-and-bust cycle. In late New York trading hours on Wednesday, bitcoin fell from $13,850 to under $11,900 in under an hour, according to Refinitiv data. That took some of the sheen off a rally that has seen bitcoin jump from just over $5,000 at the beginning of May, evoking memories of the cryptocurrency’s last boom-and-bust cycle. By Thursday morning in London bitcoin was tumbling again and trading at around $11,500. Some attributed the slump to a brief shutdown of Coinbase, a San Francisco-based platform which is among the most popular of cryptocurrency exchanges. But Alistair Milne, chief investment officer of the Altana Digital Currency Fund, said that the rapid correction was “inevitable — you simply don’t go up this quickly and sustain it forever, followed by consolidation”. ...

by Vijaya Bharti  Russian Finance Ministry Shows Hope for Crypto Trading in the Country Russian Finance Ministry considers the allowing of crypto trading, a representative of the ministry reveals. As per the report, Alexei Moiseyev, the Deputy Minister of Finance, tells the status of crypto trading in Russia. He said that the ministry has not yet reached the final decision. As a result, crypto trading might be possible in Russia. Previously, a bill surfaced in the ministry on circulation of digital currencies in the Russian Federation. The bill prohibited the utilization of crypto assets as a payment method. The bill surfaced in May this year. Similarly, Anatoly Aksakov is the Duma Financial Committee’s head. He calls the decision which is yet pending as a compromise. Additionally, he points out that the country Russia will adopt a bill in favour of cryptocurrencies. Precisely, FATF is the Financial Action Task Force recommending Russia to adopt the bill. The b...

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 Kore...

By Daniel Palmer Canada-based messaging app firm Kik has launched a crypto crowdfunding campaign to support a likely court battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). Announced by Kik founder and CEO Ted Livingston and Patrick Gibbs, a partner at law firm Cooley LLP, on the UnChained Podcast Tuesday, the campaign is being launched in the hopes that “a lawsuit would eventually result in a new Howey test for crypto tokens, to determine which ones are a security.” A dedicated website – dubbed Defend Crypto – has already been set up allowing supporters to contribute to the fundraising effort, that its founders say is not only in support of Kik but many crypto firms that face potential action from the U.S. regulator. The site offers donation options in 19 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and XRP, as well as less standard options like augur (REP), DAI and, of course, Kik’s kin (KIN) token. ...

Cryptocurrency is taking another step towards the mainstream as mobile carrier AT&T announced it would accept payments in crypto today, according to a  release from the company. Customers can pay their mobile bills via BitPay when they pay online or in app. BitPay is one of the largest cryptocurrency payment processing firms, processing bitcoin transactions. AT&T hasn't gone all in on crypto yet, as of now the option to pay through BitPay is only extended to bill transactions. Though the move may seem positive for crypto users, Joe McCann, a former crypto hedge fund  manager at Passport Capital, told The Block the move seemed to come out of left field and speculated that perhaps the company has internal data showing more millennials utilizing crypto payments. "What upside does AT&T have in supporting crypto payments?" he asked. McCann's questions of internal data may not be off-base, as Kevin McDorman, vice president, AT...

By Harare Bureau BLOCKCHAIN technology can help enhance transparency, efficiency and grow investor confidence in Zimbabwe’s fledgling capital markets, experts say. The technology, which underpins crypto-currencies like bitcoin, is temper-proof. Its decentralised nature allows for financial transactions to be traced throughout the payment process by anyone with a computer or smartphone with internet connection. These characteristics have meant that blockchain technology is now being adapted for use in several spheres including the supply chain, banking, financial markets and even voting, to curb fraud while improving transparency. Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) chief executive Justin Bgoni told our Harare Bureau that the exchange is open to exploring how it can harness Blockchain technology in the near future although there is still no regulatory clarity on the matter. Mr Bgoni spoke about introducing blockchain-based new products and services such as real estate ...

By Yogita Khatri Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it is revamping security measures after losing some 7,000 bitcoin worth over $40 million in a hack earlier this week. “Significant” changes related to its application programming interface (API), two-factor authentication (2FA) and withdrawal validation are being made, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a blog post published on Friday. The exchange did not disclose more details regarding these efforts, but said it is also improving its risk management and know-your-customer procedures to fight phishing, among other additional security measures at the back-end. Binance will take action of some of the measures within this week and in the coming weeks in order to resume services at the earliest, according to the post. Zhao said tentatively, the exchange is looking to resume withdrawals and deposits “early next week.” Binance will also be adding support for hardware-based 2FA devices such as YubiKey “very soon,”...

By Inside Bitcoins Ali Raza | This period is clearly one of the most exciting for the crypto world. Even electronic payment behemoth PayPal is also getting in on some crypto action. It was PayPal’s chief financial officer John Rainey who made the startling revelations in an interview with Yahoo! Finance. Even though the payment giant is also devoting some resources to the development of cryptocurrency, Rainey stated that digital currency is not going to be their major priority for now. He thinks there is still more to be done regarding universal acceptance for digital assets before they can fully roll out buy crypto with PayPal . Bitcoin is Under Consideration Even though other big brands like Fidelity were putting in a lot of resources into crypto investments, PayPal had kept many in suspense by almost ignoring the booming sector. This is despite the fact that Rainey said that PayPal actually included Bitcoin as one of their payment alternatives for merchants...