Russian Mining Giant to Tokenize Palladium

Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin is planning to create cryptocurrency tokens backed by palladium, Bloomberg reported on March 27. Potanin — who is CEO of the Russian nickel and palladium mining and smelting company MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC (Nornickel) — plans to deploy cryptocurrency tokens for trading palladium through a Switzerland-based palladium fund, and wants to launch several digital platforms. According to Bloomberg, the platform will enable more fluid transactions. Currently, should a buyer discover that they do not need all the contracted volume in a purchase, they must either renegotiate…

Former QuadrigaCX Attorney Claims Crypto Exchange Was Sent Down Path of “Lawlessness”

The story of the now defunct QuadrigaCX crypto exchange has captivated the entire cryptocurrency industry over the past couple of months, as it has been filled with absurd revelations and strange twists that seem more akin to the plot of a movie rather than a real-life occurrence. Now, QuadrigaCX’s former regulatory attorney is speaking up about her time working for the exchange, describing the company’s descent down a path of “lawlessness” that resulted in Gerald Cotten – QuadrigaCX’s CEO and founder – terminating all employees who he considered to be…

Crypto Gift Cards Can Now Be Used For Reservations on Airbnb

Digital gift cards and mobile phone refill provider Bitrefill has added an option to make Airbnb reservations with cryptocurrency, Bitrefill announced in al tweet on March 27. Per the announcement, customers can now pay for their bookings with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dash (DASH), Litecoin (LTC), and Dogecoin (DOGE). The card is technically a voucher product, meaning that customers purchase a U.S. dollar equivalent for Airbnb with cryptocurrencies and subsequently receive a voucher code to use on the platform. As such, Airbnb itself does not accept or handle the cryptocurrency.…

Blockchain Researchers Say Bitcoin Exchange Lost At Least $105 Million

As CCN recently reported, CoinBene has clearly said that no hack has taken place. However, Elementus’ Max Galka believes that a recent, sizable fund movement from CoinBene to several other exchanges is evidence of the opposite. CoinBene wrote in a blog post today: CoinBene will periodically announce the upgrade and maintenance, and please pay attention to the announcement in time. Please understand that the inconvenience caused during the upgrade and maintenance period. Thank you for your understanding and support! Hack or No Hack? Blockchains Don’t Lie They tweeted this yesterday:…

Ex-QuadrigaCX Lawyer Exposes Bitcoin Exchange’s Descent into ‘Lawlessness’

By CCN.com: QuadrigaCX had a long and successful run as Canada’s top Bitcoin exchange. Former counsel to the exchange, Christine Duhaime, says in a blog post at Coindesk that the company was among the only exchanges to publicly publish audits or obtain cold storage insurance. Both choices were laudable and rare among exchanges in 2015, when she was fired after six months of providing advice on regulatory issues. She says CEO Gerald Cotten wanted to move away from being a publicly listed company and shook out all the “law and…

Ex-QuadrigaCX Lawyer Exposes Bitcoin Exchange’s Descent into ‘Lawlessness’

By CCN.com: QuadrigaCX had a long and successful run as Canada’s top Bitcoin exchange. Former counsel to the exchange, Christine Duhaime, says in a blog post at Coindesk that the company was among the only exchanges to publicly publish audits or obtain cold storage insurance. Both choices were laudable and rare among exchanges in 2015, when she was fired after six months of providing advice on regulatory issues. She says CEO Gerald Cotten wanted to move away from being a publicly listed company and shook out all the “law and…

India to Use Blockchain to Improve Coffee Supply Chain

The Coffee Board of India has launched a pilot blockchain-based e-marketplace in order to integrate coffee farmers with markets. The development was announced by Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MCI) on March 28. The Coffee Board — an organization backed by the MCI to promote coffee production in India —  has rolled out an e-marketplace for coffee producers in order to reduce the number of intermediaries between coffee growers and buyers. The product will reportedly be delivered in the form of an application and aims to improve transparency and…

Decred

The Decred project was started in 2016 by Company 0 and launched its mainnet soon after. It was led by Jake Yocom-Piatt and other software developers who previously contributed to btcsuite. It forked bitcoin to enable a hybrid consensus system combining Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) into the novel Proof-of-Activity (PoA). The goal was to better organize the develop and decentralization of a cryptocurrency. 60% of block rewards goes to miners and 30% goes to stakeholders to allow for checks and balances. The final 10% is a subsidy to an…

Stellar Swept Mammoth Inflation Bug Under the Rug

By CCN.com: A bug in the code for Stellar – the eighth-largest cryptocurrency – allowed an attacker to generate 2.25 billion lumens in April 2017 successfully. Stellar quietly patched the bug in version in 0.6.2, released in May of that year. The only note about the inflation bug reads: “fix inflation bug that would calculate the wrong amount under rare circumstances” The Most Muted Response to an Inflation Attack in the History of Crypto Stellar claims it responsibly disclosed the inflation bug, but the hard truth is they tried to…

14% of Major Crypto Exchanges Are Licensed by Regulators

Only 14 percent of 216 global crypto exchanges were confirmed as being licensed by regulators, regulatory technology (regtech) startup Coinfirm found in its crypto exchange risk report released on March 27. Coinfirm, а London–based regulatory tech firm for digital currencies and blockchain, studied 216 global cryptocurrency exchanges to outline the key risks that can be associated with each platform, as well as to assist monitors in developing necessary regulatory frameworks. The analyzed exchanges reportedly represent more than 90 percent of global crypto market activity. In the study, Coinfirm evaluated the…