Day: August 16, 2019

US Customs and Border to Trial Blockchain Shipping Proof-of-Concept

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A United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) advisory committee, is planning to launch a live test of its blockchain-based intellectual property rights proof of concept. The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) will run its tests from late August to late September, per a report published on the CBP’s website. The COAC advises the Secretaries of the Department of the Treasury and Department of Homeland Security.  The announcement specifically comes by way of COAC’s Next Generation Facilitation Subcommittee, an entity comprised of four working groups that aim to improve…

How Coinbase Quietly Became the World’s Biggest Bitcoin Bank

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On August 15, the San Francisco-based digital currency exchange Coinbase announced that it had acquired the cryptocurrency custody service Xapo’s institutional branch. The business move puts Coinbase in the limelight, making it the largest custodial service for digital assets worldwide, with more than $7 billion under custody. Also Read: Hong Kong Protest Leader Hopes to Incite Run on Chinese Banks Coinbase Acquires Xapo’s Institutional Arm and Now Commands $7 Billion Worth of Digital Assets As early as 2010, Bitcoin supporters such as Hal Finney predicted that someday most BTC transactions…

FinCEN Director Addresses Casino Compliance With Obligations Regarding Crypto

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Kenneth A. Blanco, the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), has urged casinos to follow the agency’s guidelines in regards to suspicious convertible virtual currency (CVC) activity. During his speech at the 12th Annual Las Vegas Anti-Money Laundering Conference on Aug. 13, Blanco addressed casinos’ compliance with the FinCEN’s guidance released in May. In their guidance, the FinCEN considered certain business models involving CVC financial institutions to help them comply with their existing obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The guidance, however, did not establish any new…

Biggest Crypto Hedge Funds and What They Tell About the Market

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The total market cap for all cryptocurrencies stands at $293 billion, and while much of this value has been generated by individual traders buying and selling their own private stashes of crypto, it’s also largely the result of big investment funds. These are companies that have crypto assets under management worth as much as $1 billion or upward, with most of them qualifying as the whales the cryptocurrency community often talks about after every market movement. Yet, aside from simply trading Bitcoin, Ether or many other cryptocurrencies, funds also often invest venture…

Coinbase Accidentally Saves Unencrypted Passwords of 3,420 Customers

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Major crypto platform Coinbase has emailed 3,420 Coinbase customers to disclose an accident with customer registration. Some registration details were apparently stored in clear text on the logs of Coinbase’s internal server, with affected customers now required to change their passwords. Coinbase announced the news in an official blog post on Aug. 16. According to the announcement, Coinbase has resolved the root cause of the bug and the platform is confident that stored data was not “improperly accessed, misused, or compromised.”  Some users’ credentials were saved when a rare signup…

CoinGecko Joins AMLT Network to Combat Exchange Fraud, Scams, Hacks

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Crypto market aggregator CoinGecko has joined the network of blockchain analytics and anti-money laundering (AML) company Coinfirm. This partnership will reportedly allow CoinGecko to improve its exchange Trust Score algorithm, as well as provide users with a means to report scams and hacks. The companies shared a press release with Cointelegraph on Aug. 16. According to documentation from Coinfirm, the company runs the AMLT network that allows members to report cryptocurrency addresses tied to hacks, ransomware, scams and fraud. Coinfirm then blocks these users and funds across the AMLT network.…

The IRS has Words for Crypto Investors… Again: Tax Warnings

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The cryptocurrency industry may still be going strong, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had its share of problems. Nor does it mean everyone is a fan of virtual currencies. The IRS certainly isn’t, and crypto investors have learned that the hard way the past two months. Here’s what we know. IRS has Words for Crypto Investors At the start of last month, the IRS began mailing more than 10,000 crypto investors informing (well, it was more of a warning) that they may owe taxes on various cryptocurrency transactions. This…

Coinbase Reveals Password Glitch Affecting 3,500 Customers

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Crypto exchange Coinbase disclosed a potential vulnerability Friday, announcing that a tiny fraction of its customers’ passwords were stored in plain text on an internal server log. However, the information was not improperly accessed by outside parties, the exchange said. In a post-mortem shared with CoinDesk, Coinbase outlined “a password storage issue,” impacting less than 3,500 customers (out of more than 30 million worldwide) that briefly resulted in personal information, including the passwords, being stored in clear text on internal logging systems. “Under a very specific and rare error condition,…

Over 5 Million Merchants Throughout Thailand Now Accept Zcoin Payments

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Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcoin is now available for spending in Thailand at any merchant registered with the Thai QR code system through Satang App. According to an announcement published by Zcoin on Aug. 15, over 50 million users of Satang App can now use Zcoin at local merchants both in-store and online by scanning a QR code. The system instantly settles transactions and allows merchants to be paid in Thai Bhat via regulated exchange Satang Pro. Although the development is an important step in the mainstream adoption of digital currencies, Zcoin…

‘I Am Not Involved With Fight to Fame or Their Countdown Website’

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Disclaimer: This story is a follow-up to a piece published by Cointelegraph Aug. 13, which appears to be based on flawed sources and which should consequently be considered incorrect. American legendary professional boxer Mike Tyson has denied news putting forward his support for a blockchain-based platform for fighters dubbed Fight to Fame, which is allegedly a fraudulent scheme. In a tweet published on Aug. 14, Tyson said: “I am not involved with Fight to Fame or their countdown website, nor will I be involved with anything related to Fight to…