Day: January 2, 2020

Bitcoin Record Hash Rate Means Just One Thing – Buy

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As we have already reported, Bitcoin (BTC) was for sure the best profitable investment in 2019. If we compare it to “more traditional assets” it still seems we are right: • Nasdaq: +33.98 percent• S&P 500: +30.80 percent• Dow Jones: +24.23 percent• Gold: +17.83 percent• Bitcoin: +96.81 percent Also, the network hash rate once again breached previous records as well. When looking at the data from numerous monitoring resources – it is sure that the hash rate was at its highest on the first day of the new year. The…

Muir Glacier: Ethereum Hard Forks for Second Time in One Month

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Ethereum has completed its second hard fork in less than 30 days. With the mining of block 9,200,000, the Muir Glacier upgrade has been implemented on the network. The block was mined today at 8:30 UTC. As of press time, 92 percent of ethereum clients were synced with the new upgrade, according to Ethernodes. First proposed by EthHub’s Eric Conner in November as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 2384, Muir Glacier delays the “difficulty bomb” by 4 million blocks. With the delay, the difficulty bomb is expected to not “go off”…

Ledger Wallet User Allegedly Lost $16K to Malicious Browser Extension

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Twitter user and software architect WizardofAus (@BTCSchellingPt) has warned cryptocurrency holders against a Chrome extension for Ledger crypto wallets that allegedly contains malware. In a tweet posted on Jan 2., WizardofAus claimed that: “Malware Chrome extension alert. If you have “Ledger Secure” installed – REMOVE IT. The @ChromeExtension “Ledger Secure” contains malware that passes your seed phrase back to the extension’s author. This is *not* a @Ledger product. Successfully used against @hackedzec.” “@hackedzec”’s Twitter handle was notably created in Jan. 2020; both the handle’s novelty and the chosen name suggest that…

Former Barclays Exec to Launch UK’s First Regulated Crypto Bank in 2020

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Mark Hipperson, who was head of technology for the Barclays group for over a decade as well as co-founder and former CTO at U.K. challenger bank, Starling, is planning a Q1 2020 launch for his latest digital banking venture, Ziglu.  Billing itself as the next step in the challenger bank concept, the all-digital account will allow multiple currencies, both fiat and digital, to be held in the same account. HODL, exchange, spend The free account will not just be able to hold balances in multiple currencies, but also freely exchange…

Ryuk Ransomware Attack Paralyzes US Coast Guard System for 30 Hours

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The U.S. Coast Guard has issued a warning after its monitoring system was compromised by a “Ryuk” ransomware that left the system stunned for 30 hours. It is yet to be ascertained whether the attackers made a demand for any ransom; usually, Ryuk ransomware is followed by a demand for a ransom in crypto. The warning was issued on the marine safety bulletin platform after the attackers had targeted an unnamed facility. An initial investigation report suggested that a sophisticated phishing attack had facilitated the spread of a ransomware program…

Researchers Explain How Blockchain Can Innovate Green Energy Markets

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Researchers at Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) have proposed that using a blockchain-based “forward trading system” can provide a more effective incentive for the smart management of renewable energy consumption. In a working paper published on Dec. 20, Mel T. Devine, Marianna Russo and Paul Cuffe proposed a new mechanism for forward selling renewable electricity generation and tokenizing the interaction between renewable energy providers and consumers. Automating renewable energy trading and management Blockchain-based forward trading, the paper outlines, implies a transactive framework in which a renewable energy provider…

Bitcoin Will Usher in ‘Influencer Coins’ by 2030

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Looking ahead to what we can expect by the new decade’s end, VC firm Andreessen Horowitz predicts that Bitcoin (BTC) is likely to be central to the monetization mechanisms that future online influencers will use. In its Dec. 30 vignette of a highly automated future — where food is tailored to an individual’s microbiome and lifestyle in a “roboticized kitchen,” and VR and avatars are part and parcel of everyday business workflows — Andreessen Horowitz writes that by 2030: “The influencer can reach hundreds of her fans instantaneously. In turn,…

IMF Urges Philippines’ Central Bank to Collect Crypto Exchange Data

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has encouraged the Philippines’ central bank to explore the possibility of starting to collect data on cross-border flows of crypto assets. The IMF made the recommendation in a Technical Assistance Report paper, released Dec. 30, 2019, and based on data from the Fund’s Monetary and Financial Statistics Mission in the country in July 2019. IMF mission recommendations According to the report, the IMF’s Philippines mission delivered a lecture on the treatment of crypto-assets in macroeconomic statistics at the request of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas…

Ethereum Completes Muir Glacier Hard Fork But Leaves One Client Behind

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The Ethereum network has just completed its Muir Glacier hard fork, with the sole improvement proposal being to delay the difficulty bomb for another 4,000,000 blocks. As of press time, the majority of clients were running in sync, although according to ethernodes, the nethermind client was still having some issues, and had fallen over 150 blocks.  Live client status after Muir Glacier hard fork. Source: ethernodes Upgrade comes hot on the heels of Istanbul The Muir Glacier hard fork comes less than a month after the previous Istanbul upgrade on…

Europol Official: Monero Remains Anonymous Untraceable Privacy Coin

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The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, also known as Europol, has confirmed that Monero transactions remain anonymous as the agency is following the development of privacy coins. Jerek Jakubcek, a strategic analyst of Europol’s European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3), shared the details during a Blockchain Alliance webinar that crypto transactions conducted on Monero cannot be traced or recorded. Jakubcek went on by saying that these privacy obstacles have prevented investigators from tracking locations of suspects, and multiple cases have shown that the use of cryptocurrencies like Monero makes…