Day: February 28, 2020

Ex-Employee Steals User Data From Derivatives Exchange Digitex

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Decentralized derivatives exchange Digitex has fallen victim to a significant data breach believed to have exposed the email addresses and possibly other information of more than 8,000 users. A former employee stole private information for more than 8,000 users, Christina Comben, who heads Digitex’s communications, said Friday. Comben told CoinDesk the exchange was “aware of a leak of confidential data,” continuing: “We can confirm that this was not an external hack but an internal security breach orchestrated by an ex-employee with a conflict of interest against the company.” Digitex has…

Brazil’s PIX Payments System Has the Same Spirit, but Not a Blockchain Structure

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The Central Bank of Brazil made some waves last week with its new instant payment system. While not blockchain-based, the new system, dubbed PIX, nevertheless is imbued with some of blockchain’s core attributes. Money transfers have historically been slow, cumbersome and expensive. For example, Bank A takes its fee when a payment is sent and Bank B also charges its fee when the payment is received. More intermediaries mean additional fees and sometimes more delays. But now the Brazilian central bank, or BCB, wants to cut out those intermediaries. The…

Stock Market Crash Prods Trump’s Top Economist Into Wild U-Turn

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After a dramatic stock market crash, the Trump administration is trying to distance itself from the dip on Wall Street. Larry Kudlow spoke to reporters on Friday and claimed the government does not control the economy. This comes just two weeks after President Trump blasted Barrack Obama for stealing credit for “his” rally in stocks. White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow made an astonishing U-turn on Friday, complaining that the government shouldn’t be blamed for the direction of the stock market or the economy. After years of taking credit for…

Malta Regulator Clarifies Legal Status of Binance

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In a recent interview, a Malta parliamentarian has sought to clarify the legal status of top cryptocurrency exchange Binance within the island country. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Malta’s Junior Minister for Financial Services and Digital Economy, Bartolo Clayton, reaffirmed that Binance has never been licensed in the jurisdiction: “As informed by the Malta Financial Services Authority, which is an autonomous body not a state entity, until the time of writing, Binance has never been in possession of an official license by MFSA. Such statement has been further corroborated by Changpeng Zhao,…

Blockchain Is Good on Its Own but Not Good for Voting

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Computer scientist Ronald Rivest has said that blockchain is not the right technology for voting, although it can find proper application in a number of other areas. Rivest delivered his opinion at the RSA Security Conference, held in San Francisco earlier this week, technology-focused news outlet ITWire reported on Feb. 28. Rivest — who is a cryptography expert and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — called voting an interesting problem that requires a more stricter approach compared to many existing security applications. He said: “Blockchain is the…

If ‘Fortnite Fatigue’ Is Fake, Epic Games Picked a Dumb Way to Prove It

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A recent report from SuperData revealed that Fortnite’s revenue is trapped in a punishing decline. Epic Games claimed that those statistics are inaccurate. If that’s true, Epic can clear up the controversy by doing one simple thing. The Fortnite revenue controversy continues to heat up, with Epic Games slamming a report that alleges the battle royale giant is locked in a punishing sales decline. According to GameIndustry.biz, Epic torched the “wildly inaccurate” SuperData statistics. Curiously, CEO Tim Sweeney had touted reports from the same source as recently as last month.…

Secure Encryption Key Management Modules, Explained

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Multiparty computation, or MPC, allows different parties with their own private inputs to conduct a joint computation on their inputs. The parties learn the outcome of the computation, but each learns nothing about the other parties’ respective inputs. An algorithm created by cryptographer Adi Shamir, called Shamir’s Secret Sharing, lies at the heart of multiparty computation. A   secret sharing scheme involves distributing pieces of one secret value (private key) across multiple network nodes or users. Only once a specified subset of the parties pool their pieces together can they…

ICE Reveals Cryptocurrency Intelligence Program Targeting P2P and Darknet Markets

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The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has revealed the existence of a Cryptocurrency Intelligence Program (CIP) in the agency’s 2021 budget proposal. The proposal states that the CIP seeks to identify unlicensed capital flows taking place across peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces, online forums, and darknet markets. The CIP was developed by ICE’s Bulk Cash Smuggling Center (BCSC). “The BCSC has developed a Cryptocurrency Intelligence Program (CIP) which identifies unlicensed money services businesses in the form of independent cryptocurrency brokers’ use of peer-to-peer (P2P) sites, online forums and classified advertisements,…

Can Bitcoin Be Seized as Self-Proclaimed BTC Creator Craig Wright Claims?

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As Cointelegraph reported yesterday, self-proclaimed Bitcoin (BTC) creator Craig Wright claims that Bitcoin can and will be seized to accommodate court orders. What follows is an analysis of whether what he says is possible and plausible. Screenshots resurfaced on Feb. 26, show that Wright claims Bitcoin will be seized without using the owner’s private keys. Instead, it will be moved through miners and nodes coordinating to comply with a court order. He said that code is law but “courts can mandate patching code.” Cryptocurrency security consultant Sergio Demian Lerner told…

‘A Drop-in Replacement for ABC’ – BCH Devs Release Bitcoin Cash Node Software

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On February 27, a group of developers behind the Bitcoin Cash Node implementation released the first version of the project’s codebase. The new client is essentially a drop-in replacement for Bitcoin ABC 0.21.0, as the code aims to disable the Infrastructure Funding Proposal (IFP). Also Read: BCH Funding Debate: Developers Plan to Launch IFP-Free Version of Bitcoin ABC Bitcoin Cash Node Unveils Code and Rebrands The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community was introduced to the open source codebase for a new full node project called the Bitcoin Cash Node on Thursday.…