Month: February 2020

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.…

Bitfinex Completes Another $100M Loan Facility Repayment to Tether

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Hours after experiencing a major denial of service attacks (DDoS) attack, Bitfinex has announced it repaid another part of the loan facility to Tether. In a Feb. 28 blog post, Bitfinex revealed that the cryptocurrency exchange repaid $100 million of outstanding loan facility to major stablecoin operator Tether (USDT). Similarly to a previous repayment in July 2019, Bitfinex processed the transaction in fiat via wire transfer wired to Tether’s bank account. According to the post, the payment has been made “all on account of principal,” while interest on all amounts…

Cryptic Kojima Tweet Teases Mysterious Death Stranding News

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Kojima Productions is once again taunting fans with cryptic tweets. The latest tease suggests the Death Stranding developer will announce some big news next week. It’s likely to be Death Stranding related, most likely concerning the upcoming PC port. Kojima Productions appears to be teasing a big announcement based on a mysterious tweet published on the Death Stranding developer’s official Twitter account. Kojima Productions Teases a Cryptic Announcement The tweet, sent out earlier today, consists of an apology for recent radio silence with a promise of more news coming soon.…