Day: July 18, 2020

Twitter Wouldn’t Be Hacked If It Were Backed by Blockchain Technology

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Murphy’s law states: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” It always happens with centralized services. A year ago, we saw how half a million Facebook accounts were leaked online, exposing personal data. We will see it many times more with other services. The recent Twitter hack underscores this once again. The accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, among others, were hacked to push a fraudulent offer with Bitcoin (BTC). Writing for the BBC, cybersecurity commentator Joe…

Cloudflare Outage Shows Crypto Holders Are Not That Decentralized

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Cloudflare, a major company responsible for running an array of functions for websites across the internet, suffered downtime on July 17, affecting a large number of websites’ functionality. The downtime ultimately caused a drop in Bitcoin (BTC) transactions. “The Cloudflare DNS [Domain Name System] outage can be seen reflected in the rate of Bitcoin transactions broadcast, presumably because popular web wallets became inaccessible,” Bitcoin engineer and expert, Jameson Lopp, said in a July 17 tweet. Lopp’s tweet included a chart showing a noticeable drop in Bitcoin’s transactions per second.  Cloudflare…

Venezuela Bans Bitcoin Mining Operations in the Country’s Public Housing Sector

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According to the Venezuelan Minister of Habitat and Housing, the government has banned mining operations in any low-income neighborhoods with subsidized housing. Ildemaro Villarroel told the public the restrictions are due to “high power consumption” in those areas. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela has decided to not allow cryptocurrency mining in specific neighborhoods, specifically low-income areas with subsidized electrical costs. Venezuela’s Minister of Habitat and Housing, Ildemaro Villarroel, explained that the ban was due to an excessive amount of power consumption. The news follows the story about the Venezuelan…

Review: VeChain Community Video Contest 2020

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Earlier this week the VeChain Foundation announced the winners of its second VeChain Community Video Contest. Celebrating the second anniversary of the launch of the VeChainThor mainnet, the contest attracted a high standard of entries with its total prize fund of 3 million VET ($54,000). Cointelegraph decided to cast a critical eye over the ten finalists and eventual winners. A community of professional filmmakers? The first thing that immediately strikes you is the overall quality level. I mean, sure, these are the top ten hand-picked finalists, and perhaps the judges…

Bitcoin Price Charts Suggest $9K Deadlock May Finally End Next Week

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The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has been continuing the previous week’s weakness as the support of $9,000 has been tested many times. However, the market itself is not acting bearish because altcoins such as DOGE, for example, are surging left and right.  Is the market ready for a momentum shift and a big volatile move by BTC, the top-ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization?   Crypto market daily performance. Source: Coin360 Bitcoin acting on final levels for support to justify bull scenarios The price of Bitcoin is still resting at a…

A ‘Wake Up Call’ for Centralized Platforms

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July 15 will go down as an infamous day for Twitter, as an unknown attacker managed to take control of a number of accounts on the social media platform before duping unwary users into a Bitcoin giveaway hoax. The event grabbed media attention, as some of the world’s most notable companies, politicians and business leaders had their accounts compromised before sharing similar messages touting a Bitcoin (BTC) giveaway that required users to send coins to an address before receiving double that amount back. The likes of Tesla founder Elon Musk,…

Twitter Hackers Using Wasabi Wallet to Wipe Out Bitcoin Trail, Elliptic Says

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Transaction data associated with crypto wallets used in the infamous Twitter hack suggests that out of the total of $123,000 worth of bitcoin (BTC), about 22% (approx. 2.89 BTC) was sent to an address, that blockchain analysis firm Elliptic believes is a Wasabi wallet. Hackers Using Wasabi Wallet to Erase Digital Trail According to a report by Elliptic, close to 22% of BTC swindled by Twitter hacker/group of hackers was recently transferred to an address that the firm “strongly believes” to be part of a Wasabi Wallet. For the uninitiated,…

Cointelegraph Cracks Down on Staff Imposters, Investigation on the Way

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Over the last several months, a number of people claiming to be Cryptox staff have paraded around LinkedIn and Telegram, as well as through email. These efforts often attempt to lure unsuspecting victims into sending payments in exchange for stories written about them or their companies and posted on Cryptox. Through work with blockchain analytics and Anti-Money Laundering company Coinfirm, Cryptox tracked some of this activity, shedding light on the situation.   “Scammers are relatively effectively using the identities of trusted or influential people such as journalists in various ways to…

Abra Building Banking Solutions on Stellar Blockchain, CEO Barhydt Says

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Abra, the company behind the global crypto and fiat wallet and exchange app of the same name, plans to give the world banking services underpinned by Stellar’s blockchain — one of the results of the SDF’s $5 million investment in Abra earlier in 2020.  During the SDF’s digital second quarter review meeting on July 15, Abra CEO Bill Barhydt mentioned Abra’s focus on upcoming banking-type features the company is building out. In particular, Barhydt noted an “interest-earning capability” expected to hit the market in the coming weeks.  Abra details upcoming…

Blockchain Spreads Its Vines to Root Out Counterfeit Wines and Spirits

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For wine collectors, provenance is everything. With as much as 20% of all wine circulating the globe deemed to be fake, it’s hardly surprising. In days past, sniffing out a bogus burgundy required a good nose and an eye for detail. Now, thanks to blockchain technology, the problem is being resolved at its root — or should that be at the vine? Sommeliers, vintners, collectors and other connoisseurs of the red stuff go to great lengths to determine authenticity. From the weight of the bottle to eyeing anomalies in the…