Day: August 21, 2020

Coinbase-Backed Exchange to Redistribute Seized Venezuelan Funds

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Latin American crypto exchange Airtm has been appointed to redistribute $18 million seized by U.S. authorities to 62,000 healthcare workers. These funds were taken in relation to a corruption case involving Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela. According to Matt Ahlborg, data scientist at UsefulTulips, Coinbase-backed Airtm is well-known for being a censorship-resistant P2P exchange. He noted that Venezuelan users have long accounted for a significant part of Airtm’s customer database. Juan Guaidó, recognized by several countries as Venezuela’s rightful leader, also recognized Airtm for their efforts in the fight…

What’s the Deal With Yam Finance?

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There are some decentralized finance projects that make flash loans; Yam Finance (YAM) was a DeFi project that made a flash appearance. YAM, which initially described itself as a “minimally viable monetary experiment,” launched on August 11 amid some fanfare, and in less than two days, its market value soared from zero to $57 million. But on late Wednesday, the company announced that it found a bug in its rebasing contract and by Thursday, its market capitalization crashed back to zero. To no avail, the DeFi community rallied to save…

Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s Weary Bulls, ETC’s Action Plan, INX’s IPO

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INX is gearing up for a landmark IPO, 1 billion tether jumped from Tron to Ethereum and a shift in bitcoin’s options market suggests bullish speculation is beginning to ease. You’re reading Blockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here.  Top shelf INX IPOINX plans to launch its landmark initial public offering (IPO) as soon as Monday. The cryptocurrency and security token exchange signaled plans to go public in January 2018,…

IRS Plans to Ask Every American Worker if They Used Crypto in 2020

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On Aug. 19, the IRS released drafts of its income tax forms for 2020, which will ask every American filing income for the year whether or not they used crypto. Early into its very first page, the latest 1040 form asks: “At any time during 2020, did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?” Chandan Lodha, founder of crypto tax software firm Cointracker, told Cointelegraph: “The cryptocurrency question is now front and center on the IRS Form 1040 for next year. Pretty…

Chainlink Breaks Below Crucial Technical Pattern as Analysts Eye Downside

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Chainlink has expressed some signs of overt weakness throughout the past few hours, with its price reeling down towards its bedrock support at $14.00. This sharp downturn has come about as the entire crypto market shows some signs of weakness, which may be, in part, rooted in Ethereum’s plunge towards $400. ETH’s price action has had growing influence over that of most altcoins in recent weeks, even swaying that seen by Bitcoin on occasion. Because ETH plunged from overnight highs of $420 to lows of $400, this appears to have…

An AWS Virtual Machine Is Infected With Mining Malware. There Could Be Others

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A cybersecurity firm has unearthed a monero mining script embedded in a public instance of an Amazon Web Service (AWS) virtual machine. Now the firm is raising the question: How many other community Amazon Machine Instances (AMIs) are infected with the same malware? Researchers at Mitiga revealed in a blog post Friday an AWS AMI for a Windows 2008 virtual server hosted by an unverified vendor is infected with a Monero mining script. The malware would have infected any device running the AMI with the purpose of using the device’s…

Bitcoin News Roundup for Aug. 21, 2020

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With bitcoin still pulling back and LND learning to wumbo, CoinDesk’s Markets Daily is back for your latest crypto news roundup! While soaring open interest can be a sign of a continuing trend, the offloading of calls suggests bitcoin could correct further. LND now supports Lightning Network wumbo channels. These channels have the capacity to hold more funds, and users can send larger bitcoin transactions. Mexo, a cryptocurrency exchange designed for the Latin American user, launched on Thursday. The Office of the Court of Justice is developing its blockchain as…

CFTC Seeks $429M Penalty Against Ponzi Operator Who Ghosted Them

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In the case of United Kingdom-based Control-Finance and its AWOL operator Benjamin Reynolds, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission asked the court to order Reynolds pay nearly half a billion dollars on Aug. 20. In a legal action that began in June of last year, the CFTC has been unsuccessful in its attempts to locate Reynolds. The commission alleges that Reynolds laundered 22,858 Bitcoin from May to October of 2017 — by their estimates worth $147 million at the time, but as of press time valued at $269 million.…

Deepak Chopra Partners with Hedera Hashgraph to Leverage Blockchain for COVID-19 Mental Health Support

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Renown Indian-American author Deepak Chopra discussed how blockchain technology could help in improving mental health during the current pandemic crisis.  Suicide Rates to Escalate During Pandemic  The National Institutes of Health website published an article this year that suggested that with the ongoing coronavirus disease, suicide rates are on the rise, and is a cause for concern. It entailed that this was a crucial mental health issue that needed to be addressed, and suicide prevention measures must be set in place as soon as possible. It read:   “Suicide is likely to become a more pressing…