On Sept. 8, the IRS’s criminal investigation department signed a $249,900 contract with a blockchain analytics firm to expand its crypto tracing tools. The contract provides limited information, but it follows an overarching trend of the IRS stepping up its game when it comes to crypto. The firm behind the contract, Blockchain Analytics and Tax Software, is a relative unknown compared to familiar faces in analytics like Chainalysis. The firm’s only prior government contract was for only $9,800 with the U.S. Treasury for serving as an expert witness. Just last week…
Tag: Million
Migration of $180 million worth of SUSHI from UniSwap to SushiSwap has been approved
The SushiSwap community just approved a move from Uniswap to its own native platform, which is being built as a fork of Uniswap’s project. Almost 87% of the vote were in favor of the migration. Currently, there is close to $180 million worth of liquidity in the ETH/SUSHI pair on Uniswap. The SushiSwap’s total value staked has grown from zero to $1.4 billion in a matter of days. This would place the recently launched DeFi project behind Uniswap and tied with Maker and Aave. Like many other DeFi projects, it was launched with…
Another inside job at Shapeshift cost the company nearly $1 million
Following the theft and repayment of $900,000 in Bitcoin (BTC), Shapeshift is now pursuing damages in court against its former senior software engineer, Azamat Mukhiddinov. “There was significant time lost and legal costs associated with the clean-up,” Shapeshift’s chief legal officer, Veronica McGregor, told Cointelegraph, noting that customer funds were safe throughout the ordeal. “ShapeShift is non-custodial, so no customer funds were ever at risk,” she said. Working in a high level position for Shapeshift, Mukhiddinov allegedly used his access to the exchange’s backend to steal roughly 90 BTC, worth nearly…
Justin Sun Offers $1 Million Bounty in Exchange for Twitter Hackers
After a massive number of Twitter accounts were hacked on July 15, one of the affected, Tron founder Justin Sun, put a bounty on the heads of those responsible. Tron’s founder will give $1 million to the person or persons responsible for tracking down the hackers and providing pertinent data on the situation, Sun, CEO of BitTorrent and Founder of TRON told, Cointelegraph. Sun added: “We are working closely with Twitter to resolve this issue immediately and return our accounts to normal. We are always vigilant in the handling our…
Abra Garners $5 Million from Stellar Development Foundation
The Stellar Development Foundation, or SDF, has allocated $5 million to crypto investment app Abra. The company now looks to incorporate the Stellar blockchain into its platform, as well as develop Stellar-based products. “We believe Stellar’s platform is one of the most scalable and versatile cryptocurrency platforms available today,” Abra CEO and founder Bill Barhydt told Cointelegraph in an email, adding: “That combined with a similar shared mission of democratizing access to financial services means that our companies are strongly aligned in our services roadmap going forward.” Abra gives mainstream…
ICO fines Kent pensions company for sending nearly 2 million spam emails
A Kent pensions company which relied on ‘misleading’ professional advice has been fined £40,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office for being responsible for sending nearly two million direct marketing emails without consent. An ICO investigation found that Grove Pension Solutions Ltd of London Road, Halstead, Sevenoaks, Kent was responsible for 1,942,010 emails promoting its services. The emails were sent between 31 October 2016 and 31 October 2017. The ICO found that Grove Pensions Solutions Ltd had instructed a marketing agent to use third party email providers to carry out hosted marketing…
Australians Can Use Crypto Debit Card at 30,000 ATMs and Up to 1 Million Payment Terminals
Finding easy ways to spend cryptocurrency can be nothing short of a nightmare — and even when you discover a platform where your digital assets can be used for purchasing everyday goods and services, you’re normally faced with delays and high transaction fees. A Sydney-based startup is seeking to change the status quo by offering a crypto debit card which enables the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum to be used at any business or ATM across Australia. Unlike other preloaded cards, BTC.com.au says its card is free to acquire, and…