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Showing posts from August 17, 2021

Young South African Engineer Rues Deleting Computer File Containing Keys to 20 BTC

A young South African electronics engineer has rued his decision to delete a text document containing the keys and password to a crypto wallet that held some 20 bitcoins. According to the engineer, the lost coins had been mined more than ten years ago using a modified personal computer that “boasted an AMD Phenom X3 processor and 512MB RAM.” Low BTC Price and Lack of Exchanges According to a Mybroadband report, the 24-year-old engineer whose pseudonym is Mark Michaels, started mining the cryptocurrency “after reading about the technology on the internet.” At the time, the engineer was only in seventh grade. Although the report quotes Michaels stating he does not recall how long it took him to mine the BTC , it does however note that the value of bitcoin was still far below ($0.08 per BTC ) the one dollar mark at the time. This lowly price as well as the lack of crypto exchanges to sell the BTC eventually caused the then-teenage bitcoin miner to lose interest. The engineer explai...

Vitalik thinks token-based decentralized governance is holding DeFi back

Buterin asserts that things need to move beyond coin voting as it exists in its present form, suggesting “proof-of-humanity” or “proof-of-participation” alternatives. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has taken a deep dive into token-based decentralized governance, suggesting that existing voting mechanisms are flawed and may be holding the DeFi sector back from realizing its full potential. In a lengthy blog post published Aug. 16, Buterin stated the crypto community needs to "move beyond coin voting as it exists in its present form.” Currently, the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi) projects manage their protocol upgrades, reward issuance, and other facets of governance elections where votes are distributed among token holders according to the size of their holdings. However, many projects have come under fire for allowing their voting process to be dominated by whales holding vast swathes of the governance tokens, allowing them to vote in support of their persona...

The Big Short's Michael Burry takes aim at Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF

Michael Burry called the subprime mortgage crisis and he's now turned his attention to ARK's flagship Innovation ETF which invests in companies like Tesla and Square as well as GBTC. Michael Burry, the investor made famous by The Big Short movie, has taken out a major short position against Cathie Woods’ ARK Innovation ETF According to second-quarter 13f filings, Burry’s hedge fund Scion Asset Management has purchased $31 million worth of bearish put options against 235,000 shares of the ETF. Put options are a way of profiting from the decline in value of a stock or fund. The Innovation ETF is the largest ARK fund with $22.62B in assets. It invests in a range of disruptive tech companies including Tesla, Square, Coinbase, as well as the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Burry wasn’t the only firm to short ARK’s flagship fund according to the filings. Laurion Capital Management held roughly $171 million worth of put options against 1.3 million shares an GoldenTree Asset Management,...

The HUMAN App Delivers Real-World Utility to HMT and the HUMAN Ecosystem

HUMAN Protocol has launched on the Ethereum Mainnet. To complement this launch – which also involved the listing of HMT (the native token of HUMAN Protocol) on FTX and Gate.io on the 10th of August – the HUMAN Protocol Foundation has now released the HUMAN App : the first opportunity for people to earn HMT directly for completing data-labeling tasks, and the first gateway into the HUMAN experience. HUMAN Protocol provides the end-to-end infrastructure – the tools, plugins, integrations, and APIs – to hire, manage, validate, and compensate individuals at scale. It is designed to support the creation of global job markets in which almost any human or machine can publish a job and any Worker with the requested skill set, knowledge, or background can complete the tasks associated with that job. While in theory the Protocol may support any job, the current majority of HUMAN tasks – produced through hCaptcha – involve the labeling of images. These tasks are now available within the H...

Pepe The Frog creator has $4M ‘Sad Frogs’ project removed from OpenSea

Following the delisting of the Sad Frogs District NFT project from OpenSea, the Sad Frog’s team has filed a counter DMCA to the NFT marketplace. Creator of the beloved, sometimes controversial Pepe the Frog meme, Matt Furie requested that a frog-themed NFT project worth $4M be removed from OperSea fo copyright infringement. The “Sad Frogs District” is an NFT project containing 7000 programmatically generated Sad Frog NFTs from a selection of around 200 traits. The artwork depicted in the NFTs may draw some inspiration from Furie’s character Pepe. According to OpenSea’s Community-help Discord channel on Aug. 17, numerous members had asked why the verified NFT project had been delisted as they could no longer access the Sad Frog NFTs on the platform. An OpenSea moderator later confirmed the delisting, noting that “Pepe items have been delisted due to a DMCA takedown request by the creator of Pepe, Matt Furie.” The Sad Frogs District was launched earlier this month and has alread...

People’s Bank of China Targets Crypto Companies in Shenzhen Crackdown

The Shenzhen office of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has reportedly set out to correct the business activities of about a dozen companies allegedly engaged in cryptocurrency transactions. According to Chinese media, the entities have been targeted in a crackdown on crypto trading in the city. People’s Bank of China Cracks Down on Coin Trading in Shenzhen The branch of China’s central bank in Shenzhen is cracking down on illegal cryptocurrency trading, the Chinese business news outlet Cnstock.com revealed Tuesday. As part of the new campaign, the PBOC has “rectified” 11 companies “suspected of carrying out illegal virtual currency activities,” the report detailed. According to the article, the regulator has also identified a local financial website accused of illegally advertising foreign exchange cash deposit transactions. Furthermore, the People’s Bank of China has investigated eight cases involving illicit online foreign exchange operations and cross-border stock trading. ...

Treasury Dept. wants to ‘capture DeFi’ with infrastructure bill: Jake Chervinsky

General counsel to Compound Labs, Jake Chervinsky, has warned that the Treasury Department wants to “capture” the DeFi sector through the crypto provisions added to the infrastructure bill. The last-minute cryptocurrency provisions added to the U.S. infrastructure bill sought to “capture DeFi,” argues Compound’s general counsel Jake Chervinsky. Appearing on the Bankless State of the Network podcast on August 17, Chervinsky — who is also DeFi Chair of the Blockchain Association — said the industry had been “blindsided” by the infrastructure bill’s crypto tax provisions which were announced just nine days prior to when it was expected to pass through the senate. While Chervinsky seemed willing to give most elected officials the benefit of the doubt, noting that previous discussions surrounding the infrastructure bill had “nothing to do with crypto,” he attributed more sinister motives to the Treasury Department’s role in influencing the legislative process. Conceding he may have ...

Multi-Billion Dollar Financial Services Firm Lloyds Looks to Hire a Digital Currency Expert

Lloyds Banking Group, the British parent company of Lloyds Bank, is currently hiring a “digital currency [and] innovation senior manager,” according to a recent job listing posted to BYP Network. Lloyds is one of the largest financial services firms in the world with close to $500 billion assets under management (AUM). The new digital currency job advertisement highlights the new employee will work with the firm’s mobile banking network with “over 30 million customers.” Lloyds Banking Group Is Hiring a ‘Digital Currency and Innovation Senior Manager’ A job listing published on BYP Network explains that Lloyds Banking Group is in need of a digital currency expert. Lloyds notes that the company’s Payments Liquidity & Settlement team is a newly formed venture unit and the group and “global network of bank relationships” details that they “look towards the future, digital currencies.” The job listing follows the recent surge of Fortune 500 firms that have been looking to hire di...

White hat potentially saves SushiSwap $350M by finding ‘obvious’ exploit

The security researcher found a flaw in a dutch auction smart contract that could have resulted in the loss of 109,000 ETH. The SushiSwap decentralized exchange has narrowly avoided becoming the latest DeFi hack victim thanks to assistance from a white hat hacker. A security researcher from venture capital firm Paradigm known on Twitter as “ samczsun ” has managed to save SushiSwap and its MISO platform from a potential loss of as much as 109,000 ETH. In a blog post published on Aug. 17, the programmer described how he began examining the smart contract code for the BitDAO token sale at SushiSwap’s token launchpad platform, MISO. Just pulled off maybe the biggest whitehat rescue ever. Story time soon — samczsun (@samczsun) August 17, 2021 On closer inspection, he found a flaw in the MISO Dutch auction contract whereby some of the functions lacked access controls. “I didn’t really expect this to be a vulnerability though, since I didn’t expect the Sushi team to make such an o...

Billionaire Mike Novogratz unfazed by Galaxy Digital’s $175.8M loss in Q2

Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz was unfazed by the firm’s $175.8 million loss as he emphasized the importance of digital asset adoption. Mike Novogratz’s crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital Holdings has posted a second-quarter loss of $175.8 million. The figure provides a stark contrast to the firm’s first-quarter report that booked $860 million in comprehensive net profit earlier this year. Galaxy Digital posted its financial results as of June 30 on Monday, with the firm attributing the $175.8 million Q2 loss to asset price declines after FUD-inducing narratives fueled the crypto downturn in May. “During the quarter, our results were impacted by a 34% decline in overall digital asset prices and a 41% decline in the price of Bitcoin, relative to the end of the first quarter,” the report read. In a conference call regarding the Q2 results, CEO and founder Novogratz was unfazed by the loss as he cited several key metrics that he’s enthusiastic about such as cou...

Charles Schwab Strategist Skeptical of Crypto — Puts Faith in Banking System, Federal Reserve

Charles Schwab’s chief investment strategist says she puts faith in the entire U.S. financial system, the banking system, the power of the central bank, and the Federal Reserve more than bitcoin. Charles Schwab’s Strategist Skeptical of Cryptocurrency Charles Schwab Chief Investment Strategist Liz Ann Sonders shared her thoughts on cryptocurrency and the U.S. financial and banking systems on a Yahoo Finance webinar last week. The Wall Street strategist explained that she trusts the U.S. financial system more than she trusts cryptocurrency miners, stating: I still put some faith in the entire U.S. financial system, the banking system, all of its protections, as well as the power of the central bank, the Federal Reserve, to sort of control the fiat currency that is also the global monetary standard and the world’s reserve currency — versus, say, bitcoin miners. Regarding cryptocurrency, she said: “I am an admitted skeptic to some degree. I’m not on either end of the spectrum, mea...

Crypto Exchange Bitfront Said to End Korean Services Ahead of Tough New Regulations

U.S.-based crypto trading platform Bitfront is going to discontinue services in South Korea before stricter rules for the industry are enforced in September, Korean media reported. The exchange, a subsidiary of Japanese tech giant Line, is currently available to Korean traders. Line’s Bitfront Exchange to Discontinue Services for Korean Cryptocurrency Traders With tighter regulations on the horizon, digital asset exchange Bitfront is reportedly joining those platforms that are planning to pull out of South Korea’s cryptocurrency market. The U.S.-registered entity, which was established by the Japanese messaging app company Line, is going to limit its services in the country next month, Korean media revealed. According to Yonhap, the exchange will stop providing Korean-language service in mid-September. “Citing the tougher regulations, Bitfront also said it will discontinue payments with Korean credit cards on Sept. 14,” the news agency detailed in a report on foreign crypto exchan...

Pro traders know it's time to range trade when this classic pattern shows up

Traders analyze bearish and bullish rectangles to spot trend changes and range trade stocks and cryptocurrencies. A bull trend is formed when demand exceeds supply and a bear trend occurs when sellers overpower the buyers. When the bulls and bears hold their ground without budging, it results in the formation of a trading range. Sometimes, this leads to the formation of a rectangle pattern, which can also be described as a consolidation zone or a congestion zone. Bearish and bullish rectangles are generally considered to be a continuation pattern but on many occasions, they act as a reversal pattern that signals the completion of a major top or bottom. Before diving in to learn more about the bullish and bearish rectangle patterns, let’s first discuss how to identify them. Basics of the rectangle pattern A rectangle is formed when an asset forms at least two comparable tops and two bottoms that are almost at the same level. The two parallel lines can be used to join the high and ...

Brazilian Federal Police Launch Nationwide Operation Against Crypto-Related Money Laundering

The Brazilian Federal Police launched Operation Compliance, a probe against cryptocurrency-related money laundering crimes last week. The probe resulted in the execution of several seizure warrants across the country, involving 150 federal policemen active in five different cities. Operation Compliance came about by way of an investigation that identified cryptocurrency-related money laundering crimes on the internet starting in 2018. Brazilian Police Fight Crypto Money Laundering The Brazilian Federal Police were deployed last week to scrutinize several locations that were allegedly linked to cryptocurrency-related money laundering operations. This following an investigation that started back in 2018. Operation Compliance required the involvement of 150 federal policemen, who carried out 34 search and seizure warrants in several cities of the country, including Goiânia, Campo Grande, São Paulo, Laranjal Paulista, Recife, and Vitória. But the Brazilian police did not only limit th...

Analysts say this key metric suggests an altcoin season is at hand

A series of new all-time highs from altcoins and a drop in the Bitcoin dominance metric has many analysts convinced that an alt season has started. Bitcoin’s ( BTC ) 65% recovery from sub-$29,500 on July 20 to a swing high of $48,200 on Aug. 14 took less than a month and helped bring fresh bullish momentum back to the crypto market and to traders who were dreading the prospect of another prolonged bear market. Currently, the BTC rally has stalled out near the $46,000 price level, and this phase of sideways trading is giving altcoins an opportunity to step forward. As shown in the chart below, the total market capitalization of the altcoin market has risen 80% since July 20. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin dominance rate is down 10% since July 30. Bitcoin dominance vs. total altcoin market capitalization,1-day chart. Source: TradingView Data from TradingView shows that the dominance rate of Bitcoin had been on the rise in recent weeks, but this trend fizzled out for Bitcoin on July 30...

Team officially re-establishes Dogecoin Foundation after 6 years

Advisory board members for the foundation include Vitalik Buterin, Billy Markus, Max Keller, and Neuralink CEO Jared Birchall — representing Elon Musk’s interests. After several years of nearly total media silence, the Dogecoin Foundation is coming back to support core developers and projects benefiting the meme-based cryptocurrency. In a Tuesday announcement, the Dogecoin Foundation said it would be re-establishing itself in an effort to support the Dogecoin ( DOGE ) community as well as promote the future of the blockchain. The foundation said it would be announcing new projects in the coming weeks encouraging the adoption and utility of DOGE “that increase Dogecoin uptake at a grassroots level.” “The Foundation holds the Dogecoin mark and the Dogecoin Logo and will maintain them for the community,” said the announcement. “This will mean the Foundation can continue to protect the Dogecoin Brand and allow (under a very liberal license) the ability to use it for Dogecoin-related m...

24 Hours of Le Mans Endurance Race Launches NFT Collection Crafted by the Automobilist

On August 17, 24 Hours of Le Mans, the endurance sports car race held annually in Le Mans, France, and the European art collective the Automobilist revealed the launch of the first-ever 24H Le Mans’ non-fungible token (NFT) collection. 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Automobilist to Launch ‘Legends of Le Mans’ NFT collection The sports car race called the 24H of Le Mans is a popular race held every year in France and it’s the world’s oldest endurance car racing event. The first 24H of Le Mans was held in May 1923 and racers leveraged the public roads in the city adjacent to the Sarthe River. On Tuesday, 24H of Le Mans alongside the collective of automotive and motorsport aficionados called the Automobilist, announced the organizations will be dropping the race’s first NFT collection. According to the announcement the collection was crafted by the Automobilist , and the NFTs will be hosted on the blockchain services platform Bitski . The 24H of Le Mans and Automobilist NFTs will showc...

Fidelity’s crypto ambitions are bigger than expected: report

Fidelity says that 90% of its biggest clients are interested in accessing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The firm is now planning to open up the digital asset space to retail investors. Fidelity’s plan to corner the cryptocurrency market appears to be more ambitious than previously imagined, as the asset manager looks to provide more institutional pathways to digital assets. In a recent interview with the Boston Globe, Chrstine Sandler, the head of sales and marketing for Fidelity Digital Assets, said institutional interest in crypto is growing. For most investors, the primary entry into crypto has been Bitcoin ( BTC ) and, to a lesser extent, Ether ( ETH ). Tom Jessop, who heads Fidelity Digital Assets, said the pandemic was a major motivator for investors to finally get into crypto: “What really got people off the fence was the pandemic, because you’ve got this scarce asset class — there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin created — and an environment where our curre...

Mining software appears to have cracked Nvidia's Lite Hash Rate algorithm

The exploit reportedly unlocks up to 70% of the original graphic card mining power. The team behind mining software NBMiner claim to have partially cracked Nvidia’s anti-mining limitations. Back in June Nvidia implemented an algorithm called Lite Hash Rate, or LHR, on all graphics cards from its RTX 30 series in an attempt to curb crypto mining. The limiter works on both the BIOS and driver level detecting mining algorithms and drastically reducing its mining power by up to 50% of its original capability. At the time, the company claimed that miners were disrupting its supply chain, consequently increasing the price of its graphics cards due to low supply. Nvidia prioritized its gaming user base stating that: “... this additional step will get more GeForce cards at better prices into the hands of gamers everywhere.” NBMiner’s most recent release has reportedly been able to bypass these limitations and increase the mining power of these graphic cards by up to 70%. The update ...

Bitcoin can see $55K breakout if last major BTC price resistance is broken — Analyst

A short squeeze could send BTC/USD far beyond $50,000 if the $48,000 sell wall crumbles. Bitcoin ( BTC ) touched $47,000 on Tuesday as ranging behavior continued to hint at an attack on major resistance. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Volatility narrows for Bitcoin Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD attempting to exit the $46,000 range on Tuesday after heading lower as the week began. The area between $45,000 and $48,000 has acted as a narrow trading corridor for Bitcoin as it attempts to knock down its last hurdle before $50,000. So far, however, bulls have lacked the momentum to effect major change. For Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, $48,000 was the level to watch on the day, as a breakout from there could lead to another upward impulse move. “If we clearly breakthrough there, that is probably going to trigger a big short squeeze, as everybody’s looking for a short in this area,” he said in ...