November 7, 2019 @ 1:07 am By Cali Haan  |  

Daniel Daianu, president of Romania’s Fiscal Council, told members of the Romanian Academy Tuesday that Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency could destroy the current global monetary balance and so disrupt the work of central banks that they become ineffective at managing money supplies, Agerpres reports. Facebook hopes… Read More

November 7, 2019 @ 12:16 am By Cali Haan  |  

Another Vancouver-based cryptocurrency exchange, ezBTC, is being investigated by the BC Securities Commission (BCSC) after the regulator received complaints from customers claiming they cannot access funds stored on the platform, The Tyee reports. The investigation was confirmed in an exclusive statement from the BCSC to… Read More

November 6, 2019 @ 9:40 pm By Cali Haan  |  

As part of an inquiry into foreign interference into US elections convened November 5th by the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Mitt Romney asked the FBI Director Christopher Wray about the national security implications of cryptocurrencies. Also testifying at the session titled ‘Threats to… Read More

November 6, 2019 @ 2:53 am By Cali Haan  |  

“Software-defined cryptography firm” Unbound Tech says that parties exposed in last week’s email debacle at BitMEX, and the exchange itself, “remain at high risk for exploitation through a variety of approaches.” Last Friday, news broke that BitMEX, a cryptocurrency exchange popular for allowing 100x leveraged… Read More

November 6, 2019 @ 12:30 am By Cali Haan  |  

A ransomware attack that disabled government communications systems in the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut November 2nd is part of a pattern of attacks being launched against non-US targets, cybersecurity firm Emsisoft claims. The company says ransomware attacks are increasingly being directed at municipalities, hospitals and… Read More

November 5, 2019 @ 9:28 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Another Canadian cryptocurrency exchange has folded with customer money outstanding. According to an affidavit filed at the BC Supreme Court by Sammy Wu, Lead Investigator (Enforcement) at the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC), the Einstein Exchange in Vancouver has gone offline, its offices are locked and its… Read More

November 5, 2019 @ 2:45 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Though the cryptocurrency sector is working to close gaps and exploit transparency features in crypto to reduce criminal use, Internet-borne “decentralized” currencies continue to offer appealing cross-border and cash-like features that support crime, including opioid trafficking, law enforcement officials told Washington DC-based news outlet Roll… Read More

November 4, 2019 @ 10:06 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A plaintiff called “Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement LLC” has launched a class-action suit against cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX, partner firm Alameda Research and several associated individuals alleging they are, “well known among cryptocurrency traders for being principal manipulators of the Bitcoin spot and Bitcoin derivatives markets.”… Read More

November 4, 2019 @ 4:52 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Two scholars famous for alleging in 2018 that injections of Tether, a cryptocurrency and synthetic form of USD, were used to strategically to push up the price of Bitcoin to $20 000 USD have updated the report with a claim that those injections came mainly from… Read More

November 3, 2019 @ 5:54 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A Canadian living in the Burj Khalifa, Dubai’s most famous luxury building, has been arrested for serial fraud, including cryptocurrency fraud, and is now sitting in a cell at the Al Awir jail, Gulf News reports. Aziz ‘Com’ Mirza and his two brothers allegedly used online… Read More

November 2, 2019 @ 11:02 am By Cali Haan  |  

Chi-X, an Australian stock exchange that handles about 20% of the country’s trades, is concerned that a new cost-cutting blockchain registry, settlement and clearing system being developed by rival ASX will enhance the ASX’s market dominance over settlement, Reuters reports. Chi-X, a subsidiary of New-York-based… Read More

November 1, 2019 @ 2:36 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A Switzerland-based securities dealer called XBT Corp/First Global Credit has been charged and fined by the American SEC and CFTC for, “selling unregistered security-based swaps to U.S. investors using bitcoins and for failing to transact its swaps on a registered national exchange.” The company’s website has… Read More

November 1, 2019 @ 1:08 pm By Cali Haan  |  

There is a lot of anger on “crypto Twitter” today following news that BitMEX, a cryptocurrency exchange known for allowing 100x leveraged cryptocurrency trades on its platform, has exposed the email addresses of “many” of its customers. The error occurred when the company sent out… Read More

November 1, 2019 @ 1:14 am By Cali Haan  |  

The number of unlawful sites soliciting crypto investments from investors in Belgium has now reached 131 entities, an update to list of such sites indexed by the country’s Financial Services Markets Authority (FSMA) indicates. Even then, “This list cannot be considered as exhaustive,” the regulator… Read More

October 31, 2019 @ 11:00 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Hong Kyung-sik, head of Bank of Korea’s Banking and Financial Affairs Division, told an audience at the ‘Hoyoung Viewing the Future of Payments’ conference Tuesday that countries with developed payments infrastructures like Korea do not need a central bank digital currency (CBDC), Coindesk Korea reports. Hong… Read More

October 31, 2019 @ 4:45 am By Cali Haan  |  

Three of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world are seeking licenses and banking partners to set up in the Ukraine, Andriy Kolodiuk, Chair of the supervisory board of the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA), told the Kyiv Post this week. He… Read More

October 31, 2019 @ 3:30 am By Cali Haan  |  

Deputy finance ministers from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have been meeting behind closed doors throughout October to devise a strategy to prevent Facebook from launching its proposed Libra cryptocurrency network among its 2.5 billion users next year. According to four sources to Politico EU,… Read More

October 31, 2019 @ 1:39 am By Cali Haan  |  

On the heels of yesterday’s news that competitor Canaan has filed an IPO prospectus to go public on the Nasdaq comes a report that Bitmain, the world’s largest manufacturer of cryptocurrency mining hardware, is also seeking to go public on a New York Stock Exchange…. Read More

October 31, 2019 @ 1:20 am By Cali Haan  |  

The availability of cheap, cryptocurrency-collateralized loans is growing unsustainably and could induce a crisis, two former Wall Street traders now working in crypto lending have told Bloomberg. According to the outlet, the crypto-collateralized loan industry is a relatively new one that mostly emerged in the… Read More

October 30, 2019 @ 3:17 am By Cali Haan  |  

Despite an official ban on cryptocurrency trading imposed progressively in the region since 2016, China now appears to be throwing its full weight behind “blockchain,” a type of distributed-ledger technology popularized by Bitcoin that many critics claim is of little use outside of it. A… Read More