Bitcoin, Blockchain, Crypto Mining News, Crypto Tech, Cryptocurrency, Fraud and Scams, News & Updates

Bitcoins and Pieces: TGIF Edition

Crypto Exchanges News

  • Web traffic to the South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb has shot up to almost a million a month, per August statistics. According to media outlet Chosun, EtherLab’s Crypto Asset Exchange Visitor Traffic Report shows that just shy of 1 million people accessed the Bithumb exchange site on PCs and mobiles in August, 50% from June figures. Nearly half that amount accessed Bithumb’s nearest rival Upbit.

DeFi News

  • The Prime Development Foundation today announced its preliminary launch of PrimeDAO, a decentralized prime broker for the available finance community. The blockchain-native decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is coordinating and cultivating projects that promote safety, reliability, liquidity, and access to DeFi while using decentralized governance systems to avoid centralized appropriation of critical financial infrastructure, it added.

Blockchain News

  • More blockchain-related patents were published in the first half of 2020 than in all of 2019, a year that had already seen three times more blockchain patents published than in 2018, a new report by KISSPatent showed. Alibaba has posted ten times more patents than IBM this year alone, it added. However, IBM still owns the most blockchain patent applications, while the United States is the number one country with blockchain patents.
  • South Korea’s Shinhan Bank is set to use blockchain technology for its small business financing operations, per iNews24. The bank stated that it had obtained regulatory approval for its product, which it claimed will expiate smaller firms’ loan procedures. Shinhan added that blockchain technology would help reduce the number of in-person visits its corporate customers need to make to banks and other institutions and speed up loan issuance and simplifying processes for all parties.

Stablecoins News

  • Tether’s market capitalization surpassed USD 15bn. “While it took five years to reach USD 5bn it took just 54 days to climb from USD 10bn to USD 15bn,” Paolo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer at Tether, was quoted as saying in a press release.
  • The Libra Association appointed James Emmett as the Managing Director of Libra Networks LLC, the Libra Association’s operating company subsidiary, with effect from 1 October 2020. He previously held the Chief Executive role of HSBC Bank plc and Europe.

Regulation News

  • The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) has updated the jurisdiction’s bespoke Distributed Ledger Technology Providers (DLT) regulatory framework Guidance Notes. As well as offering further clarity on critical areas, the amended guidance notes also update the risk framework to distinguish between virtual assets and virtual asset denominated instruments that are arguably higher risk and require additional factors or onboarding tests to be considered, it added.

Mining News

  • The South Caucasian de facto state of Abkhazia “faces an energy crisis” as crypto mining efforts intensify. Low energy costs have seen scores of miners set up shop in Abkhazia, putting a massive strain on the national grid, reported Jam News. The head of the state energy provider claimed, “The projected energy deficit for the rest of 2020 may amount to 704 million kW/h.” A government ban on mining has proved so far wholly ineffective, and could even be lifted to improve communication between miners, energy providers, and the government.

Crime News

  • In a unified action with the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it sanctioned two Russian nationals for their involvement in a sophisticated phishing campaign in 2017 and 2018 that targeted customers of two US-based and one foreign-based virtual asset service providers. American citizens and businesses were among the victims of this malicious cyber-enabled activity, which resulted in combined losses of at least USD 16.8m, they said.
Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply