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News

Haven Protocol (XHV) Appear to Pull an Exit Scam

haven

It looks like Haven Protocol might have pulled one of the first exit scams of 2019, with both anonymous developers missing in action and a team member announcing the project ‘dead’ on its Discord channel.

Haven Protocol is a hard fork of popular privacy coin Monero that marketed itself as an “offshore bank in your pocket”. It claims to be an untraceable cryptocurrency and uses smart contracts to facilitate the storage of large amounts of easily accessible fiat currency offshore. Its intention is to provide a way by which users can keep money ‘hidden’ while also having instant access to markets and the ability to avoid volatile fluctuations.

After it’s launch early last year the coin proved popular, gaining a token price of over $6 and a market cap of $11 million. But as the prolonged bear market decimated the crypto industry, the projects value slowly decreased, only to shoot up again in late November to an almost $20 million. However, after a Twitter storm yesterday revealing problems with management and the alleged disappearance of the core devs, the price has now plummeted to $0.32 and a $2 million valuation.

Twitter user @crypto_blkbeard posted a screenshot that Haven team member news.cutter wrote on the official Discord channel:

“I’ll be honest here. Consider this project dead unless some devs take it over.”

He continued by explaining that the lead developer @Havendev, who is the only person with access to the Github code repository, has been uncontactable for weeks. For what has been touted as a ‘community-based project’ with no ICO or corporate leadership, it seems odd that only one person would have access to the repository.

Yesterday, the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex announced it will be delisting the XHV token from its platform within 48 hours, citing regular complaints about the coin being a scam. With the price in freefall and all team members seemingly have jumped ship, it would certainly seem like a possible contender for one of the earliest and biggest exit scams of 2019.

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Betting

Why is Bitcoin so Successful as a Casino Deposit Method?

bitcoin superman

Over the years there have been some market sectors that have proven to be perfect for using Bitcoin, and one that does instantly spring to mind is online and mobile gambling.

As it is possible to purchase Bitcoin so easily, and then transfer it to any of the many Bitcoin casinos, in most cases anonymously too, more and more gamblers have chosen to get a digital wallet and use it to store their gambling budgets on the blockchain in a safe and secure way.

Not only can gamblers as good as instantly transfer their Bitcoin into casino sites, but of course the operators and owners of those sites can also pay out their winning players rapidly too, and that is another reason many casino game players do now much prefer using Bitcoin as their preferred deposit and withdrawal option.

There are plenty of other reasons why Bitcoin casinos have been increasing in number and as to why they have proven to be hugely popular with casino game players, and below I will take a look at some additional reasons why you may be interested in using that digital currency as a gambling site payment option too.

Benefits of Playing at Bitcoin Casinos

If you do fancy giving an online casino site a try and you want to make deposits and get paid out your winnings in Bitcoin too then Thunderbolt Casino is an ideal one for you to check out.

That casino site offers a huge and impressive suite of casino games of every possible description and type, but what they do also offer, like all other Bitcoin accepting casino sites, are certified and provably fair games too.

So no matter which game or games that you enjoy playing the most you are always going to have the peace of mind in knowing that above all else the games you will be playing are completely random and fair.

Being able to play casino games for stake levels that players are comfortable with is something more people are eager to do, for there are a number of casino sites out there that will force you to have to set their casino games to play for a high stake level, rather than smaller stake amounts.

Bonuses are all part and parcel of an online casino players life these days, and at sites that do accept Bitcoin you are going to find new player sign up bonuses, reload and ongoing bonuses and a range of daily promotional offers too, so locking in playing value is something else players can always be assured of too.

Games Available at Bitcoin Casinos

If you haven’t yet played at any Bitcoin casinos and are wondering just what type of games are going to be on offer to you at such sites, be aware that every conceivable type of game are going to be one click of your mouse or one tap of your mobile devices screen away at such sites.

Games that offer players the chance of winning a huge progressive jackpot will be available at such sites, every type of slot machine and each established and also new variant of games such as blackjack and video poker will also be on offer at such sites.

There will also be a good mix of table games such as Craps and Roulette and Baccarat and casino poker card games are also some of the most played and most popular games at all Bitcoin casino sites too.

Withdraw Bitcoin Casino Winnings in Cash at an ATM

The standard way that Bitcoin users are going to be able to turn their Bitcoin holdings into cash is by making use of what is known as a digital currency exchange, however when using one of those exchanges there could be a day or two delay or in some cases even longer regarding getting your payment sent out to you.

There is another way that casino game players especially are going to find appealing as to getting paid out their Bitcoin casino winnings in cash, and that is by using one of the many Bitcoin ATM’s dotted around the globe.

By using one of those ATM’s you can instantly turn your Bitcoin and often any other cryptocurrencies into cold hard cash on the spot, so when you do win playing casino games online and have been paid out your Bitcoin you will never have very long to wait until you have those winnings in cash in your hand when using one of those ATM’s.

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News

Malta Is The Crypto Trading Leader

We all know that there are all sorts of different perspectives that different countries have with regards to cryptocurrency. There are some governments that are embracing cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain startups with open arms, and others that are cracking down hard on the entire sector.

However, Malta has now become the country with the largest crypto trading volume in the world. While Malta has often been touted as “Blockchain Island” – its new position as the leader in trading volume has been subtle and unexpected by many.

About The Numbers

For those wondering just how much Malta has traded in 2018, the answer might surprise you. Specifically, the country traded $40 billion in cryptocurrency during that year. To put this in perspective, it traded over twice the volume of the United States, which is the largest economy in the world currently.

Following behind Malta was China, which processed $32.5 billion in cryptocurrency transactions. This achievement is even more remarkable when one considers that New York and London are considered traditional finance hubs of the world. Malta is clearly bucking that trend.

Embracing Blockchain

Of course, there is a reason for this. The government of Malta is extremely pro-blockchain, to the point where the prime minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, told the United Nations that crypto was the “future of money”. Since the government is so welcoming to blockchain business, two of the largest exchanges in the world, Binance and Okex, have signed agreements with the Maltese Stock Exchange (MSX) to launch security token platforms, as well.

Changpeng Zhao has praised Malta for embracing blockchain and cryptocurrency, calling the local regulators “very welcoming and reasonable”. He also stated in early 2018 that “Malta will be the next hotbed for innovative blockchain companies, and a centre of the blockchain ecosystem in Europe.” It is also believed that the entrepreneur is also planning on creating the world’s first decentralized bank in the country, as well.

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News

Seven Crypto Criminals Indicted In Taiwan, Ran Bitcoin (BTC) Fraud Scheme

It’s well known that there are countries in Asia that are not exactly embracing the cryptocurrency markets. For example, China has cracked down on cryptocurrency and initial coin offerings (ICOs), and India is still undecided about a regulatory framework regarding the sector. It appears as though there is now more negative publicity surrounding cryptocurrency and Asia.

This time, the country is Taiwan, which often gets overshadowed, considering it is the seventh largest economy in Asia. Seven individuals have been indicted for allegedly operating a fraudulent Bitcoin (BTC) investment scheme.

Background Information

The individuals were focused on attracting investors from Taiwan and China in particular, even focusing on specific provinces. The way that they lured many investors in is by promising to deliver yearly returns of 355%, meaning that those who invested would be able to more than triple their investment in a year’s time.

While there are many individuals and crime rings around the world that have been able to swindle thousands of dollars out of potential investors – this particular group of individuals was operating on a larger scale. Specifically, the seven were able to defraud over 1,000 investors out of over $50 million. The group may have had more success due to the strict regulatory conditions in China with regards to cryptocurrency.

Context/Indictments

While some investors were allegedly receiving returns at some point, others were not. The group began attracting investors since October 2016, but by April of 2018, all returns had stopped altogether. One of the main individuals involved was a man only identified by Lin, a 47 year-old who actually established an office in Taichung’s West District specifically to defraud potential investors.

There was a whole range of evidence brought forward for the indictments, including witness testimonies, bank accounts, and “more evidence”. The individuals are charged with violating Taiwan’s Banking and Multi-Level Marketing Supervision acts.

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News

Crypto Goes Mainstream with its Own TV Show

hollywood

The world of cryptocurrency is about to get a massive boost for adoption and recognition via a rather surprising avenue: television.

Kevin Connolly of “Entourage” fame is currently working on a new project called Cryptos, a TV show about a group of friends who utilize cryptocurrency in order to try to make it in Hollywood. After struggling to find financers for their new movie they decided to launch a digital token and fund their own project via the creation of a decentralized film studio.

Connolly, who played the character of Eric ‘E’ Murphy in the hit 2000’s show Entourage, announced the upcoming show at the recent North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. He believes the show will help introduce cryptocurrency to the world and dispell some of the rumors and confusion surrounding the subject.

“The thing that scares people about crypto is a lack of understanding,” he explained in an interview with Breaker Mag.

Connolly, who will not only star in the new show but also take on director duties, is new to cryptocurrency himself. The conference was his first ever foray into the industry and he admits it’s still a big learning curve for him.

The show is being produced by two long-time blockchain enthusiasts, Erik Sords and Jason King. Both have previously been involved in blockchain startups, including The Academy School of Blockchain and Dionysia, a decentralized global studio. They hope to see the show get featured on Netflix or Amazon Prime and believe Connolly’s inclusion will help in this regard.

This is not the first time cryptocurrency and television have joined forces. Last year saw the release of the first crypto-funded feature-length movie, KevCoin, in the UK. The movie follows the adventures of Kevin Powder, played by comedian Jason Attar, as he attempts to launch his own digital asset. It won Best Comedy and Best Micro-Budget Feature at the London Independent Film Festival.

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News

WWF Utilizing Blockchain For Food Tracking

The WWF will be utilizing blockchain technology. For wrestling fans who might be used to the acronym – the WWF does not refer to the “World Wrestling Federation”, but instead refers to World Wildlife Fund. The well-known conservation fund boasts that this will help both businesses and consumers track food “from origin to consumer”.

The announcement was made in a blog post from the Australian arm of the fund. The announcement points out that this will both help consumers eat in a more responsible manner, and help businesses maintain ethical standards, as well.

About The Fund

The World Wide Fund For Nature is an international organization that was founded in 1961. It is easily the world’s largest conservationist organization, and boasts over five million supporters worldwide.

The fund has invested into thousands of organizations, projects, and initiatives, with the hope that the money will help to stop the degradation of Earth’s environment. The organization focuses on six key areas: climate, wildlife, freshwater, forests, oceans, and food.

About OpenSC

The blockchain-based food tracking system is called OpenSc, and was developed through a partnership by WWF-Australia and BCG Digital Ventures. The initiative plans to “add a unique blockchain code at the product’s point of origin”. The idea here would be a consumer who could find out where a fish was caught, and how it traveled across the supply chain.

This is not the first time that blockchain technology has been used to increase transparency in the food sector. Cargill notably incorporated blockchain to increase transparency with their turkeys right before Thanksgiving last year. The largest employer in the United States, Wal-Mart, has also utilized blockchain technology to track its lettuce, as well. This proved to be quite relevant, considering that an E.Coli outbreak related to Romaine lettuce occurred only a few months after the corporation made the announcement.

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News

Cryptyk: Data Security Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before

data security concept

As more and more data is stored online, hacks and data breaches are becoming a daily occurrence. It is estimated that as many as 5,000,000 data records are hacked and stolen every day. Even large corporations with expensive cybersecurity solutions, like Deloitte and Uber, are not immune. Hackers are becoming more and more adept at stealing data which can then be sold off to competitors or held for ransom – at a huge cost to the owner.

In order to stay one step ahead of the hackers, it is pertinent that companies today employ the most advanced technologies currently available to guarantee data security at each and every step.

The Cryptyk Solution

Cryptyk is currently one of the most advanced and secure cloud storage solutions for enterprise security because it approaches the problem of data theft from a unique angle.

Rather than use common cybersecurity methods that hackers already know their way around, Cryptyk instead ensures that any data that is stolen is rendered completely useless. It achieves this through the age-old technique of splitting an object into several pieces and storing them separately so that no one piece is of any use on its own. By putting a modern spin on this procedure and with the use of some of today’s most advanced technologies, Cryptyk has created a ground-breaking data storage concept.

Cryptyk uses an encrypted and decentralized multi-vendor cloud storage system for data integrity combined with blockchain technology for an auditable and incorruptible record of access. The two processes are individually referred to as Vault and Sentry.

cryptyk

The Methodology Explained

When uploading data to the Cryptyk platform, a customer’s files are split into five separate pieces, or ‘shards’, which are then encrypted and stored on the servers of five independent datacentres around the world. This both removes the possibility of any single point of failure and makes any single piece of data useless. Cryptyk only uses provenly secure data storage companies, such as Google and Amazon, and creates multiple shared backups of each shard at various sites to ensure data is available 24/7 – even in the unlikely event of one provider going down.

To track and record the transactions of each and every file and shard, Cryptyk logs everything on an incorruptible blockchain ledger. This ensures no record can ever be fraudulently altered and is secure against both internal and external manipulation. Any illicit attempt to access a file will be recorded and made available so that both Cryptyk and the customer can view and track the transactions.

Not only is system highly secure, but it is also much faster than any other blockchain-based system that is currently available and costs less than half that of traditional cybersecurity solutions.

A Data Security Ecosystem

Above and beyond an enterprise cloud data storage solution, Cryptyk has also developed an open source cybersecurity economy. Utilizing the ERC-20 token technology of the Ethereum blockchain, Cryptyk has created its own cryptocurrency asset, CTK. This provides an avenue for security vendors, software developers, and cryptocurrency investors to get involved with ongoing developments of the Cryptyk project.

Head over to the Cryptyk Token Sale to take part: https://www.cryptyk.io/

Cryptyk is an official IBM Embedded Solutions Partner for blockchain and cloud services and the only blockchain company to be named in the Top 10 Enterprise Security Startups for 2018

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News

Enjin (ENJ) Welcomes 2nd Most Popular Ethereum ERC721 dApp To Its Gaming Blockchain Ecosystem

looking at phone

Blockchain game development platform Enjin (ENJ) has been selected by augmented reality (AR) app developer VREX Lab as the host network of fast-rising Dyverse, a blockchain-based marketplace dApp that allows users to collect, breed, and play with 3D crypto-collectible monsters – called Kydys – which can be plugged into VREX Lab’s AR video messaging app, Kydy.

The news that VREX Lab would be collaborating with Enjin to integrate Kydys and other items and characters from Enjin’s partner games (i.e., the Enjin Multiverse) into the Dyverse marketplace and the Enjin Wallet dropped on Thursday via this announcement. In it, the AR app developer also revealed that they had launched the blockchain-based Dyverse platform on Product Hunt, a popular website that lets users share and discover new products.

Dyverse Soars to 2nd Among Ethereum NFTs

The dual-announcements from VREX Lab regarding Dyverse appear to have sparked interest within the budding crypto-gaming and crypto-collectible community. Looking to leading Ethereum block explorer Etherscan, Dyverse is ranked – at the time of writing – second for 24-hour transfers in and out of smart contracts that comply with ERC-721 (i.e., Ethereum’s standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs)).

Helping convey the significance of Dyverse’s second-place ranking, Etherscan tracks a total of 998 ERC-721 token contracts. The only dApp responsible for more transfers is the highly popular, heavily funded CryptoKitties, which has recorded 4,636 transfers over the past 24 hours (vs. 979 for Dyverse).

Enjin CEO Teases Upcoming Crypto Exchange Feature

Despite being busy working with South Korea- and China-headquartered VREX Lab to integrate the Dyverse marketplace dApp, there remains plenty down the short-term pipeline for the development of Enjin’s own product suite.

Indeed, early Thursday evening saw Maxim Blagov (CEO, Co-Founder & Creative Director) tweet that soon, users will be able to “use the Enjin Mobile Wallet to seamlessly exchange hundreds of trading pairs.” Included are Enjin’s very own Enjin Coin (ENJ), as well as ether (ETH), bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC) and numerous ERC-20-compliant tokens.

The release of this exchange feature, according to Blagov’s tweet, will “all [be] thanks to the world’s first native, decentralized, in-app multi-exchange integration,” enabled by Kyber Network (KNC), Bancor (BNT) and Changelly.

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News

Blockchain Tech Startup Cred Launches CredEarn Financial Product; Earn 10% APY on Bitcoin (BTC) Loans

watering plant

A new financial solution called CredEarn has launched today, and it allows holders of various assets – including cryptocurrencies bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and XRP (XRP) – to earn interest on their holdings.

The company behind the CredEarn innovation is blockchain-powered global lending network Cred, whose ERC20-compliant LBA token can be used for accessing and using Cred platform services – which eventually will include crypto-to-crypto lending.

The only way to access CredEarn is via the exchange feature offered through Uphold, a fintech startup that, along with Cred and two other blockchain-friendly entities (i.e., Brave and Blockchain at Berkeley), founded the Universal Protocol alliance last August (see: whitepaper v5.3).

The announcement – made jointly by Dan Schatt (Co-Founder & President, Cred LLC) and J.P. Thieriot (CEO, Uphold) – was broadcast to the public via a Periscope livestream early Thursday evening. In highlighting just how significant the launch of CredEarn is for asset holders around the world, Schatt stated that:

For the first time in 183 countries around the world, Uphold customers now have the opportunity to earn on their crypto and several [other] digital assets.”

Regarding the annual percentage yield (APY) being offered through CredEarn, Uphold members will earn varying amounts based on the type of digital asset they decide to loan to Cred. Unsurprisingly, the largest APY (i.e., 10%) relates to BTC-denominated loans. Other APYs currently offered through CredEarn are 5% (XRP) and 3% (ETH, USD, EUR, and GOLD). The minimum earn period is six months with the option to renew in six-month increments at the term end. Interest payments are made quarterly.

Whilst the United States is not one of the 183 countries CredEarn is available in at the time of launch, Uphold stated on their official Twitter account that the Cred team “is working on” making their new product available to U.S. residents. They stopped short of providing a timeframe, however, adding that such a development is “coming soon!” Wording found in Uphold’s FAQ section was somewhat clearer, with this answer revealing CredEarn is currently expected to be made available “to the U.S. market in the coming months.”

CryptoCoinSpy readers can watch the full replay of Thursday evening’s Periscope livestream below:

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News

Seoul Examining Blockchain Military Applications

In 2019, there is little doubt that blockchain technology will be utilized in a variety of sectors and industries. Over the years, there have been some obvious applications that blockchain is usually associated with, including sectors such as global payments, logistics, and data storage.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that blockchain is limited to these sectors, by any means. In fact, it appears as though South Korea is exploring how blockchain can possibly aid with their military.

Not The First

It should be clarified that South Korea is, by no means, the first country to explore military applications. Superpowers such as the United States and Russia have already been open about the fact that they might utilize blockchain for military purposes, particularly when it comes to making sure that communications are secure.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) in South Korea is planning on spending over $500,000 for various projects to develop blockchain solutions to military issues. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States has made it clear that they are interested in blockchain, as well.

Fourth Industrial Revolution

South Korea has always been on the cutting edge of technology, and its government has been open about referencing the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, which would incorporate technological trends such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

While some in the Korean government don’t necessarily advocate publicly for blockchain or cryptocurrency markets; there is one high-profile South Korean politician that has always promoted cryptocurrency. This would be Park Won-Soon, the mayor of Seoul. The mayor has even suggested that the city create its own cryptocurrency, the “S Coin”. The city has also set up a 100 billion won (around $88 billion in USD) fund in order to fund blockchain startups, as well.In addition, Korea has already been developing its own blockchain-based voting system since last year.