POINT OF FAILURE: The IOTA coordinator node responsible for confirming transactions has been offline for over 12 days, yet the token remains listed as a top 30 cryptocurrency by market cap. Its price has even gone up over that period. The node was turned off to stop the theft of funds from the IOTA Foundation’s wallet service for retail investors. Full story
QUIET PAYMENTS: Ripple has given remittance firm MoneyGram more than $11 million in the past half year, according to filings with the SEC. The documents do not state what the funds are for, but MoneyGram's third-quarter 2019 filing stated, “The Company is compensated by Ripple for developing and bringing liquidity to foreign exchange markets, facilitated by Ripple's blockchain.” Full story
BY ERROR OR DESIGN? Ever since FCoin became insolvent this month, blockchain researchers have been poring over data to figure out what caused its failure. A recent report from Anchain AI wonders whether funds were pilfered by insiders, challenging FCoin’s official line claiming a data error was to blame. Full story
UNUSABLE RICHES: Finnish Customs has been trying to offload 1,666 bitcoin for several years, even drawing up a plan in September 2018 for a public auction of the digital coins. But officials are concerned a sale would attract the wrong kind of attention, as crypto buyers “rarely use them for normal endeavors,” Pekka Pylkkanen, a department director, said. Full story
O CANADA: Timothy Lane, Deputy Governor at The Bank of Canada said the central bank will not issue its own digital dollar unless a competitor to cash, such as Libra, takes off. “It’s tough to predict if Libra will ever live up to its promises or even come into existence. But it is a good example of a transformative technology that affects how the bank needs to respond to the future of money,” he said. Full story
FRAUD WARNING: Scammers have been sending fake versions of CoinDesk's daily newsletter to try to trick recipients into visiting a suspicious "XRP giveaway" site. If you received this message, which copied our logo and design and even used our executive editor's name in the "from" field, know that it did not come from us. (Note that the actual sender's address is not a CoinDesk.com domain.) Please forward to fraud@coindesk.com and nik@coindesk.com, and block the sender if received. |
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CRYPTO LENDING REPORT: The growth of crypto lending could attract new users and help the entire ecosystem grow. The introduction of lending, however, can also add systemic risk, and could change the very nature of the underlying assets. Will the benefits outweigh the potential vulnerabilities? This report also looks at what the near future could hold for the service, and the impact this could have on the sector as a whole. Download it for free here. |
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| GAINS LOST: Bitcoin is flashing red. Sellers are close to penetrating the psychological support of $9,000, which, if breached, could spark a deeper drop to the $8,700-$8,600 range. Full story
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| SIMPLIFYING SIM JACKING: In this episode of CoinDesk Explains, a new podcast series, CoinDesk editors Adam B Levine and John Biggs explain "SIM jacking," the feat of social engineering that has netted scammers millions of dollars in stolen funds, and what you can do to prevent it. Listen in |
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