Image of The Day, 21 of November: Forbes, CNBC, Blokt and Others
We're presenting "the image of the day". Bitnewstoday.com has chosen the most important news about the digital economy and virtual currencies. Only the most valuable stories from only the trusted sources. Each and every event from this list will change the world of the digital economy either way. The most important stories of this day in the most indicative quotes are below!
1. BITCOIN GOES BOOM (Forbes)
Now What?
The Bitcoin price has fallen out of bed as was predicted. But what should be expected next? The bottom is falling out of Bitcoin and crypto looks like it is quickly heading for the final crescendo we’ve been waiting for. It should be added that normally these matters take a lot longer than anticipated but timing remains the nearly impossible skill we all wish we had.
But this for yesterday, what about tomorrow? The call you have to make is, does the current generation of cryptocurrencies — not tokens, but Bitcoin-style minable, distributed, trustless coins — have a future or not. If they don’t, then they will go to zero, if they do then they will ultimately go to the much-promised moon.
2. FOUL PLAY (CNBC)
The U.S. Justice Department is reportedly looking into the potential crypto shenanigans
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether traders used tether, a controversial cryptocurrency that founders say is backed 1:1 by a U.S. dollar, to prop up Bitcoin, according to a report from Bloomberg News, which cited three people familiar with the matter. Tether and Bitfinex did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
Federal prosecutors launched a criminal probe into the cryptocurrencies earlier this year, Bloomberg reported. But they now suspect that traders on crypto exchange Bitfinex might have been using tether to coordinate Bitcoin's price moves illegally, Bloomberg reported. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also subpoenaed Tether and Bitfinex, who share many of the same executives, in December in part to prove that these tokens are actually backed by a reserve of U.S. dollars. The potential market tricks include "spoofing," or placing fake orders until the price hits a certain level, then pulling those orders.
3. LAST TRAIN TO BLOCKCHAIN (The Next Web)
SIEMENS wants a piece too
Industrial giant Siemens is the latest corporation to make moves in the blockchain space. The company has announced it intends to use the technology to bring innovation to the energy sector and give more power to the people — you know, the usual yet-to-be-proven decentralization rhetorics. For the time being, the company is limiting its blockchain experiment to two divisions only: Energy Management and Power Generation Services. With this move, Siemens hopes to find new ways to store energy and develop a more efficient management system for energy networks.
“Siemens aims to proactively shape the future of blockchain-based, transactive energy applications, new prosumer-centric use cases as well as business models around operation of distributed energy systems, microgrids and financing,” the company said.
4. LET’S NOT TALK IT (Bloomberg)
Let’s not talk about Bitcoin’s deadly spiral
This time last year, recent adopters were bragging of their good fortunes at the dinner table as the cryptocurrency was in the middle of a bull run that would see it more than double to a record $19,511 just before Christmas. Analysts estimated that the popular retail exchange Coinbase added at least 300,000 users in the week after the holiday.
Instead of paeans to the virtues of digital money over turkey and pumpkin pie, any discussions this year around the slide that pushed Bitcoin to as low as $4,051 Tuesday risk turning heated. On Twitter, aside from the usual FUD-blaming (fear, uncertainty and doubt), users are joking about having chicken nuggets for Thanksgiving, touting weed stocks and chatting about the weather instead of fielding questions from their grandfathers.
5. MAKE-A-CRYPTO-WISH (Blokt)
Hackers have infected the Make-A-Wish website with a cryptocurrency mining malware
Earlier this year, Forbes reported that crypto jacking is now the world’s most popular cyberthreat after displacing ransomware from the top spot. Apparently, the threat is now so prevalent that hackers are indiscriminate when it comes to their target. Their latest victim is the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a charitable organization which aims to fulfill the wishes of children who are diagnosed with critical illnesses.
Researchers from TrustWave Holdings, an information security company based in Chicago, Illinois, discovered that one of Make-A-Wish’s sites was infected with crypto jacking malware. In a company post, the security firm revealed that https://worldwish.org/en, one of the foundation’s sites, was compromised with a crypto mining script called CoinImp. Further investigation by the cybersecurity firm showed that the domain used to host the mining script is “drupalupdates.tk.” This suggests that the incident is part of the long-running hacker campaign since May 2018 that exploited vulnerabilities in the Drupalgeddon 2.
6. FIRST OF ITS KIND (The Straits Times)
Singapore's first Bitcoin trial begins
The trial for Singapore's first legal dispute involving the cryptocurrency Bitcoin started on Wednesday (Nov 21), with a court expected to decide whether a number of trades done in April last year had been wrongfully reversed — leading to proceeds deducted without authorisation.
In the case being heard in the Singapore International Commercial Court, electronic market maker B2C2 is suing cryptocurrency exchange operator Quoine over a "unilateral reversal" of seven trades on its platform. A market maker buys and sells financial instruments, hoping to make a profit on the bid-offer spreads. B2C2 seeks to recover about 3,085 Bitcoins from Quoine, with its lawyers charging in an opening statement that Quoine had sought to "abuse its role as operator of the platform" and "acted in breach" of trust as a custodian for B2C2.
7. A PIPE DREAM (Reuters)
Bitcoin for payments a distant dream as usage dries up
The use of Bitcoin for commercial payments has dropped dramatically this year, even as the original digital coin starts to fulfill one of the basic features of any payment currency: stability. Months of relative calm in Bitcoin prices after the wild swings of last winter had fueled hopes it would become widely used for payments, its intended purpose. But its collapse in use as a payment currency has instead left big finance and crypto insiders eyeing better technological infrastructure to help Bitcoin take off as a way to pay.
“The lack of volatility is a good step in the right direction that starts to make it viable for some of the non-retail use cases,” said Zeeshan Feroz, UK CEO of Coinbase, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. But both mainstream financial firms and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs say stability is not enough. To gain traction, Bitcoin needs to be faster and cheaper, they say. Clearer rules on an asset that has vexed financial regulators across the world would also help to give users a sense of legitimacy, UBS’s Teves said.
8. VICTIM IS GUILTY OF HEINOUS CRIMES (The Next Web)
Bitcoin beatdown ‘victim’ jailed for $1M cryptocurrency theft
Remember that kid that got tortured by his friends in an attempt to steal his Bitcoin about a month ago? Well, turns out he may have actually made his cryptocurrency fortune by stealing it from a Silicon Valley exec, after pulling an elaborate SIM-swapping scheme.
Santa Clara investigators recently arrested Nicholas Truglia, a 21-year-old con man from New York, for removing $1 million in cryptocurrency from exchange accounts belonging to the Bay Area‘s richest. Authorities allege Truglia used an en vogue hacking technique called SIM-swapping, which involves convincing tech support staff to port the phone numbers of six victims to phones owned by the attackers. Trugilia used this form of social engineering to siphon $1 million in cryptocurrency from exchange accounts belonging to Robert Ross, a father of two from San Francisco.
9. WORLD CAN SLEEP EASY (The Daily Hodl)
Bitcoin and crypto bull Anthony Pompliano claims that the world Is not ending
Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, founder and partner at blockchain and crypto investment firm Morgan Creek Digital Assets, has been fielding a flurry of phone calls from his clients about the plummeting price of Bitcoin — off 75% from its all-time-high nearly one year ago. In an open letter, Pomp fans the flames with the long view, reminding clients that “Bitcoin is acting as we anticipated” — at a new yearly low below $4,500.
“It is a fixed supply asset with increasing demand that will be subjected to the benefits of supply and demand economics. Bitcoin is not a traditional asset. There is no monetary policy decision that will be the catalyst for a recovery. The government can’t deem it too big to fail. There is no one who can step in and halt trading. Bitcoin lives and dies on its own”.
10. PRACTICAL PURPOSE FOR DLT (TechCrunch)
Can Bitcoin find its practical use case as a currency in Latin America?
While blockchain appears to be fulfilling its promise, many wonder if Bitcoin will ever get around to acting as a viable currency rather than just a store of value or speculative asset. While Bitcoin can be credited with spawning a new industry of cryptocurrency, in 2018 we still seem to be a ways away from purchasing ice cream or hourly parking with Bitcoin — or any other cryptocurrency for that matter.
If Bitcoin is to become a viable means of exchange, Latin America would appear to be the currency’s first point of entry on its journey toward ubiquity. Indeed, the region’s long history of economic mismanagement makes Bitcoin adoption as much a necessity as a luxury. For example, when you arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas you’ll see an official exchange rate listed above the currency exchange kiosks, and you might be tempted to cash-in your U.S. dollars for whatever the local currency happens to be that month.