Most of those who have bought Bitcoin literally have Bitcoin under the term of HODL. In tahis article, we are going to explain how this term would lead to incorrect Bitcoin prices. But first, let's see what the meaning of HODL is.

This term originated on 18 December 2013. It happened when someone in Bitcointalk Forum was talking about the actions that could be done with Bitcoin, but being drunk, he made a typo as HODL instead of the word HOLD, which means "to keep."

What does it meaning of HODL?

It means holding Bitcoin for a long time so that its worth goes higher. There is an expression for this term in the Persian language. Holding particular goods so that their price rises is called hoarding. Any commodity, in case of being kept in hefty amounts, would become expensive because of a decrease in their supply and this is contrary to common market trends through which an increase of demand results in overpriced goods.

The one who keeps Bitcoin by this strategy, in fact, increases its price with a manipulated decrease in its supply. But the one who does such a thing, according to the theory of being more idiot than me (which means someone ready to buy overpriced goods) would be looking for someone else to quickly buy those goods even with a higher price and following this trend would result in the generation of a price bubble. The amount of this price bubble depends upon the extent of hoarded Bitcoins, and this price bubble can burst easily since we can witness a severe crash of prices in the market utilizing supply on behalf of hoarders.

For a commodity as Bitcoin, one can consider the above-mentioned issue from another perspective as well, which can cause the value of the Bitcoin market to seem unreal. But how does this happen? At first, let's see how the market value of Bitcoin is calculated.

Market value's rate is calculated by multiplying the price by the number of goods; while on 26 October 2020, this number was based on the circulation of 18,526,743 Bitcoins as the price of each was 12,997.09 USD. By multiplying these two numbers, the total Bitcoin market value is calculated. But the problem is that the HODLed Bitcoins must be subtracted from the number of Bitcoins in circulation, and that is where the real Bitcoin Market value can be evaluated. But how many Bitcoins are hoarded, and how many are still left uncalculated among the circulated Bitcoins?

1.8 million Bitcoin which is equal to 10 percent of the total Bitcoins, have not been transferred from the moment they have been generated. Knowing this fact, one million Bitcoins are supposed to be under the control of Satoshi Nakamoto, the unknown Bitcoin creator.

On the other hand, more than 57 percent of Bitcoins which is equal to 10,545,000 have not been transacted for more than a year and indeed they have been hoarded. Besides, 93 percent of Bitcoins had no transaction for over two weeks now.

Let us do the math with these numbers:

93% of Bitcoins do not affect the present price of Bitcoin, and the more realistic approach for calculating the market value is multiplying 7 percent of Bitcoins by the price of Bitcoin.

12,997×18,526,743×0.07=16,855,445,510

This means that instead of 240 billion Dollars market value, we have roughly 16 billion Dollars market value. Nevertheless, this calculation is based on the perception of having stable prices. In the meantime, when one of the crypto whales of the Bitcoin Market (which means those who have hoarded huge sums of Bitcoins) imports some of his hoarded Bitcoins in the market, Bitcoin prices drop drastically.

Through this strategy, which is hoarding Bitcoin and encouraging other people to hoard this commodity as well, an unrealistic Bitcoin price and value in the market will be generated. For unaware people who have recently joined this market, these unreal numbers would result in miscalculation. In fact, if we add these figures to the table of cryptocurrencies, the expected conclusion is that Bitcoin must be placed on the fifth rank of the table instead of the first.

At present, many Bitcoin supporters ask the newly joined members to hoard at least a little amount of Bitcoin. And this amount is the result of the number of Bitcoins and the world population (Twenty-one million Bitcoins divided by eight billion as the world population is equal to 0.002625 Bitcoins). This advertisement for hoarding is done on behalf of Bitcoin supporters, like the one reason for hoarding this cryptocurrency.

The bitter truth is that Bitcoin is not the common cryptocurrency that the majority of people are buying and selling. It is only a decorative commodity for hoarding by the limited number of hoarders with ambitions of achieving high prices. Bitcoin supporters claim that buying and selling this cryptocurrency is efficient. However, according to these data, it seems there are not many who use Bitcoin in their transactions, and these claims are unrealistic. Perhaps another cryptocurrency can overcome these problems and get the title of a real digital currency, but definitely, Bitcoin cannot own this title in its current form.

Counos is an all-in-one financial platform based on Blockchain which started activity in the market of cryptocurrencies through offering a wide range of stablecoins based on credible global currencies such as Counos U, Counos CAD, Counos Cash and Counos E and stablecoins based on precious metals like Counos Gold, and Counos Silver.

A large number of analysts in the field of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies believe that Counos is soon able to change into an important financial platform. Counos coin, one of Counos platform cryptocurrencies, experienced an appropriate volume of trades in the short term of its offering to the exchanges such as Southxchange, but a larger opportunity has been provided.

In April 2011, the price of Bitcoin equaled just one U.S dollar and currently, June 22, 2019, it has the value equal to 9916 dollars. Almost everyone who has limited information about the world of cryptocurrencies has been interested in changing a part of his/her capital to Bitcoin in recent years to benefit from its high value.

However, with the new Counos design, this idea has come into reality. Counos Coin will ultimately mine 21 million coins with a similar algorithm to that of Bitcoin, and in fact, the number of cryptocurrencies is limited like Bitcoin. Presently, more than 16,800,000 of this coin have been mined, and the end of its mining can take more than 400 years.

Through designing the new Counos Platform, more than 15 million Counos Coins will be offered freely to all users who register in this platform and install its wallet and more than one million coins will be supplied for cryptocurrency exchanges to carry best out trades related to this coin.

Through having the ownership of all Counos Coins and offering them publicly, Counos founder has decided to guarantee its future economic growth through forming a totally decentralized financial atmosphere.

Furthermore, according to Counos official notice, every six months, there is a large drawing for all people who have at least one Counos Coin in their wallet and $10,000 will be awarded. Therefore, the same destiny Bitcoin has had might occur for Counos Coin too.

At least with this new design, the recurrence of history will not be far-fetched and probably as HuffPost predicts, Counos, too, will turn into one of the powerful rivals of Paypal and Western Union, and it might be able to increase the people’s assets up to ten times.

On the other hand, currently, only 1000 people own more than 40% of the volume of Bitcoin trades. The idea of Bitcoin being decentralized actually has, to some extent, faded through entering huge capitals in the past years. However, Counos is to consider all people as stakeholders of this group through offering Counos Coin to all users without any middleman.

Big changes will take place in offering Counos Coin, and we should wait and probably expect that public offering of Counos Coin can cause an increase in the value of cryptocurrencies’ market.

Reference: Cintjournal

Blockchain technology, however, can help remove some of the problems the businessmen and investors suffer from. The main features of Blockchain technology like owning a decentralized, digital distributed ledger technology remove the necessity of any intermediary which results in quicker transaction processing and lower fees.

Its multi-dimensional aspect intrigues other businesses such as insurance companies to utilize it too. The major reason is giving more transparency to the transactions no matter what they are. On the other hand, what has been pointed out about the uses of cryptocurrency doesn’t mean total removal of institutions like banks.

According to LBX, a cryptocurrency exchange in the UK, Visa had the highest record of the number of transactions per second by 24000 (considering the fact that it has had about 6 decades to improve its infrastructures in the field of cryptocurrencies) and the second place was for Ripple with a very sharp gap compared to the first; with the number of transactions amounting to one-sixteenth of what Visa shows. The lowest level, however, is for Bitcoin with 7 transactions per second.

Regarding Blockchain-based cryptocurrency networks, Ripple has the highest speed. Some other cryptocurrencies placed below Ripple are: Bitcoin Cash, with 60 transactions per second and showing a performance about one-third of the second rank cryptocurrency in this hierarchy; i.e. PayPal; Litecoin, having less significant difference with its upper-level rival (56 transactions per second), Dash and Ethereum with fewer numbers of transactions and lower ranks respectively.

In case the number of transactions increases there will not be any difference in the speed; it might be balanced through raising the fees. What can influence the speed of a transaction is again related to the fees. Transactions which are paid for more by the user will become the priority of the miners, so they will be the fastest ones accordingly. The other would be the cryptocurrency popularity; the more popular the currency is, the more time is needed for each transaction due to pressures on the network.

On the other hand, to be competitive enough in order to sustain in this volatile market needs reaching acceptable speed. One method used to speed up the transaction is applying a soft fork to make more room for processing the transaction. The other is Lightning network which allows the simultaneous occurrence of macro- and microtransactions thanks to handling transaction affairs offline. The second alternative started in January 2018, and some other new methods might be created to accelerate the speed of transactions on Blockchain platform from now on.

www.counos.io 

He stated in this regard that, “I do not understand why all the businesses working on the basis of the internet, do not use cryptocurrencies for their payments. Using cryptocurrencies compared with conventional payment gateways is easier, faster, and cheaper. It involves less red tape, and depends on a wider and more diverse population and geography.”

This retail giant has made a lot of efforts to develop different kinds of Blockchain technology, but its relation to cryptocurrency is based on rumors. One of these published rumors says that Amazon can integrate Bitcoin as a payment method in its mechanism.

Chanpeng Zhao said that in the payment process, using fiat currencies requires a lot of processing, and using them is not cost-effective, in his opinion. He further added that one advantage of cryptocurrencies over fiat currencies is that you can attract more customers worldwide by using cryptocurrencies as a payment method since customers are no longer limited to those who access to international payment gateways.

Another advantage of using cryptocurrencies compared to companies such as Paypal, which is only accessible in a limited number of countries, is the ease of payment operation for goods and services. All in all, it can be concluded that using cryptocurrencies in global businesses is substantially effective in attracting millions of customers.

On the other hand, growing the client base of companies such as Amazon is among the advantages of cryptocurrencies. He stated that he does not understand why some companies do not use cryptocurrencies as a payment option in their businesses.

Amazon has expressed its interest in accepting Bitcoin cryptocurrency as a payment option in the form of some rumors; but currently, due to the recent volatilities of the crypto market, it sounds impossible.

Amazon has developed its own exclusive coins that cannot be entered into the crypto market, and be considered as a kind of cryptocurrency. But this currency can be used in in-app purchases of stuff like specific software, games, and digital stuff on Android phones.

In short, if Amazon launches its cryptocurrency, it can develop by using its services such as Audible, Twitch Prime, Amazon Prime, and by making it possible to transfer capital in the area of the ecosystem. This company can eliminate other cryptocurrencies from the competition, by offering a 5-10% discount to its customers.

Considering all that has been said so far, a question arises, what happens if Amazon keeps out of the crypto domain?

One of the things that threaten the authority of Bitcoin is Amazon not entering the crypto domain; in other words, Bitcoin requires the confirmation and attracting the attention of customers from the investment stage to the revenue stage. Though, despite all the worries regarding this matter, it is improbable that Amazon will stay out of the digital domain. However, should this happen, Bitcoin will lose one of its largest online retail stores, and a huge blow will come to the potential of this retail giant.

If federal agencies take Bitcoin as a kind of money, it will pave the way for legalizing the field of exchange and transferring cryptocurrencies.

Florida court has cited in a part of its statement that:

“The appellate court’s opinion reverses Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Teresa Pooler’s 2016 finding that digital or cryptocurrency could not be considered money under Florida law. The case in question concerned Miami Beach resident Michell Espinoza, charged with two counts of money laundering and acting as an unauthorized money transmitter operating a digital currency-trading website, LocalBitcoins.com.”

Based on the judgment as mentioned above, all Ms. Espinoza’s crimes and charges will be dismissed. The local court believes that Florida court has not announced any exact and strict definition for Bitcoin cryptocurrency and Bitcoin is not subject to cryptocurrency definition clearly. Encrypted coins are recognized as a payment instrument and of course as a cryptocurrency, and can be used as an instrument to do transaction and exchange considering its capability to convert them into fiat currency.

Fiat currency is an unbacked currency. It is the currency released by the states without any support and physical value. The value of this currency comes from the relationship between the degree of supply and demand. Fiat money is controlled and valued via a main center.

Is Bitcoin the Same as Money?

The question raised here is “what Bitcoin really is?” What are its difference with actual money and how can it be achieved?

Bitcoin is considered a cryptocurrency, and as currencies and coins can be used as actual money, Bitcoin can also be used a non-existent and virtual money; in other words, Bitcoin can be used to buy goods, reserve hotels and do so many online transactions.

Regarding Bitcoin cryptocurrency, through paying different amounts of it, different amounts of service and goods can be achieved. Hence, this cryptocurrency is assumed as a “Unit of Account.”

As a currency, Bitcoin has similar features to official money; you can save Bitcoin and use it with the same value in another time. This important feature we see in Bitcoin can be observed in other fiat currencies too.

Regarding the recent decision made by Florida court in case of using Bitcoin cryptocurrency as a kind of money, all Bitcoin illegal methods have been avoided. An illegal atmosphere to do transaction can engage you in big problems, since if you are hacked and robbed by the frauds, the process of searching and assets retrieval will be greatly difficult, and it is even possible to lose all your assets forever.

www.counos.io 

Gerry Cotten was the only one to monitor the wallets and their associated keys, and after his demise, the exchange did not access to those funds. The common process was that Gerry Cotten transferred a large bulk of cryptocurrencies to the cold wallets to keep them against hacking and theft; although the exchanges sometimes can withdraw their funds in critical conditions through the multi-signature system.

Jennifer Robertson, Mr. Cotton’s widow, has stated that he was working with a computer at home which has unfortunately been encrypted. She continued that: “I don’t know the password or restore keys; despite repeated attempts and searches, I didn’t find anything which these keys have been written on.

Moreover, active operators in this exchange remarked that the manager’s monopolistic access to the cold wallet is very hazardous; since it makes the wallet vulnerable to the frauds’ kidnapping and extortion. Regarding what Mr. Cotten has done, Michael Gokturk, Einstein CEO stated that: “it is similar to walking around the city all the time with the hands full of millions of dollars of cash.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Robertson recruited a cyber-security expert to decode Mr. Cotten’s laptop, but he has not so far succeeded in doing that, and it caused a liquidity crisis in this exchange. Of course, QuadrigaCX has explored many cold wallets with few cryptocurrencies in them.

The company said that it possesses just the liquidity of $286000 and it is an ignorable fund compared to $260 million owed to its users.

The assets of this company are not useable due to being stored in cold wallets, because these wallets are not connected to the internet network and protect existing cryptocurrencies against any attack and robbery.

The users of this cryptocurrency platform requested from the exchange authorities a document denoting Mr. Cotten’s demise due to not being able to withdraw their funds.

In spite of the investors’ complaints, this exchange tries to protect the company against them; therefore, QuadricaCX has asked for a deadline for this exchange and its cooperators to decode cold wallets.

Robertson has told that in addition to the aforementioned complaints on the part of the investors, she has been threatened by the users and sent derogatory and false views for her and her contacts on Facebook.

Despite all these events, she stated that if this exchange is not able to decode the wallet and return the investors’ fund, it will assign it the business to the investing users as there have been some suggestions in this regard too.

Finally, it can be said that this exchange could avoid the problems through an internal management system.

www.counos.io 

Huobi is a well-known exchange in the cryptocurrency market. This exchange was first founded in China, but after a while, it opened up offices in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and the United States. In August 2018, this exchange was officially registered in Hong Kong as a company.

Reportedly, the two big financial services companies, namely Alipay (under the Alibaba Group Holding) and WeChat payment services, have frequently sent legal letters to Huobi, and claim that the use of their company services and even their logo in the OTC section of Huobi exchange to be illicit activity.

OTC services are trades between the two parties directly without being overseen by the exchange. OTC trades compared to those of the exchanges have numerous advantages including facilitating the market’s liquidity, providing transparency in the trade, and most importantly maintaining the market’s current price.

Based on information obtained from local news outlet Sina, both Alipay and WeChat have neither offered their services to Huobi exchange nor even have they given permission to it to use their companies’ trademarks.

Nonetheless, Huobi’s OTC trading platform has allowed its users to upload QR codes from both Alipay and WeChat systems several times to facilitate trading cryptocurrencies for users in its own platform.

Sina news agency stated that payment methods of Alipay and WeChat are still available at Huobi’s OTC platform on January 28.

On January 29, Huobi responded to these statements and claimed that it has not received any letters, and further added that a particular payment platform’s logo is merely a way to show the payment link. This exchange stressed that there is no cooperation between Huobi and the two payment companies and that all the money transfers by this exchange’s users are done through peer-to-peer payments.

At first in August 2018, Alipay used strong measures against its users who used their Alipay accounts to trade in OTC Bitcoin. Alipay company, which is considered a giant among payment systems, and which recently broke a record by one billion users worldwide, constrained accounts that traded in the OTC Bitcoin platform several times, and also implemented a control system for website and accounts’ passwords.

WeChat, a Chinese social media network with one billion users and developed by Tencent Technology, took measures a while back with respect to cryptocurrency accounts. In August 2018, WeChat service blocked a number of cryptocurrency accounts which were suspected of releasing Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). In September, WeChat blocked an official sales channel for Bitcoin mining devices since they allegedly violated their license.

In late 2018, Huobi cryptocurrency exchanges group confirmed that a number of their employees have been let go due to cryptocurrency’s declining market. Recently, HBUS, Huobi’s commercial partner in the U.S., said that it will move its retail trading services from HBUS.com to Huobi.com.

www.counos.io 

It is said that cryptocurrencies have a high security and it is not easy to manipulate them. If this claim is to be true, then what about all the news of hacking and stealing cryptocurrencies?

Research by CipherTrace indicates that in 2018, $1.7 billion’s worth of cryptocurrencies have been obtained through theft and scams. Of this $1.7 billion, more than $950 million has been stolen through trading cryptocurrencies which is a 3.6 percent increase in theft compared to that of 2017. Furthermore, $725 million has been stolen in 2018 through scams like Ponzi schemes, exit schemes, and offering fake coins. Of this amount, $6 million was Bitcoin, of which $4 million went missing, and $2 million was stolen.

CipherTrace has published a list of 10 different scams commonplace in the field of cryptocurrencies:

The first on the list is SIM swapping, which is assumed a type of identity theft and includes taking over the victim’s phone number in order to gain access to authentication codes. Among other cited threats is crypto dusting, which is sending destructive cryptocurrencies to a large number of different addresses.

Also, promoting cryptocurrencies to circumvent international sanctions, which is backed by countries such as Iran and Venezuela, is among the illicit ways to use cryptocurrencies.

According to a report by Cointelegraph, research by Chainanalysis showed that two groups of hackers that are possibly still active have stolen $1 billion’s worth of cryptocurrencies. These two groups that are called Alpha and Beta are responsible for 60 percent of exchange and overseeing services hacks.

Two weeks ago, New Zealand-based exchange Cryptopia was hacked. The final amount of theft is not yet clear.

www.counos.io 

The thief’s attempts to break open the ATM with the hammer were fruitless, and he eventually put the ATM on his shoulders and exited the shop.

Third Consecutive Theft from Belwood Bakery in Recent Weeks

The owner of this shop has told CBS reporter that it was the third theft happened in the recent weeks.

On a video aired by CBS from the night of December 21, two thieves tried to enter the bakery with the same method. Another group had also stolen from the bakery on December 18, but in both cases, the thieves left empty-handed.

Currently, it is not clear whether these thefts are related, or the thieves accrued any money.

Frequent Thefts Threaten the Life of Small Businesses

Belwood bakery started out back in 1994, and it has since been well-known for its delicious sweets and friendly service. Derek Tran, a family member of the bakery owner, said to CBS that he did not know whether any money was in the ATM or not. He says that the experience of consecutive thefts endangers their occupation survival.

We best hope that thieves were smart enough to know that Bitcoins are not the kind of coins that have a physical presence. Maybe they were mentally deranged!

After all, what did the thieves expect to do with a cryptocurrency ATM? Did they want to sell it to someone who collects cryptocurrency ATMs or sell it off as a hotdog vendor?

www.counos.io 

The preliminary measure taken by Iran’s central bank include issuing the primary draft of cryptocurrency laws denoting no more bans on Bitcoin, digital token, ICOs, etc.; although there will be some limitations in their domestic use, they can be safely applied for the business by the people. It goes without saying that there will be some legal prohibitions for the financial institutions in working with them; since it would be risky for maintaining Rial monopoly.

The aforementioned legislation will include other related technologies such as crypto-wallet, and mining too. To make use of cross-border benefits of cryptocurrencies to improve Iran’s poor economy, eight foreign countries including Switzerland, South Africa, France, England, Russia, Austria, Germany, and Bosnia have taken part to talk about future trades with Iran through this newly-confirmed cryptocurrency.

Following the recent economic dilemma Iran has confronted; that is, SWIFT suspension, starting international trades based on cryptocurrency seems a necessity to help Iran cope with the situation with the lowest risk possible.

What has been embarked in Iran is preceded with a similar one carried out in Russia by creating national crypto to solve the problems related to SWIFT suspension. The similar financial approach taken by two neighbor countries resulted in signing a trilateral agreement between Iran, Russia, and Armenia with the target of employing Blockchain too.

addition to legalizing cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology in Iran, its other promising innovation is to unveil a state-backed cryptocurrency, Crypto-Rial, at the Annual Conference of Electronic Banking and Payment Systems held January 29, 2019. For the time being the Iranian authorities’ supposition for crypto-Rial is its constrained application as a payment tool between the banks and cryptocurrency-funded institutes.

www.counos.io 

Currently, after Bitcoin’s 3700-dollar resistance line being broken, its every unit is traded at about $3650, which is still less than its mining cots. Therefore, mining Bitcoin does not make economic sense; however, Chinese miners are in better condition, since energy costs are lower in China. Mining each Bitcoin in China costs $2400 on average.

The fall in the value of Bitcoin from 6500 dollars in October 2018 to its current value at about 4000 dollars, has made an investment in its mining uneconomic in many regions of the world and has propelled miners toward countries with cheaper energy costs. Bitcoin miners in world’s second largest economy, gain this advantage by purchasing electricity directly from power plants with a surplus in production. According to many researchers in this field, China is the paradise for Bitcoin miners, and most of its mining grids are active in this country. The energy industry in China is dependent on coal and hydropower, and energy costs in this country are lower compared to many countries in the world. The analysts of this report estimate that the minimum value of Bitcoin so that only Chinese would remain in the area of mining is about $1260. Three factors of energy, cold weather, and secure internet are among the most important prerequisites for mining various cryptocurrency types in a region.

It goes without saying that in these conditions the miners whose costs are more than their profits will exit the market. This will be in favor of those who remained active miners. A decrease in the number of miners will lead to a decrease in hash rate and as a result a decrease in the needed energy for mining.

Miner should be able to hash the header of a block in a way that it can be applied in the defined conditions, i.e., “target.” Hash rate refers to the number of computing hash per time unit. To stabilize the duration of adding a new block (which is ten minutes for Bitcoin) a parameter called difficulty has been defined. According to Bitcoin mechanism, in case computing power increases (entering more miners), the difficulty increases so that the duration of adding new blocks would remain the same. More difficulty will determine harder conditions for the goal, and as a result, the number of hash computations for block header to create the target conditions will increase, that is, the hash rate will increase. In the same way, as the number of miners decreases, so do the difficulty and hash rate.

Finally, this report claims that Bitcoin does not feature actual value, and will only be meaningful when investors no longer believe in gold and Dollar. Even in the worst recession or economic crisis, there are easier tools to invest and trade with. Interest in Bitcoin’s future is in decline as the volume of trades in this field decreases.

www.counos.io 

The reputable cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which based on trades volume is considered to be the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, has taken the necessary steps with respect to these reports and published an announcement. This exchange, after publishing an official press release, announced that the users’ exposed KYC data and personal information, do not belong to the users of Binance exchange; since this exchange puts its watermark and the digital signature on any picture it receives. Despite the fact that the word Binance can be seen in all the images released by the hackers, the attackers have claimed hacking information of large exchanges such as Poloniex, Bittrex, and Bitfinex. At first, the entire cryptocurrency community thought that the published news is fake, but after a short while this hacker published documents of the hacked users’ information, and proved the claim to be true, and caused agitation and suspense about this incident.

Now, Binance exchange has released information which shows that images published by the attackers, do not belong to this exchange’s accounts. In this announcement, Binance stated that security is one of their most focal priorities, and they have taken various steps to ensure totally that users’ information is secure.

In this announcement, it is said that KYC data of Binance exchange have rigorously been listed and stored by security authorities under more control and protective steps. Through investigations, Binance found out that these images lack Binance’s watermark and digital signature; therefore, they do not belong to this exchange’s users.

It is mentioned in a section of Binance’s announcement that, “to elaborate, it should be mentioned that in order to respect the gathered information via KYC process, Binance’s image processing system creates a hidden digital watermark on all the images it receives.”

Furthermore, Binance announced that these digital signatures are identifiable just under special circumstances, and the data such as sender’s information, image source details, and the information of the person who has done various operations on it, are all included in the image.

Based on these announcements, even if the pictures are altered, these watermarks will be identifiable. Moreover, to more protect the exchange users, Binance encrypts sensitive information such as images and personal pictures based on industrial standards (AES).

At the end of this announcement, it is mentioned that Binance works very hard and seriously in dealing with such issues, and in case of any accusation regarding the exposure of users’ sensitive information, Binance will instantaneously investigate and evaluate the authenticity of these claims.

In this hacker’s ads, the name of Bitfinex exchange has also been seen, but this exchange said in a Twitter post published on January 21 that no security breach has taken place in this platform.

Currently, no information is available as to what is the source of the data in the hands of this hacker. After the release of this ad and attracting the attention of everyone, the said hacker changed his pseudonym to avoid any unwanted attention.

This malware is transferred to the victim’s system through malvertising and deceiving the user as a functional software and infects it. The attacked browsers are Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Yandex. Razy is added to the browser as an add-on and inactivates its automatic update as well as integrity checking features. For instance, Razy Trojan edits chrome.dll to inactivate integrity checking feature, and so do registry keys of the browser to inactivate automatic update feature.

According to the published reports, an add-on called Chrome Media Router is installed on Google Chrome browser, the same takes place for an add-on called Firefox protection on Firefox browser and so is Yandex Protect add-on on Yandex browser all by Trojan.

The basic activity of this malware is done via a .js script. This address code of cryptocurrency wallets replaces QR codes and web pages of cryptocurrency exchange centers with the cases controlled by the attackers.

Razy Trojan can manipulate research results showed to the user on the infected browser. For example, through showing charming services and auctions, it convinces the user to enter his/her user account, despite being just an alluring show, and accommodates the attackers the user’s password.

The following massages are frequently seen in the infected browser’s banners:

• Invest a bit now, earn a million later

• Get paid for an online survey

Besides the above cases, the user observes a banner pointing to a grant to Wikipedia when visiting Wikipedia pages while it is not from Wikipedia and gives the wallet address to the attacker.

Razy downloads and runs other .js files to increase its capabilities.

Related wallets to these hackers had 0.14 Bitcoins and 25 Ethereums at the time of this report.

Kaspersky Lab has published the following advices to avoid infection by this Trojan:

• Use safe anti-viruses; Keep them update and scan your system regularly.

• Examine your browser’s add-ons and inactivate your dubious cases.

• Download and install your functional programs only from valid sources.

www.counos.io 

CoinMe, located in Washington, verified its operation in the press on January, 17. It started its activity in April 2014 as the first Bitcoin ATM provider.

CoinMe Bitcoin Sale through Coinstar Kiosks

Thousands of new Kiosks enable Bitcoin purchase as the most popular digital market capital for those interested. CoinMe is the first supplier company of Bitcoin ATMs in the U.S. which received the U.S license in this regard. Currently, this company is developing ATMs in the field of cryptography across the world. The exact scope of providing such devices has not been specified. Coinstar, itself, intends to start 2000 kiosks.

Neil Bergquist, CoinMe Co-Founder, and CEO stated that:

“We are happy to cooperated Coinstar to offer a simple and comfortable method of Bitcoin purchase to the customers during their daily activities. Bitcoin is now available at grocery stores through Coinstar kiosks. This provision will simplify the customers’ cooperation in this new dynamic economy.”

These machines would let purchasing more than $2500 Bitcoins in a few steps including:

Going to the Coinstar kiosk, selecting “Buy Bitcoin,” accepting transaction terms and entering the cell phone number.

Inserting the paper money into the cash acceptor (to the amount more than $2500)

Receiving a voucher with a Bitcoin redemption code (money cashing code)

visiting www.coinme.com/redeem to create CoinMe account, or entering the CoinMe account to claim the money.

If Bitcoin becomes available in all 20000 locations, this cooperation will lead to a five times increase of Bitcoin ATMs.

According to the information by CoinATMRadar supervision source, the U.S currently owns 2488 Bitcoin ATMs and includes about 60% of their total numbers.

Jim Gaherty, the CEO of Coinstar told in this regard that: “this company has always searched for new methods to supply values for the customers.”

A study published in September 2018 shows that Bitcoin ATMs should be worth $145 million in the past five years as an industry in the world.

The businesses have faced some difficulties in the field of encryption recently. Lamassu, one of Bitcoin ATM providers, moved to Switzerland objecting to undesirable supervisory conditions in administrative domains.

Switzerland has launched a perspective following supporting this part. Switzerland banks demand integration with encryption. It currently has 46 Bitcoin ATMs besides ticket offering devices at each station which can sell Bitcoin too.

There was a news in the last week stating that Tabac stores have addressed selling Bitcoin to cryptocurrency fans. These stores are ubiquitous and famous in France. It can alleviate the peoples’ access to encryption industry.

www.counos.io 

Among all these news, perhaps the news about the influx of malwares in cryptocurrencies was the most controversial. However, this was not exclusive to cryptocurrencies, and there was a lot of news about hacking users and stealing from their credit card all over the world.

Coin mining malwares inflicted the most attacks in 2018. After the increase in the price of cryptocurrencies, these coin mining malwares use the victims’ computers processing system to mine cryptocurrencies. When a device is exposed to such malwares, a destructive software is run in the background and increases energy use, which in turn decreases the speed and function of the device. This was not particularly for home computers, and in fact, many of these malwares had infiltrated the network routers of the biggest companies in the world. MacAfee security lab announced in mid-2018 that it had discovered a malware named “WebCobra.” This malware would infiltrate victims’ computers and then turn them into hardware for mining cryptocurrency. The range of such malwares increased so much in 2018 that it is estimated that they have infiltrated more than millions of devices. The greatest number of infiltrated devices was observed in Brazil, South Africa, and the United States.

Furthermore, there have even emerged web-based malwares in the area of cryptocurrencies. In 2018, a malware was identified that could hijack the information of the users’ wallet through infiltrating the Safari browser of iPhone users and then stealing their cryptocurrency assets.

However, it did not end here. Later on, it turned out that cryptocurrency mining malwares also infiltrated many Amazon devices that run on Android.

The amount of news published about malwares and hijacking of cryptocurrency information was so much last year that many analysts believe that one of the reasons for the loss of cryptocurrency value has been the feeling of financial insecurity among users.

Yet, with some updates for the configuration of home computers and an increase in security measures from labs such as MacAfee, it can be expected that in 2019 the security of users will increase in cryptocurrency market.

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The price of Bitcoin rose to about $3700 and experienced a 250-Dollar increase in only a couple of hours. On the other side, other cryptocurrencies had a similar experience. Ethereum had a 7-percent increase, and its price reached 130 dollars per Ethereum.

The price of Ripple rose by 4%. One of the highest increase rates among all cryptocurrencies was in Tron; although this cryptocurrency experienced a sharp price drop last week, it faced a-higher-than-15% increase in a day.

The Reason for the Increase in Prices

Not one specific reason can be stated for the increase in the price of cryptocurrencies. Yet, there were many reports about the more significant activities of investors in the field of cryptocurrencies, which seems like it was effective in the cryptocurrency price increase. On the other hand, the reports about the augmentation in the activity of Bitcoin whales has had a dramatic influence in the trades of the Blockchain technologies. Bitcoin whales are wallets that hold a considerable proportion of Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. The assets of many Bitcoin whales are more than hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins, and by moving their capital, they can easily control the price of cryptocurrencies.

It seems that the increase in cryptocurrency prices will continue until the end of the current week.

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Mikhail Vidyakin, director of the strategy and reform department of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), believes that many organizations in Ukraine are able to regulate cryptocurrencies. He claims that the number of potential regulators in this area must decrease to develop this industry. The local news outlet LetKnow points that there are at least three state organizations in Ukraine that work to this end:

- National Bank of Ukraine (NBU)

- Ministry of Finance

- National Securities Commission

Vidyakin, also, believes that Ukraine needs a more precise regulatory framework and better definitions in the cryptocurrency industry. This Ukraine central bank official further added that he supports laws and regulations that allow the market to grow, and that banks should prioritize interacting with financial technology sector or fintech (companies and startups use the most up-to-date technologies in providing financial services to customers).

Financial technology which is known as fintech refers to companies or startups that have owned the financial services sector since the 21st century and use the most up-to-date technologies in providing financial services to customers. Moreover, they are characterized by lower costs, fast service, and ease of use. Fintech has recently been used during the current century in the areas of financial literature, micro banking, investment and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (a kind of cryptocurrency based on Blockchain). Fintech lowers costs and is considered an alternative to services of the conventional financial institutions.

The blockchain is an encrypted infrastructure on which cryptocurrencies are founded. This technology provides security in cryptocurrencies. Therefore, no one is able to manipulate the history of transactions, and this history is transparently available to users. In fact, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency based on Blockchain that was introduced to the market.

According to a report published by Cointelegraph news website in October, last year, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine has already started a state policy to classify and legalize activities related to the area of cryptocurrencies. Yet, this real legal framework has not yet been introduced by the government.

Last September, Ukraine parliament proposed a tax draft on cryptocurrencies which imposes a 5 percent tax on individuals and legal institutions which conduct operations using virtual assets. It is further proposed in this draft that profit tax rate of cryptocurrencies will increase up to 18 percent for businesses starting on January 1, 2024, should increase.

Concurrent with this, a task force in the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance is negotiating taxation guidelines in the cryptocurrency market.

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Blockchain technology or chain of Blocks is an encrypted database and lets value exchange without a central institution presence. Cryptocurrency or digital currency is an exchange intermediary which forms transactions on an encrypted and safe ground. Its other equivalents include electronic money, virtual money and virtual cryptocurrency which can be used interchangeably. Bitcoin is a type of digital currency formed on Blockchain technology.

The degree of google search popularity is measured on a 0-100 scale, and the searching digital currency has decreased from 100 in December 2017 to less than ten at the end of 2018.

The countries like Singapore, Slovenia, Australia, Cypress, South Africa, Ghana, United Arab Emirates, St. Helena, Ireland and Nigerian have more tendency to search about digital currency.

When we speak of “Blockchain,” the countries like Malt, China, Singapore, Ghana, Switzerland, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, Slovenia, and many other countries are more interested in searching “Blockchain” rather than the other.

The interesting point is that the country which has the highest searches in Blockchain is a small island of Malta with the population fewer than one million. China is on the second rank; the third and fourth places are Ghana and St. Helena respectively; of course, it seems that the geographical data offered by Google Trends is not very accurate.

It seems that according to the acquired data, the interest in blockchain depends on the interest in Bitcoin and digital currency; that is, the interest decrease in Blockchain follows the interest decrease in Bitcoin. Indeed, the interest decrease in Bitcoin is similar to its value decrease, and the rate of searching for the word “Blockchain” has experienced similar dynamism in the last year; although there is no assurance in reaching a complete and clear conclusion.

The searches show final popularity of Blockchain more than Cryptocurrency

Another analysis on the data proves that after enthusiasm in cryptocurrency in 2017, the word “Blockchain” allocated a larger portion of searches to itself in 2018. The maximum rate of searching for the word “Blockchain” took place in the first week of January, and the degree of its search will decrease to 80% in December. The studies show that in the last five years Blockchain and digital currency had equal competition with a little irregularity.

Moreover, there was observed in these investigations that there had been the greatest number of searches of “Bitcoin” between January 14th to 20th, 2018. It received the score of 100 in Google search compared to two other words; however, its score decreased to less than 20% by an 80% decrease in its search in December.

Volatile state of the prices in 2018 caused many investors as well as Blockchain, and digital currency fans change their position, but accepting Blockchain technology is considered a huge development for the community of its developers. The data from Google search emphasize the fact that although Bitcoin popularity is very high, what people show is their greater interest in Blockchain technology.

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Lamassu, currently known as Lamassu Industries AG, has been transferred to Swiss canton of Lucerne; since it wants to be where the rules are well-defined and its legislators are on the side of innovation and creativity. Lamassu posted that its applications for opening the account have been rejected in 15 countries; because this company manufactures Bitcoin terminals; however, it does not play any role in transactions or storing digital currencies. Moreover, there appears that the Stripe payment processor has not accepted it due to having the word “Bitcoin” in its website.

Switzerland is well-known because of its encryption-friendly approach and Blockchain development center called “Crypto Valley” located in Zug. In December 2018, Zug, Switzerland achieved the title of the fastest growing developed technology society in Europe. In a comparison made regarding annual growth of participants in meetup technology events in all European cities, this city enjoyed a 177% growth compared to that of last year; consequently, achieved the first rank. Many big companies busy in the field of digital currencies have moved to other regions as the supervising arbitrage in encryption regulations.

In May, BitBay, the greatest digital currencies exchange in Poland, decided to suspend its activities there; since the banks don’t cooperate with this corporation anymore. It announced that it will be directed by one of a new supplier to the Republic of Malta instead of Poland where the local rules have encryption-friendly industry.

The blockchain is an encrypted infrastructure on which Bitcoin and other digital currencies (encrypted currencies) work. This technology provides security in encrypted currencies. Therefore, no one will be able to manipulate transactions records, and they will be clearly available for the users. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency which was introduced to the market based on Blockchain.

After that, in June, Binance, the world biggest encryption exchange, opened a bank account in the Republic of Malta and remarked that this new bank account is considered a significant development since its establishment and it shows that its headquarter has been transferred to this island.

The reports imply that Binance did it after Japanese regulators’ warning to this exchange. Besides Switzerland, other countries like Bermuda, Estonia, and Liechtenstein are actively working on making and regulating rules to welcome encryption and Blockchain projects. In July, Bermuda proposed some plans to modify banking laws followed by creating a new class of banks which offers services to fintech local organizations and Blockchain technology.

Fintech, Financial Technology, includes many companies which use software to give financial services. These companies have been established to change common financial models and alter big tax companies which don’t enjoy technology very much. Of course, fintech has changed economic approach for the common people; currently, the public can reach services which have been accommodated by high economic ranks and the rich.

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What is Ripple?

Ripple was founded in 2012 and created its own cryptocurrency, i.e., XRP. This cryptocurrency is now one of the oldest ones in the digital currency world. After Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is ranked in the third place, and sometimes it takes the second level of the most valuable cryptocurrencies. The Ripple’s benefit compared to Bitcoin is its simplicity. Opposite to Bitcoin which doesn’t have a simple mechanism, Ripple has a clear structure, so it is suitable for international transactions.

Dimitrios Kokocioulis, the deputy CEO of group operations and technology, said that this Blockchain-based solution allows the customers to do their transactions every time of the day in a few seconds. Moreover, this service is active in Jordan and will be activated in the other countries in the near future.

In November, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd joined RippleNet. CIMB will complete its product, XCurrent, which is a software to facilitate international payments for the SpeedSend financial product. Furthermore, in that month, Japanese Bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group told that they would use Ripple to create a new remittance service with the cooperation of Banco Bradesco. The objective of this product is helping banks to make a quick and transparent cross-border payment service between Japan and Brazil. In October, Ripple launched its real-time platform called XRapid for promotion purposes. XRapid is a platform to accelerate international payments. This platform doesn’t need pre-funded Nostro accounts. Nostro accounts are made by foreign currency, and they are not domestic. Blockchain has made currency transfer services very fast and easy, and Ripple is a good alternative to create such platforms.

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