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Crypto Exchange that Warned About Data Leaks Denies its Claim Now

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Poloniex exchange recently warned its users to reset passwords for some users to protect their accounts from possible data leak –however, the exchange today states that the information on social media didn’t originate from the crypto exchange.

Poloniex on Data Leak

Initially, the email was reportedly sent across its users on December 30, stating that “someone” posted a list of account credentials (email address and passwords) on Twitter and enforced a password rest on a group of users”. While it stated that not all the email addresses listed belong to Poloniex exchange, it claimed that the leak data could be used to log in to Poloniex accounts.

However, the exchange on Jan 03 posted an official detail blog post, noting that “no information or data leak was originating from Poloniex”. While elaborating the further stance, the exchange added;

Our immediate priority was to ensure that our customers’ accounts were safe. As a result, we reset the passwords of potentially impacted customers, as users often reuse passwords or minor variants of the same password. Our second priority was to determine the source of the leak and we can now confirm that neither this list nor the information contained, originated from Poloniex.

As part of concluding the matter, Poloniex details that “approximately 90% of the passwords listed already appear in the haveibeenpwned.com list of exploited passwords”. More so, it quickly assures users that they do not store user’s data in plain text. For those whose email Id wasn’t on the list, Poloniex said, ‘their data is secure’, by continuing…

 “Less than 5% of the email addresses on the posted list were associated with Poloniex accounts”. 

Since the exchange has been marked with the hacking incident in a history of the crypto industry, traders and users are still sceptical about the company’s rickety announcements quite often. Echoing the similar concern, a Twitter user, “Joshua Thomas” mocked by tweeting;

India’s Crypto Critic Subash Chandra Garg Says “Cryptocurrencies Will Not Survive”

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Subhash Chandra Garg, the Indian official who resigned the interministerial committee after releasing the report on crypto to which the Indian crypto community calls “flawed” published another statement regarding virtual currencies.

Mr.Garg on Cryptocurrency

Mr.Garg published a new blog post, entitling “Currencies will be digital; crypto-currencies will not survive”. He details volatility of Bitcoin as the major blotch of digital currencies and elaborated that the Indian government hasn’t officially permitted the Indian payment system to allow trading and dealing in cryptocurrencies. He mentioned that the supply of Bitcoin is limited henceforth demand for Bitcoin is more “born out of expectations of speculative gains”. Concerning about the volatility, Garg wrote;

There has been some use of crypto-currencies in payments, including international transfers, but it is not gaining any traction as there is no fixed/stable value, which is the most essential condition for any currency to be a currency.

Bitcoin

However, he also stressed that “all operating cryptocurrencies in the world are created by private entrepreneurs/speculators using blockchain technology is decentralized, non-permissioned mode”.

Besides, Mr.Garg emphasized that few countries have initiated their plans to launch digital currency which might be using permissioned blockchain technology. More so, without naming the particular company and cryptocurrency, Mr.Garg concurred that “few private crypto-entrepreneurs are looking forward to reducing the cost of international cross-border payment transfers and remittances. He went on to say;

Presently existing modes of international payments, transfers, and remittances involving conversion in different sovereign currencies and the use of international banking and non-banking channels are indeed quite costly.

2020 Might See the End of Paper Currency and Bank Notes

He further argued that the “paper currency or bank notes” are the most prevalent form of currency today in the world. These notes or paper currencies are issued as well as allowed by the central banks of the countries which undertake the task to maintain the value of the currency in order to discard inflation.

Mr Garg explains that the cryptocurrencies built on top of Blockchain technology allow every individual and holder of a piece of crypto-currency to be part of a decentralized ledger. He further asserted that the miners or computer programmers are getting paid in cryptocurrency to perform mining operation. In his long blog post, he quietly embraced the inherent technology and said the deficiencies lie in this technology can possibly improve in the future. He went on to add;

What, however, has gone crazy is that the currency issuance function has been taken over by the private entrepreneurs and that too mostly in secretive, manipulative and cryptic manner….The crypto-currency private entrepreneurs do not have any ability to maintain the value of the currency. In fact, they mostly destroy the value by expanding supply, which can be limitless

This being said, many cryptocurrencies, barring a few, have failed to exist as payment method. “This is what is reflected in the demise of many crypto-currencies or almost total loss thereof.”said Mr.Garg. Conclusively he believes that 2020 might witness the decline of paper currencies all over the world and in many countries.

Finally, it is possible to conceptualize the dematerialization of currency and money and make the final move to say good-bye to paper money and move over to digital money, concluded Mr.Garg.

Poloniex Exchange is Under Threat of Email Leak

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Looks like Poloniex crypto exchange is suffering data breach as the exchange recently requested its users to reset their password and account security.

Poloniex Confirms Data Leak

Tweeting on December 30, a Twitter account dubbed “Charly” posted a screenshot of an email purportedly received from Poloniex crypto exchange. Charly notes it as “scam email” to which Poloniex crypto exchange replied by confirming “this is a real email”. The message mentioned in screenshot reads as;

A couple of hours ago we discovered that someone leaked a list of email addresses and passwords on Twitter, claiming the information could be used to log in to Poloniex accounts. While almost all of the email addresses listed do not belong to Poloniex accounts, we are forcing a password reset on any email addresses listed that do have an account with us including yours.

What suggested as a scam email quickly turned out to be true following Poloniex’s customer support response. Notably, the exchange confirmed that the email was indeed real and requested users to reset their password for account security.

At the moment, it is unclear the amount of data leaked on Twitter, in fact, additional information about who leaked the data and when it was leaked remained hidden. More so, what causes the breach of email data is still unclear.

The exchange captured mainstream bulletins when the Tron boss “Justin Sun” reportedly invested in Poloniex. Furthermore, the investment made in a wake of exchange parted away from the crypto conglomerate Circle. The exchange has a quite dull remark in the crypto industry when hackers breached the servers of Poloniex.

The update comes in a wake of Justin Sun’s new acquisition of DLive, a blockchain-based live streaming platform. Following the acquisition, DLive will work together with the BitTorrent “to bring blockchain-based peer-to-peer content sharing including live streaming, to everyone”. DLive exists in the blockchain ecosystem since 2018 and surged in popularity when a YouTube star PewDiePie signed a deal with DLive.

Mavixbtc Crypto Firm Receives Cease and Desist Order

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In an official announcement, shared on December 27, Missouri-based crypto firm Mavixbtc received a cease and desist order on account of fraudulent business activity.

Fraudulent Crypto Firm Receives Cease and Desist Order

The announcement reads that Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s Securities Division ordered Mavixbtc to stop business operation and remove the fraudulent website. It claims that the firm wasn’t registered and misled the investors via its deceptive website. More so, regulators alleged that the firm falsely claimed to be registered with the financial industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. It further added that;

The company also fraudulently used the registration number of a registered investment adviser representative who had no knowledge of Mavixbtc.

The crypto industry has several such cases that appeared to be well organized, well-funded and registered with the respective country’s authorities – however, the case is quite different on the other side of the coin. Per the report, Mavixbtc involved in offering investment advisory and brokerage services.

However, the crux of the matter is that the firms offering such services are expected to be registered.

In trying to sell investments in cryptocurrency, Mavixbtc touted potential investment returns of up to 55% in as little as six days. At the request of the division, the domain host for the company’s website complied with the cease and desist order and removed the fraudulent website, reads the document.

While advising on the matter, Securities Commissioner David M. Minnick notes that “don’t be fooled” by looking at the professional looking website as scam artists are fully aware of what entices investors. Noticeably, David M.Minnick mentioned they…“promise immense investment returns”. He has also suggested to reach out to the office before making such an investment. The authorities will assist you by providing information if the firm or agent is “registered to offer securities”.

Although the year 2019 is ending, yet it is not the end for crypto scams such as Mavixbtc. Despite the market is trading at a slower pace, bad market actors continued to catch the potential opportunity to attract investors. In a nutshell, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft urged investors and the general public to follow due diligence and assess before investing in any scheme related to crypto.

Chinese Financial Watchdog May Soon Announce its First Blockchain-ETF

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The latest report reveals that China’s financial watchdog, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) received an application from the Chinese asset management fund Penghua Fund to list a blockchain exchange-traded fund (ETF) in China.

China is Reviewing ETF

Accordingly, CSRC is currently reviewing Penghua’s application dubbed ‘Penghua Shenzhen Stocks Blockchain ETF” for listing an ETF that will track blockchain-related stocks as underlying assets.

More precisely the ETF will track and present the report of Shenzhen-listed public stocks that concerned with the business working in the blockchain industry.

However, if the EFT application receives approval from the CSRC, China will soon have its first blockchain-ETF that will be opened to public investors according to a report from Shanghai Securities News.

Furthermore, Penghua has its headquarter in Shenzhen and currently has over 564 billion yuan in assets under management. Besides, it comprises of 10 national social insurance investment portfolios, 159 public funds, and 4 basic pension insurance investment portfolios.

The application received in a wake of Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s launch of the Blockchain 50 index that covers around 50 blockchain-related stocks listed on the exchange.

The index caters to several types of companies including Ping An Bank and internet firm Wholeasy. Notably, wholeasy earlier invested $80 million in bitcoin miners.

China is leading the wave of blockchain sector for quite a long, especially since the announcement of China’s yet-to-launch cryptocurrency. The hype saw a sudden spike when Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the country to seize the opportunity to adopt blockchain technology. He aims to make China the leader in the blockchain ecosystem as he thinks the technology holds great potential and is the revolution.

As for now, the Penghua Shenzhen Stocks Blockchain ETF is currently in review and it is yet to be seen if the ETF received the approval from the Chinese financial watchdog.
Stay tuned with Tron Weekly Journal to know more.!

Swiss President Claims Facebook’s Libra has Failed 

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Ever since Facebook announced its libra project, it has received several criticisms from regulators and policymakers across the world. However, Switzerland was one country that favoured Facebook’s effort of launching stablecoin, Libra but it looks like the country is now realizing facebook needs reworking.

Libra Needs Reworking To Be Approved – Switzerland

Switzerland’s finance minister and outgoing president, Ueli Maurer thinks that Facebook’s Libra needs reworking to be approved. He went on to say that;

“I don’t think (Libra has a chance in its current form), because central banks will not accept the basket of currencies underpinning it,” said Ueli Maurer, “The project, in this form, has thus failed”. 

While Facebook has set 2020 as a planned year to launch the most anticipated Libra project, Libra’s Calibra wallet CEO David Marcus had mentioned that the launch may be delayed due to regulatory hurdles. Other dark incidents revolve around Facebook’s Libra was the withdrawal application of major companies like Paypal, Mastercard, eBay and Visa from the Libra Association. The Association members had a charter meeting in Geneva in October this year despite some of the top players pulling out.

Facebook seeks to change the global financial landscape by launching Libra, a stablecoin backed by baskets of reserve currencies. However, as per Maurer who spoke in an interview with Swiss broadcaster SRF on Dec. 27, Libra didn’t have a central bank backing henceforth didn’t stand to become a successful digital currency. He further provided reasoning to his view, saying “Because the basket of currencies that are deposited in this currency is not accepted by the national (central) banks”. However, he went on to add “The project in this form has actually failed”.

In an earlier report, Reuters mentioned that the Patrick Ellis, Libra Association board member claimed the Libra project lacks a clear strategy. He further stated that the project “at this stage has no strategy set in stone for the markets or the product, or how it will actually get rolled out”.

Crypto Exchange Huobi Launches Fiat-Currency Gateway for Indonesia

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Huobi Global recently announced that it is launching a fiat-to-crypto gateway for its Indonesian subsidiary, Huobi Indonesia. Accordingly, Indonesians can now access crypto services by using the Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) via Huobi Indonesia.

Huobi Sets Up Fiat-To-Crypto Gateway in Indonesia

Announced on December 27, Huobi Global is tapping the Indonesian crypto market as the exchange said that users can use IDR and Tether (USDT) to trade over 250 cryptocurrencies directly via Huobi Indonesia.

As per David Chen, senior director of Huobi Cloud, the new fiat gateway is a part of the company’s global expansion. He went on to add;

“By continuing to add new fiat/crypto pairs for Huobi Cloud 2.0, we want to make it frictionless for investors anywhere in the world to trade digital assets on a trusted and proven platform said, David Chen. The new fiat gateway reflects our ongoing commitment to working with strong local partners in key markets across the globe,”

According to Huobi, Indonesia presents “a major opportunity to contribute to the growth of the greater blockchain community and help drive crypto adoption globally”.

However, Xiong Dan, CEO of Huobi Indonesia says that the new fiat-currency door is “an exciting milestone” for Huobi’s Indonesian team. More so, he also adds that the exchange will continue its effort to “expand the Indonesia market, consolidate and improve service quality”.

Huobi has been on top bulletins with the new expansion quite often this year. The exchange has also begun its crypto effort to the Turkish crypto market as a part of its global expansion.

Moreover, it was said that Turkey is a promising prospective market for Huobi exchange and the exchange’s CEO Livio Weng had elaborated his view to bringing the Huobi ecosystem there. In fact, the exchange has also hired a crypto veteran, Alphan Gogus as a new general manager for Huobi Turkey.

World’s Largest Exchange Binance Supports Visa Cards To Buy Cryptocurrencies

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Binance has undoubtedly won the major portion of the market traders and investors. In fact, the exchange is always on a run to excite its audience with new features and functionalities and this time, Binance is now enabling visa debit and credit cards on its platform to buy leading cryptocurrencies.

Binance Excites Visa Users

As per the announcement, users can enable visas with their binance account and buy leading cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Binance’s native token (BNB) and XRP. However, the platform is currently enabling users to buy crypto using debit and credit cards integrated with the third-party payment processors. But the new feature lets you do so directly via Binance.

“Binance will now allow users to bind their Visa cards to their accounts and purchase crypto using this card, directly on Binance.com. To access this service, users can visit the ‘Buy Crypto’ page, select an amount of EUR or GBP, click next, and then click “Add Card” to bind their Visa card.”Binance said in an announcement.

More so, Binance notes that the support for Mastercard and other crypto tokens will be integrated “in the near future”. Per the announcement, exchange covers total of 31 countries of the European Economic area including United Kingdom, Germany, France, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.

Despite the announcement, Binance’s native token Binance Coin (BNB) is trading with the red figures. At the time of reporting this, BNB is currently plunging by 0.14 percent within the past 24Hrs. As a result, the token is valued at $13.27 against USD which counts the market capitalization of $2,064,124,782.

Google Suspends Ethereum Dapp Browser MetaMask Android App 

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No, it wasn’t only YouTube that removed crypto-related videos from its platform; Google is also on a crypto purge. A recent tweet by Ehtereum Dapp browser MetaMask reveals that Google play store suspended its android app citing “deceptive services”.

Google Rejects MetaMask’s Appeal

On December 26, MetaMask elaborates that their appeal was rejected as Google claims that MetaMask violated Google’s financial services policies. The tweet reads that Google cited “their policy that bans mining on mobile” but MetaMask denied Google’s claim.

However, the nub of the matter is that MetaMask is an Ethereum application browser and it essentially doesn’t offer mining activities. Taking up this stance, MetaMask writes;

 

“I very much hope that this was an honest mistake on the part of Google’s reviewers, but in combination with all the crypto YouTube bans, it definitely puts me at disease about how Google is engaging with decentralizing technologies. If people accept this behavior from a mobile monopoly like Google, we may not deserve something better.”

More so, the platform covers 264,000 monthly active users. It was the pioneer opera browser in 2018 which had introduced Web3 capability to their desktop browser and mobile app. Nevertheless, this isn’t the first of its kind for MetaMask, previously its chrome browser extension was temporarily delisted. The news came in a wake of YouTube’s hype of removing crypto videos from several popular Youtube channels.

Interestingly, the entire YouTue scene is slowly turning into a nightmare as its representative claimed that the removal was an error. YouTube officially announced it as follows;

 

Hey there, this was an error on our side during the review process – your video should be reinstated and strikes resolved. Let us know if you’re seeing otherwise!

These recent incidents with centralized platforms like Google and YouTube are directing users to find the most viable “decentralized-based approach”.

YouTube Flags Crypto-Related Videos of Several Crypto Youtubers 

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Several crypto-related videos have been removed from the YouTube channels of crypto influencers. Although there is no official information provided by YouTube, reports appear that few users flagged crypto videos, resulting in the removal of videos from YouTuber’s respective channels.

With owning 200,000 subscribers, Curis Dunn who is a veteran crypto investor and influencer lost most of his videos recently. He claims that the largest video sharing platform YouTube without prior notice has deleted some of his videos, citing “harmful or dangerous content” and “sale of regulated goods”. As per Chirs, he has been making videos for the last 10 years, few of which were crypto-centric. According to Chris, YouTube apparently removed his crypto-concerning videos which reportedly obtain over 7 million views.

Chris is certainly not the only Youtuber, other YouTubers including Node Investor also reported a similar issue. Node Investor is the market updates and technical analysis channel for crypto which tweeted a screenshot of the message it has received from YouTube. Per the tweet, the message reads “Your content violated YouTube’s community guidelines and has been removed”.

While YouTubers lost their crypto-centric videos, they are hunting for the best possible alternative, perhaps a decentralized platform. Echoing a similar concern, Chris writes “a lesson learned”. He went on to say that this is a clear example of why we need to decentralize the web”. In fact, few suggested 3Speak. online, DTube, Uptrennd, Storyfireapp were the few decentralized media platform suggested by the crypto community.

Undeniably, YouTube has become the most popular platform for advertisers, content creators and creative thinkers from the wide-ranging industries at large. However, YouTube hasn’t specifically mentioned if any specific industry is violating their guidelines, it has provided information via email, noting that they have banned for a week or longer and the removal of selected videos alongside citing “harmful or dangerous, the sale of regulated goods” as reasons.

While the reasons behind YouTube’s action remained unknown, it may largely due to a group mass-flagging crypto-centric videos.