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Cryptocurrency worth $400M sacked by N.Korean hackers

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It has been reported that North Korean hackers stole nearly $400 million worth of digital assets through a minimum of seven attacks on cryptocurrency networks in 2021.

The blockchain data platform, Chainalysis reported that it was one of the most prosperous years for cyber-gangsters in North Korea. As reported, these attacks were primitively aimed at investment firms and centralized exchanges. The closed East Asian state started to launder the funds in custody only to cover up the theft.

In the report, Chainalysis said,

“From 2020 to 2021, the number of North Korean-linked hacks jumped from four to seven, and the value extracted from these hacks grew by 40%.”

The techniques and tactics used by the hackers had led many security investigators to identify cyber gangs for North Korea as advanced persistent threats (APTs). Techniques such as phishing lures, code exploits, malware, and advanced social engineering were used to drain funds out of the investment firms’ and exchanges’ internet-connected ‘hot’ wallets into Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)-controlled addresses.

Rise of Lazarus Group linked to cryptocurrency crime

The Lazarus Group had first gained fame through its cyberattacks, in 2014, on Sony Pictures Entertainment. This hack was supposedly an act of revenge for ‘The Interview’, a satirical movie that mocked the leader Kim Jong Un.

Conforming to the report, since 2018, the Group has been involved in the theft and laundering of a huge amount of cryptocurrency every year, generally in an overflow of $200 million.

It is said that the hackers aim at an array of cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin (BTC), accounting for only one-fourth of the embezzled wealth.

A panel of the United Nations (UN) monitoring sanctions on North Korea has reportedly charged Pyongyang with using embezzled assets to support its nuclear and ballistic missile programs as an out to dodge international sanctions.

Furthermore, in February 2021, the US had charged three North Korean computer programmers with an extensive hacking rampage that had targeted to steal more than $1.3 billion in capital and cryptocurrency.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that this cyberattack on cryptocurrency impacted firms from financial institutions to movie studios in Hollywood.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) was priced at $43,098.27 with a daily rise of 0.69%.

Digital assets information sought out by Congress’s Agriculture Committees

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The U.S Congress sent out a letter, on 12 January 2022, to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) requesting more information on digital assets marketplaces. The letter was addressed to Rostin Behnam, chairman of CFTC.

Currently, the agriculture committees are asking Behnam to report on the growth of the crypto industry and to specify how privileged the CFTC is to step up when that rise puts the consumers in jeopardy. The letter in detail talks about CFTC’s rapport with crypto, along with its supposition of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether being commodities. It also reprises that the CFTC is authorized to enforce actions against digital asset forum though the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).

The letter asserts that the CFTC has been active in prosecuting persons and entities engaging in misconduct in digital asset markets under its jurisdiction and that the Commission had also issued interpretive guidance on retail transactions in certain digital assets and educated the public on the technology underlying this marketplace and its attendant risks.

It has been highlighted that the consumers reported losing nearly $82 million to cryptocurrency scams between the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, more than 10 times the amount from the same six-month period a year earlier.

Considering the hike of digital assets that are being traded on decentralized financial (DeFi) protocols, the committees have expressed concern over the DeFi protocols offering derivatives contracts on unregistered exchanges which is the subject of the recent CFTC enforcement action.

8 specific explanations to 8 questions on digital assets

Congress wants to understand the benefits and risks better to identify the CFTC’s role. To understand the scope and size of the digital asset markets, the benefits and risks presented by these emerging technologies, and the role of the Commission with respect to these markets, the Congress has laid down a set of 8 questions for the CFTC to answer.

The questions ask the CFTC to estimate the measurement of the digital asset house on the whole and its U.S members, also to analyze and differentiate it to the conventional finance house. Information on any collaboration the company has with digital asset stakeholders and different businesses working to manage the trade and questions whether or not the Commission’s present authorities are sufficient to guard shoppers in the digital asset house was also requested.

Iran takes a bold stand by allowing use of Crypto for international payments

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With many countries going big on cryptocurrencies, Iran seems to be taking a similar stance. According to local media reports, on 11 January 2022, the country’s businesses will be permitted to use cryptocurrency as a mode of payment in international settlements.

Alireza Peyman-Pak, the head of the Trade Promotion Organisation (TPO) of the country said that, in accordance with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and the Ministry of Industries, Mining, and Trade, hereon, the CBI crypto platform will be linked to the Comprehensive Trade System. This hook-up allows businesses to make use of tokens to settle payments to foreign partners. He added,

“We are finalizing a mechanism for operations of the system. This should provide new opportunities for importers and exporters to use cryptos in their international deals.”

This announcement was made just a few days after Alizera Peyman-Pak’s statement on expert commodities barriers. On 30 December 2021, it was reported that Peyman-Pak’S organization was seriously pursuing the removal of barriers in the way of maritime transportation of export commodities. To sum it up, this method of payment, through digital assets, could be used to reduce the chances of suppliers being punished by the U.S because of the penalties imposed on Iran.

Iran bullish on crypto?

The Gulf nation had to force shutdown crypto mining in the country, in May 2021, due to the extreme rise in temperature during summer which took a toll on the nation’s power grid. With the hottest months of the year behind them, the Iranian government had officially legalized mining for cryptocurrency for licensed operators in October 2021.

During the four-month ban, authorities had conducted many raids to track down crypto miners all over the country. The permission granted for the crypto miners to get back online is only restricted to those operating legally. The use of household electricity to mine for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) and others is still not legal. Those miners that have not abided by the law have been found to face heavy fines.

Digital assets have had the pleasure of growing popularity in the Islamic Republic, with up to 12 million Iranians holding one or the other token. Iran seems to be upping its crypto game with its current move.

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Loom Towards Bedrock

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Bitcoin (BTC) bobbled down to lesser than $43,000 on Thursday, minutes after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s last meeting which showed a possible rise in March. This weakened investor inquisition in other delicate assets.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency was last priced at $42,700 and had taken a devastating plunge of 5.2% on Wednesday. At the time of writing, the coin had dropped by 6.11% over the last 24 hours, taking down its investments along.

According to reports, the intraday bargain took place after the U.S. Federal Reserve pointed to an achievable hike in March, which was earlier than the anticipated timeline.

While a few analysts are looking for an alternative altcoin that might have enhanced accomplishments compared to BTC over the past week, others believe that BTC is soon going to be stable with a range of between $40,000 and $50,000, which could keep the variability low. although, the token had struck an all-time high of $69,000 in November.

Matt Dibb, COO of Singapore-based crypto fund distributor, Stack Funds, pointing to the declines in the Nasdaq platform in particular said,

“The fall correlated with the ‘risk off’ move across most traditional asset classes.”

In agreement, Bitcoin (BTC) seems to have lost its dominance ratio, which seemed to continue to drop towards 39% on Wednesday. The ratio has been at its lowest point since April 2018, when cryptocurrencies experienced a bearish market.

Ethereum (ETH), just like Bitcoin (BTC), is at the sliding end

Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest crypto coin that constructs the ethereum network, lost 5.2% on 5 January 2021 and touched it’s abyssal-zone since October 2021. Although it did slightly boomerang to $3,447.31, at the time of writing.

Generally, some analysts call the battle for cryptocurrency’s top spot ‘The Flippening’. The term “Flippening” refers to the hypothetical moment of Ethereum (ETH) overtaking Bitcoin (BTC) as the biggest cryptocurrency.

Over the past year, Ethereum (ETH) has gained a stronger stance over Bitcoin (BTC) across abundant measures, including active addresses, google search interest, and transaction counts.

Furthermore, Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest crypto-asset by market cap, appears to be only 50% away from engulfing BTC as the largest cryptocurrency.

Grayscale improvised DeFi fund portfolio

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The cryptocurrency asset management platform, Grayscale Investments in unison with CoinDesk DeFi Index methodology, announced their updated fund component weightings for each product in connection with their respective quarterly reviews.

The firm, on 3 January 2022, announced an overturn in the components of its DeFi index as part of its quarterly rebalancing. This is the second time the firm has re-balanced its DeFi fund since its outset in July 2021.

The firm had announced on 1 October 2021 that, it had adjusted the Digital Large Cap Fund’s portfolio and had added Uniswap (UNI) and Solana (SOL). As per Tron Weekly Journal’s article on this move of Grayscale, Solana and Uniswap had joined the elite list of a portfolio known as Grayscale Digital Large- Cap Fund (GDLC).

Grayscale has affirmed that it will remove Bancor (BNT) and Universal Market Access (UMA) from the index and add Amp (AMP). Bancor and UMA together had been estimated to be 2% or 2.9% of the index at the time of its launch, respectively. The firm had launched the fund and its index back in July 2021 to support investors with exposure to the fats-pacing crypto market without supervising tokens themselves.

AMP constitutes 7.39% of Grayscale’s DeFi Fund

AMP is the primitive token of the Flexa network, a payment network that enables crypto-collateralized payments at physical and online stores. Flexa uses the AMP token to collateralize digital asset payments while they are confirmed on their respective blockchains and settles the payments in sanction to the beneficiary.

By enabling payments through the Flexa network, Aiding merchants can easily and without stress accept payment in BTC, ETH, and other digital assets. The Flexa network is one of several projects intended to speed up the development of the blockchain into a mature ‘peer-to-peer’ money system.

As reported, DeFi Fund’s fund components constituted of the following tokens and weightings:

  • Uniswap (UNI), 42.33%
  • Aave (AAVE), 13.06%
  • Curve (CRV), 10.63%
  • MakerDAO (MKR), 8.99%
  • Amp (AMP), 7.39%
  • Yearn Finance (YFI), 6.34%
  • Compound (COMP), 5.02%
  • Synthetix (SNX), 3.15%
  • SudhiSwap (SUSHI), 3.09%

Grayscale has affirmed that it intends to enhance its GBTC product into a primitive exchange-traded fund. The firm has also applied with financial regulators to launch an ETF that would track the companies that operate in the digital asset world.

BACC (India) to give out guidelines on Crypto ads

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Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BACC), India, will be giving out guidelines for crypto advertising. The council will soon be including crypto ads as a part of its ‘standardized self-regulated code of conduct for the industry players.

Ashish Singhal, founder, and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber, who is also Co-Chair, BACC, said the guidelines will make it clear for every player on the dos and don’ts to follow for advertising. In an interview with the local media, he said,

“We are in discussions with the Advertising Standards Council of India and BACC and proposed steps for every industry player to take before they open up their advertising in general. These discussions are ongoing and hopefully, we would have our SROs ready within the next few weeks”

KYC and customer education to have self-regulatory guidelines: BACC

According to the report, the council is working on setting up self-regulatory guidelines for know your customer (KYC) and customer education; eventually, it will work on issues of FIU reporting and risk monitoring.

Supposedly, the second set of guidelines will be on education, according to Singhal. he also added that,

“First is on KYC norms. Any user coming on to the crypto platform, what are the KYC norms, how can we standardize the norms to ensure that every player in the crypto industry follows the same standards for on boarding their customers,”

Singhal also mentioned that they are focusing on the education guidelines that the industry will have to give out and the guidance needed for the users to get access to knowledge sharing exercises across the crypto domain, irrespective of the company hosting the knowledge sessions; the idea is to collaborate and create a common platform that can elucidate any queries the users might have.

In perspective, he feels that it is good that the government of India is taking its time to understand the space and have a direct exchange of views with the stakeholders, to ensure that they know all the nuances of the space, instead of rushing into forming regulations.

Cryptocurrency to be bought on BitPay at 0 fees

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Cryptocurrency can now be bought on the BitPay wallet app for no fees at all, but only for a limited period. This statement was out in a press release that was published by BitPay on 20 December 2021. BitPay also took to Twitter and announced that it has partnered with Simplex to offer 0% fees on the next cryptocurrency purchase.

One of the world’s largest bitcoin providers and digital asset payment services, BitPay had announced in a promoted collaboration with Simplex, that BitPay Wallet users can now buy virtual coins without any additional charges through their wallet debit cards and ApplePay, only for a limited time.

According to BitPay CEO, Stephen Pair, this is a straightforward way for the residents of the USA that want to try out the world of digital assets for the first time to buy, store and spend crypto. He also adds,

 “BitPay wants to help consumers start to live life on crypto and by working with Simplex, we make it simple to acquire crypto by eliminating the need for users to navigate to a cryptocurrency exchange to fund the wallet.”

Typically, this collaboration is meant to counter-check the requirement of people to use a crypto exchange to fund their wallets. It was announced that users can instantly buy gift cards from hundreds of top retailers in-store and online with Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Shiba Inu (SHIB) Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), as well as five USD-pegged stable coins BUSD, DAI, GUSD, USDP, and USDC.

Cryptocurrency market highs to be capitalized by users through this solution

The founder and CEO of Simplex, Nimrod Lehavi said that buying crypto usually involves fees to make a purchase with a debit or credit card making it difficult for those new to crypto, so by working with BitPay they are waving those fees for users so anyone, anywhere has the opportunity to enter into the crypto space and capitalize through this solution.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) enjoyed a bullish market price at $48,660.41 with a daily high of 5.26%.

Dubai World Trade Centre progresses into Crypto

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Dubai that was once known for the 3Ts- Tourism, Trade, and Transport is now adding the 4th T- Technology.

Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) marks its expansion in the world of Crypto as an exchange platform and a regulator to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies including digital assets, products, operators, and exchanges. This move broadens the idea of the progression of UAE as the leading global center for business, trade, and technology.

Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) will become a comprehensive zone

As a part of the Government’s efforts to create new economic sectors, DTWC will be designing a comprehensive ecosystem for this progressive sector.

The emirate owned media house, on Monday, 20 December 2021, in a press release announced that DWTC will be collaborating with private sectors and relevant entities within the city to create an attractive environment for the sector, and enforce rigorous standards for investor protection, Anti Money Laundering (AML), Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) compliance and cross border deal flow tracing.

The government of Dubai media office has also announced their development about adopting new trends such as NFTs.

“The announcement that comes within the efforts to further develop Dubai virtual assets and markets, includes creating a framework for innovative financial products, adopting new trends that rely on advanced underlying blockchain technology, such as non-fungible token (NFT) and cryptocurrencies.”

According to the source, this progression advances Dubai’s stance as the leading global center for business, trade, and technology. DWTC will over a top-notch administrative structure of Virtual Asset legislative and enforcement policies that will be critical to facilitating and broadening cross-border operations and ecosystem innovation to enable safe market adoption and growth for this sector in the city. 

Dubai and UAE on the whole are known for their welcoming attitude towards digital assets and blockchain technology this sort of rampant developmental advancement, Dubai is at the forefront of the UAE’s attempts to diversify the economy and reinvent itself as a global hub for tech and innovation.

Crypto operations opposed by the Bank of Russia

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According to the Russian legislation, it is not prohibited for individuals or legal entities to buy cryptocurrencies in foreign markets, but it is prohibited to issue them on domestic platforms and use them as means of payment within the Russian Federation.

In an interview on Friday the 17 December 2021, by the local media house finmarket.ru, the Governor of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina enlarged the fear around the future of digital assets regulation in the country.

“You know our attitude towards cryptocurrencies, to put it mildly, skeptical, connected with the fact that these are big risks for retail investors, the volatility of this asset is very large. Cryptocurrencies are often used for illegal operations of a criminal nature, they are not transparent, so we cannot welcome investments in such kind of assets. And we advocate that the Russian financial infrastructure is not used for transactions with cryptocurrency, it is quite possible to implement it”

Central Bank of Russia sees high risks in development of the Cryptocurrency market

The bank of Russia has repeatedly articulated that it is looking at the purchasing of blockchain technology-based assets by individuals with a lot of apprehensions. The fact that Nabiullina’s statement came exactly a day after there were reports about the absolute ban on the exchanges of these virtual assets in Russia increases speculations about the fate of the virtual coin market.

In proportionate views, the most rigorous degrees against digital currency were enforced by China, which in September prohibited foreign exchanges from providing services for buying digital assets in the country and also banned miners from working in the country. At the same time, plenty of European countries and the United States of America are slowly removing constraints on the use of cryptocurrencies as a financial means of payment. In particular, in Sweden, the use of cryptocurrency is allowed by the authorities, while its purchase is considered as a transaction with assets, and anti-money laundering laws are observed.

93% of Bitcoin is Profitable; How Are the Bitcoin Miners Reacting?

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Bitcoin is in a state of euphoria over the last few days. The largest digital asset was finally able to overcome its psychological resistance at $10,000 and, at the moment, the asset has sustained a position above the range for more than 24 hours. With Bitcoin ‘s valuation taking a huge step forward, the impact has also transcended its on-chain fundamentals.

bitcoin supply

According to Glassnodes’ weekly report, Bitcoin Global on-chain metric index improved by 8 points, taking up its score to 70 in the charts. Liquidity made minor gains whereas Market Sentiment was brimming high with confidence, registering an improvement of 34 points over the past week.

93% of Bitcoin Supply is in state of Profit

bitcoin exchange net flow

After breaching past the $10k mark, the report suggested that the percentage of BTC supply that was in profit had risen up to to 93%. Only 11 percent of the current supply, if taken out would incur a loss and such a situation was driving the speculators out of the picture.

bitcoin

As observed in the above chart, the improved profitable holdings in Bitcoin were leading towards an increased inflow of BTC to exchanges. It is fairly obvious that users were making the most of the situation, as they were trying to cash when their profitability was on a high after months of stagnation. The desire to sell was quite high as the net flow witnessed by exchanges registered a new high over the past couple of months. The report said,

“After months of bitcoin flowing out of exchanges, the net flow is now seeing its largest hourly spike in over 3 months.”

BTC Miners refusing to Budge

Now, in spite of the high profitability of the BTC supply, Bitcoin miners pictured a surprisingly adamant behavior.

bitcoin minor outflow volume

When Bitcoin appeared to drop back in May, fears of miner capitulation was quite high as analyst expected that whenever Bitcoin reaches past $10,000 again, the miners are most likely to capitalize on the profits.

However, that hasn’t been the situation at the moment. The chart above illustrates that Miner Outflow Volume for Bitcoin has been keeping low in the charts, which suggested underlying confidence in Bitcoin’s potential.

With Miners standing firm in the industry, there is a sense of optimism surrounding BTC at the moment, as the largest digital asset enjoyed its lucrative rally.