Cold reception to Facebook’s Libra, makes it willing to delay its cryptocurrency for a middle ground with regulators

Facebook is willing to delay its entrance into the cryptocurrency market to work with regulators, Facebook executive David Marcus said in prepared remarks ahead of Congressional hearings on Libra this week. Marcus’ statement is Facebook’s strongest indication yet of its desire to work with regulators on Libra’s development. The company knew Libra might be a …

$4bn cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme lands OneCoin ‘CryptoQueen’ in a lawsuit

The operators of OneCoin, Konstantin Ignatov and Ruja Ignatova, are at the heart of a new lawsuit which alleges the brother and sister duo ran a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme designed to dupe cryptocurrency investors. The lawsuit (.PDF), filed this week by law agency Silver Miller on behalf of investor Christine Grablis with the US Southern …

EU police seize $5.2M cryptocurrency in largest dark web drug bust in history

he European Union authorities conducted a drug raid against dark web sellers seizing $5.2 million worth of cryptocurrencies, Fortune reports. The authorities seized 800,000 LSD blotters, €3.3 million ($3.85 million) in fiat and real estate property, and 10 luxury vehicles in addition to the cryptocurrencies. The dealers purportedly sold drugs in over 100 countries. Authorities suspect …

SCAM or NOT? Study claims Bitcoin’s meteoric price spike was caused by massive ‘market manipulation’

In a new paper, titled ‘Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered?’, University of Texas finance professor John Griffin, and graduate student Amin Shams, look at how Bitcoin’s price may have been artificially inflated last year. Bitcoins incredible rise in value in the last 12 months has been down to massive market manipulation, a new study has revealed. During …

Apple bans cryptocurrency mining on iPhone

Phone maker Apple has updated its developer guidelines to explicitly ban “mining” cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The new rules restrict apps that drain battery, generate excessive heat, or put unnecessary strain on device resources — all of which take place in bitcoin mining. “Apps, including any third party advertisements displayed within them, may not run unrelated …

Bullish again, Bitcoin Prices Surge

Bitcoin prices rose sharply yesterday after months of downfall, showing that bullish sentiment has returned to the digital currency markets. “The bulls are back in charge,” said analyst Charles Hayter, who pointed to Bitcoin’s robust intraday gain and a short squeeze taking place on Bitfinex. The world’s largest cryptocurrency reached $8,055.20, climbing almost 20% in less than six …

Malicious crypto-mining apps with over 100,000 downloads found in the Google Play store

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have uncovered multiple android based malicious cryptocurrency-mining applications being distributed via the Google Play store, with the miners posing as games, sports streaming apps, and VPNs. Some of these have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. While the applications appear to provide legitimate functions, their real purpose is to secretly use …

Hacker breach Tesla public cloud environment, Make away with ‘non-public’ company data

Hackers broke into Tesla’s public cloud environment, gaining access to non-public Tesla data and stealing compute resources within the company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment for cryptojacking, according to a new report from security firm RedLock. RedLock researchers immediately informed Tesla of the hack, and the vulnerabilities have been addressed, the report noted. The cybercriminals …