Tag: bitcoin fraud

Bitcoin Miners Brace for the Halving

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  • Bitcoin miners bracing for the halving any moment in the next hour
  • New supply set to be reduced by half, from 12.5 Bitcoins every 10 minutes to 6.25 Bitcoin per 10 minutes.

The Bitcoin mining community is preparing for the next big change in the cryptocurrency world i.e. the approaching 12 May halving. Within a few hours, the halving process will start and this will result in a reduction of the block reward which is basically a share of new Bitcoins being created. If the hash rate remains the same, the miners will get half the reward and thus, it will be difficult to keep up with the process.

However, the restricted supply is expected to provide long-term benefits for the network and may eventually become more useful for miners too, but for now, there is cautious optimism even among miners even at the eleventh hour. Smaller miners running older hardware may, however, will be in for a tough ride ahead according to Alejandro De la Torre.

Overall, the hash rate may decrease in the immediate aftermath of the halving but is expected to bounce back even stronger in the coming months.

HomiEx Trading Exchange Launches Unique Online Shopping Festival with Over $200,000 in Prizes

HomiEx announced a two-week shopping festival which offers a wide range of promotional activities to reboot the crypto market with a vast stimulus package.

7th May 2020, Singapore – The Unique shopping festival, launched by trading exchange HomiEx on the 30th of April will run for two weeks, right up to the day of Bitcoin halving, and will feature at least 9 different online activities. The festival aims to promote spot trading, derivative products, fiat trading, and qualified blockchain projects. HomiEx wants people to have something fun to take part in during this holiday period, and expects the event to be a hit in the crypto currency market.

To boost users confidence, the company has rolled out a series of features to promote consumption in areas such as a new HomiEx registration reward, referral program, OTC trading reward, Hold&Earn, limited-time transaction fee discount, Beta Tester reward, VIP reward, Bitcoin Halving countdown prize and a free listing.

Prizes

To spur participation in the shopping festival, HomiEx Provide a $200,000 USD total cash reward pool, and 1 BTC Reward divided equally between those who take part in the Bitcoin Halving countdown activity. An additional air drop bonus of over $10 USDT will be given to every user who qualifies.

HomiEx Shopping Festival Events

The HmiEx Shopping Festival will take place between April 30th and May 13th(UTC+8), with 9 different activities for everyone to take part in. The festival activities include:

  • A Free Airdrop for new registrations
  •  A HomiEx Referral Program
  • A OTC Trading Reward,
  •  Hold & Earn, (Hold cryptocurrencies worth over 200 USDT and get free reward)
  •  A 50% off Transaction Fee: HomiEx ETF Beta Tester Reward, (1000 HMU, value over 1000 USDT) will be given to beta tester.
  • Join HomiEx’s community to enjoy a share of a 200,000 USDT Reward!
  • VIP Community Reward
  • Bitcoin Halving Countdown Prize
  • Free Listing to Qualified Projects!

Find out more about the festival – https://www.homiex.io/m/

Download the HomiEx trading app – https://www.homiex.io/m/other/download

Media Contact Info

Contact Name: Kelly Wang

Contact Email: Kelly.wang@homiex.com

HomiEx is the sole source of this information.Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

By Talha Dar

Source: https://bitcoinnews.com

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Will the price double after the halving? Will it rearrange the market? How will the Bitcoin Cash and BTC halving play out? We’ve asked the miners themselves. Remember to subscribe to our Youtube channel and hit the bell “🔔” icon to get notifications: https://www.youtube.com/bitcoincomoff… ►Visit: Get some free Bitcoin Cash: https://free.bitcoin.com/ Grab our top-rated Bitcoin wallet for free: https://wallet.bitcoin.com Buy and Sell Bitcoin Cash peer-to-peer: https://local.bitcoin.com Trade with Bitcoin Cash: https://exchange.bitcoin.com Visit our Developer site and help change the world: https://developer.bitcoin.com/ Get the latest crypto-related news: https://news.bitcoin.com/ Visit our Badger wallet page and add it to Chrome or Firefox: https://badger.bitcoin.com/ Find our mining pool and join it here: https://pool.bitcoin.com/ ► Get 15-30% off Amazon Purchases using Bitcoin Cash at https://purse.io. — ► What is bitcoin? — Bitcoin is one of the most transformative technologies since the invention of the Internet. Bitcoin.com stands firmly in support of financial freedom and the liberty that Bitcoin provides for anyone to voluntarily participate in a permissionless and decentralized network that empowers people not to be marginalized by governments and financial institutions. Bitcoin is freedom. — ► Want some free Bitcoin Cash? Grab some from https://free.bitcoin.com/ — ► Who are we? — Bitcoin.com is your premier source for everything Bitcoin related. We help you buy, use, and store your Bitcoin securely. You can read the latest news. We also provide helpful tools and real-time market price and chart information, as well as Bitcoin mining and Bitcoin events information. — ► Follow Bitcoin.com Here: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bitcoincom Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoin.com… Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buy.bitcoin…. Website: http://bitcoin.com Telegram Channel: https://t.me/bitcoin_tv Podcast: https://podcast.bitcoin.com/ Bitcoin Store: https://store.bitcoin.com

‘Fake Bitcoin’ – How This Woman Scammed The World, Then Vanished

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OneCoin is a Ponzi scheme promoted as a cryptocurrency by Bulgaria-based offshore companies OneCoin Ltd (registered in Dubai) and OneLife Network Ltd (registered in Belize), both founded by Ruja Ignatova in concert with Sebastian Greenwood. OneCoin is considered a Ponzi scheme due to its organisational structure and because of the previous involvement of many of those central to OneCoin in similar schemes. It was described by The Times as “one of the biggest scams in history.”

US prosecutors have alleged the scheme brought in approximately $4 billion worldwide. In China, law enforcement recovered 1.7 billion yuan (US$267.5 million) while prosecuting 98 people. Ruja Ignatova disappeared in 2017 near the time a secret US warrant was filed for her arrest and was replaced by her brother, Konstantin Ignatov. Most of the leaders have now disappeared or been arrested. Greenwood was arrested in 2018, as was Ignatov in March 2019. In November 2019 Ignatov pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and fraud. The total maximum sentence for the charges is 90 years in prison.

According to OneCoin, its main business is selling educational material for trading. Members are able to buy educational packages ranging from 100 euros to 118,000 euros,or, according to one industry blog, 225,500 euros. Each package includes “tokens” which can be assigned to “mine” OneCoins. OneCoin is said to be mined by servers at two sites in Bulgaria and one site in Hong Kong. Each level (except six and seven), or package, gives new educational material, which is plagiarized from several sources. However, in a typical OneCoin recruiting meeting recruiters mainly talk about investing in cryptocurrency and the educational material is barely mentioned.

The only way to exchange Onecoins for any other currency was OneCoin Exchange, xcoinx, an internal market place for members who had invested more than just a starter package. Onecoins could be exchanged for euros, which were placed in a virtual wallet from which they could be requested for wire transfer. The market place had daily selling limits based on which packages the seller had invested in, which greatly limited the amount of onecoins which could be exchanged.

On 1 March 2016, without notice, OneCoin issued an internal notice that the market would be closed for two weeks for maintenance, explaining that this was necessary due to the high number of miners and for “better integration with blockchain”.On 15 March 2016, the market opened again but no visible changes had been made; most of the transactions expired as before and daily limits stayed on.

On 10 July 2017, Ruja Ignatova, the CEO, was charged in India with duping investors as a part of the Indian investigation. On 17 and 18 January 2018, Bulgarian police raided OneCoin’s office in Sofia at the request of the prosecutor’s office in Bielefeld, Germany. German police and Europol took part in the bust and the investigation. Also 14 other companies, tied to OneCoin, were investigated and 50 witnesses were questioned. OneCoin’s servers and other material evidence were seized. On 3 May 2018, the Central Bank of Samoa (CBS) banned all foreign exchange transactions related to OneCoin and OneLife. The bank had earlier in March issued a warning about OneCoin. CBS describes OneCoin as a very high risk pyramid scheme.

On 21 November 2019 the New York Federal Court found lawyer Mark Scott guilty of money laundering and bank fraud for his role in routing US$ 400m out of the US. On 24 November 2019 the BBC published a detailed investigation of OneCoin and Ignatova titled Cryptoqueen: How this woman scammed the world, then vanished. The reporters believe that Ignatova resides in Frankfurt under a false identity

Onecoin promised the world but only proved to be a trail of destruction. — About ColdFusion — ColdFusion is an Australian based online media company independently run by Dagogo Altraide since 2009. Topics cover anything in science, technology, history and business in a calm and relaxed environment. If you enjoy my content, please consider subscribing! I’m also on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ColdFusion_TV Bitcoin address: 13SjyCXPB9o3iN4LitYQ2wYKeqYTShPub8 Script by Fil Zivko — New Thinking Book written by Dagogo Altraide — Learn the stories of those who invented the things we use everyday. Get the book on Amazon: http://bit.ly/NewThinkingbook Get the book on Google Play: http://bit.ly/NewThinkingGooglePlay https://newthinkingbook.squarespace.c… — ColdFusion Social Media — » Twitter | @ColdFusion_TV » Instagram | coldfusiontv » Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/ColdFusionTV — ColdFusion Podcast links — Google Podcasts – http://bit.ly/2xo8doR Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/2WI2IeU Spotify – https://spoti.fi/2KT1taB Stitcher – http://bit.ly/2WI4f4E Sources: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/th… https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p… https://www.missonelife.com/competiti… https://www.wjsnews.com/crypto/onecoi… https://www.theatlantic.com/technolog… https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-5… https://web.archive.org/web/201602122… https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-5… https://www.coindesk.com/onecoin-foun… //Soundtrack// **coming soon** » Music I produce | http://burnwater.bandcamp.com or » http://www.soundcloud.com/burnwater » https://www.patreon.com/ColdFusion_TV » Collection of music used in videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOrJJ… Producer: Dagogo Altraide

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Here’s Where $800 Of Bitcoin Buys You $10,000 Cash

Researchers from cloud security-as-a-service provider Armor’s Threat Resistance Unit (TRU) have been taking a deep dive into a dozen dark markets and forums. Analysis of the data compiled from trawling these English and Russian-speaking criminal marketplaces has been published in the annual Armor Black Market Report. As well as the usual tracking of the prices for stolen credit cards, bank account credentials and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) for-hire operators, there was one surprising new trend: a Bitcoin to cash conversion scheme that offers criminal buyers the opportunity to buy cash for pennies on the dollar. Paying $800 (£647) in Bitcoin gets you $10,000 (£8,095) in cash.

The Black Market Report

The Armor Black Market Report is the result of researchers from the Armor TRU trawling through underground internet markets and criminal forums. These “dark markets” are notorious for selling just about anything that can be stolen online, from personal and financial data to illicit services such as articles of incorporation for creating shell companies, the distribution malicious spam and even hackers for hire who will scrub your credit history.

The TRU research team analyzed and compiled data from twelve dark markets and criminal forums visited between February and June 2019. It came as no surprise to me that they found cybercriminal after cybercriminal selling credentials for as yet “unhacked” Windows remote desktop (RDP) servers. These are often used by ransomware actors looking for an entry point into corporate networks. That these credentials were being sold for as little as $20 (£16) was unexpected though. The cost of entry, quite literally, to the ransomware threat sector has never been cheaper.

Today In: Innovation

Neither, for that matter, has the cost of cold, hard cash. The TRU researchers found that, partly to get noticed in a crowded market and partly to offset the risk of monetizing stolen banking and credit card accounts, entrepreneurial threat actors are selling cash for between 10 and 12 cents on the dollar. This isn’t, as you might have guessed, a case of criminal philanthropy.

Instead, it’s a method for criminals to offload the risk of monetizing stolen account credentials by transferring the funds available rather than taking possession of them. It’s still money laundering, and it’s illegal, but it puts the most significant weight of risk onto the buyer.

Here’s how the buy cash for Bitcoin scheme works

The seller offers bundles of cash in various amounts, from $2,500 (£2,020) to $10,000 (£8,095) in exchange for a pre-paid fee in Bitcoin. That fee varies between 10% and 12%. Which means that $10,000 of cold cash can be bought for $800 in Bitcoin.

The buyer makes the payment and then chooses how they would like to collect the cash. This can be a straightforward transfer of funds to a bank or PayPal account or wired via Western Union. As well as getting a significant return on their illicit investment, the purchaser no longer has to worry about monetizing online bank account or credit card credentials. It’s a turn-key service; there’s no risky logging into compromised accounts, no money mules to worry about, just the (totally illegal) collection of cash.

“For those scammers who don’t possess the technical skills and a robust money mule network to monetize online bank account or credit card credentials, this is an offer that can be very attractive,” Chris Hinkley, head of Armor’s TRU team said, “the threat actors are still selling financial account and credit card credentials outright, but this clever service gives them an additional channel for monetizing the large amounts of financial data available on the underground.”

Money mules served well by dark market documentation

One of the other interesting things to come out of this analysis was the fact that cybercriminals are selling articles of incorporation and sole proprietorship papers on the dark market. Not shocking, but interesting. While the cash for Bitcoin transactions gets rid of the money mule requirement, there are still plenty of people who adopt that role, and these papers are aimed at them. A money mule is someone who transfers stolen money between accounts in exchange for a fee of between 10% and 20% of the value. For a money mule to be successful, they need to open business bank accounts that don’t trigger fraud alerts on larger transfer volumes. To open these accounts, they need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) assigned by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, and that’s where the documentation to create shell companies enters the equation. The documentation does not come cheap, however. Sole proprietorship papers complete with EIN were found on sale for $1,611 (£1,298), and Articles of Incorporation with EIN were $811 (£653).

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Davey Winder

I’m a three-decade veteran technology journalist and have been a contributing editor at PC Pro magazine since the first issue in 1994. A three-time winner of the BT Security Journalist of the Year award (2006, 2008, 2010) I was also fortunate enough to be named BT Technology Journalist of the Year in 1996 for a forward-looking feature in PC Pro called ‘Threats to the Internet.’ In 2011 I was honored with the Enigma Award for a lifetime contribution to IT security journalism. Contact me in confidence at davey@happygeek.com if you have a story to reveal or research to share

Source: Here’s Where $800 Of Bitcoin Buys You $10,000 Cash

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Warning Issued After Malware Is Found To Have Hijacked Bitcoin Blockchain

Bitcoin’s blockchain has been hijacked by a new strain of the Glupteba malware that uses the network to resist attacks, cyber security researchers have warned.

The malware uses the bitcoin blockchain to update, meaning it can continue running even if a device’s antivirus software blocks its connection to servers run by the hackers, security intelligence blog Trend Micro reported this week.

The Glupteba malware, first discovered in December 2018, is distributed through advertising designed to spread viruses through script and can steal an infected devices’ browsing history, website cookies, and account names and passwords with this particular variant found to be targeting file-sharing websites.

However, according to researchers, the new version of the malware can also mine the privacy-specialized monero cryptocurrency and threaten the security of Instagram users’ accounts.

The malware uses the Electrum bitcoin wallet to send bitcoin transactions that the attackers use to gain access to systems.

“This technique makes it more convenient for the threat actor to replace command and control servers,” Trend Micro researchers wrote. A command and control server is the centralized computer that issues commands to an infected network of devices.

The Glupteba malware, first discovered in December 2018, is distributed through advertising designed to spread viruses through script and can steal an infected devices’ browsing history, website cookies, and account names and passwords with this particular variant found to be targeting file-sharing websites.

However, according to researchers, the new version of the malware can also mine the privacy-specialized monero cryptocurrency and threaten the security of Instagram users’ accounts.

The malware uses the Electrum bitcoin wallet to send bitcoin transactions that the attackers use to gain access to systems.

“This technique makes it more convenient for the threat actor to replace command and control servers,” Trend Micro researchers wrote. A command and control server is the centralized computer that issues commands to an infected network of devices.

“If they lose control of a command and control server for any reason, they simply need to add a new bitcoin script and the infected machines obtain a new command and control server by decrypting the script data and reconnecting.”

It’s not the first time the bitcoin blockchain has been taken advantage of by criminals, with German researchers last year discovering child abuse imagery shared via the decentralized network.

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Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Source: Warning Issued After Malware Is Found To Have Hijacked Bitcoin Blockchain

by Christian Karam & Vitaly Kamluk The blockchain is the public ledger stacking all bitcoin/altcoins transactions. It is constantly growing as “completed” blocks are automatically added to it with a new set of records. The blocks are added to the blockchain in a linear and chronological order. The blockchain has complete information about the addresses and their balances right from the genesis block to the most recently completed block through the mining process. Depending on the crypto-currency and the implementation of its protocols, there would be a fixed open space, where data can be stored, referenced or hosted on the blockchain within encrypted transactions and their records. This very versatile nature of the blockchain offers great opportunities for future innovation especially in decentralized systems. The research focus revolves around the threat of embedding decentralized chunks of malware on the blockchain by either hosting it or referencing it with cascaded pointers. Transactions and data are encrypted throughout the blockchain networks using different versions of public/private key encryption. Could malware survive eternally inside crypto-transactions? A proof of concept will be explained highlighting the concerns revolving around the “abuse and bloating” of the blockchain while comparing it to previous malware hosting and deployment models. In this talk, INTERPOL will frame the scope of this future threat and provide potential solutions for a threat surrounding the blockchain technology.

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Bitcoin Warning As Serious Security Vulnerabilities Uncovered

Bitcoin developers have been trying to make the world’s most popular cryptocurrency more useful for payments, with the somewhat controversial Lightning Network one of the most popular projects.

However, serious security vulnerabilities have this week been discovered on the bitcoin Lightning Network, which could result in users losing their funds if nodes are not upgraded.

“Security issues have been found in various Lightning projects which could cause loss of funds,” wrote software developer, Rusty Russell, who authored the majority part of bitcoin’s Lightning Network protocol specification, in a post shared via a Lightning Network mailing list. “Full details will be released in four weeks, please upgrade well before then.”

The specifics of the vulnerability will be disclosed on 27 September, a common software security practise to both prevent bug exploitation and give developers time to patch problems.

The vulnerability appears to be related to the lightning-ready bitcoin wallet Eclair, which Russell also advised users to update.

The Lightning Network, first proposed by Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon in a 2015 white paper, creates a layer on top of the bitcoin blockchain, where transactions can be passed back and forth before being added to the underlying blockchain.

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This should mean bitcoin transaction speeds are increased while costs are significantly reduced.

There are now a few different Lightning-ready wallets available, as well as companies that are able to process them on behalf of merchants.

However, low user numbers mean bitcoin lightning nodes currently lose money when they process transactions, according to recent reports.

When sending a Lightning payment, two parties deposit the funds at one bitcoin address, a so-called channel, in which they can exchange funds a limitless number of times.

This maintains bitcoin’s security but means small, regular payments don’t need to be added to the underlying blockchain until the channel is closed.

Questions have been raised about what Lightning Network adoption will mean for the bitcoin price, with much of the price dependent on transaction fees picked up by miners.

Most are though confident that with increased bitcoin adoption the price will continue to rise.

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Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Source: Bitcoin Warning As Serious Security Vulnerabilities Uncovered

By Daniel Chechik, Ben Hayak, and Orit Kravitz Chechik A mysterious vulnerability from 2011 almost made the Bitcoin network collapse. Silk Road, MTGox, and potentially many more trading websites claim to be prone to “Transaction Malleability.” We will shed some light and show in practice how to exploit this vulnerability.

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