This week in the world of Bitcoin: Bitcoin finds a bottom at $8000, UK and US government sites are infected with a mining bug, $17m worth of Nano is involved in a Bitgrail exchange hack, a new Bitcoin fork seeks to bring privacy to transactions, Bitstrade in Jersey is hit with a stop and desist order, and Chechen leader Kadyrov enters Bitcoin debate.
Chechen leader Kadyrov enters Bitcoin debate
Recently, the Bitcoin community found a new champion in J.Christopher Giancarlo who spoke at the US Senate committee on banking in favor of cryptocurrencies, however this week the spotlight fell on the Chechen hard-line leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov has decided that his country, as well as the whole world, needed his wisdom on the subject.
Through the medium of Telegram, Kadyrov issued a lengthy statement saying that he had bought some Bitcoin in order to get a grasp of how it works and the various uses for the virtual currency. His final consensus on the matter was that in general, cryptocurrencies could potentially be a very dangerous thing akin to gambling. He also added that they are morally bad, and in saying this asked his people to spread the warning about the horrors of crypto.
Bitstrade in Jersey hit with a cease and desist order
The regulators in New Jersey have served a cease and desist order on Bitstrade, the cryptocurrency investment platform, with their reasons being due to the fraudulent nature of the business. Bitstrade is not properly registered to deal in securities, and the regulatory services in the state of New Jersey said that one of their main concerns with Bitstrade was that the business address did not even exist.
Another concern was that the people who were supposedly behind, and responsible for, the platform were shrouded in mystery making it impossible for investors to pursue them. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in reaction to this: “The Bureau’s action today reinforces our commitment to protecting investors as they navigate the uncharted and largely unregulated domain of cryptocurrency-related investments. We want to make sure that investors tempted to cash in on the cryptocurrency rage aren’t being lured into sending funds to an anonymous internet entity without knowing where the funds are going or how they’ll be used.”
New Bitcoin fork to bring privacy to transactions
It seems Bitcoin forks are becoming more and more frequent as on the 28th February, there will be the arrival of a new Bitcoin fork dubbed “Bitcoin Private” (BCP). The introduction of this new currency will release 20 million coins for Zclassic and Bitcoin holders into the market. Zcash, a previous fork of Bitcoin, will have a few of its security features implemented into the use of Bitcoin Private. The security features of Zcash are seen by many as reactional attempts by agencies such as the IRS in order for them to obtain transactional data.
Last year there was a grand total of 17 forks and this year could see a whopping 50 forks being launched as forking becomes an alternative method to ICOs for some developer teams looking to raise a bit of cash. Another fork of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, was launched on Coinbase back in December and shot up to incredibly high prices reaching almost $4000. The launch was surrounded by a lot of controversy amidst rumors of potential insider trading. It now sits at around the $1000 mark.
$170M of Nano is involved in Bitgrail exchange hack
Railblocks, an upcoming new coin, has been in the headlines lately. It was first in the media due to the rumors of its merger deals with other ICOs such as Dadi, now rebranded to Nano. The coin was launched in December and started off at a meager 50c before picking up and reaching over $30, an impressive growth for sure. However, it is now caught up in a scandal which involves the Italian exchange Bitgrail. The exchange has been reported to have suffered a hack of $170 Million worth of Nano.
Since the news has broken, there have been a number of reports that the exchange may not exactly have been in order before the news. There have also been counterclaims that the coin’s code was the cause of the hack by the exchange’s founder. The speculation surrounding this controversy has been rife, and it has been said that there may have been troubles present at the exchange for a while. At the moment, Nano’s price is steadily falling.
UK and US government sites are infected with mining bug
The British Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently had to take their public website offline after they discovered that they had been infected Monero’s Coinhive software. This is a program that secretly uses a computer’s processing power for cryptocurrency mining. All across the UK and the US, up to 4000 public sites were compromised after a browser plugin called ReadAloud became affected by the virus.
Recently in Russia, it was reported that a select few top nuclear scientists were arrested after connecting a private supercomputer to the internet to utilize its power for the purpose of cryptocurrency mining. As ingenious as it was illegal.
Bitcoin finds a bottom at $8000
Bitcoin recently hit its lowest point in quite some time, striking the $6000 mark. There has been a couple of market rallies that were accompanied by small fluctuation and drops, and at the moment it would appear that Bitcoin has found a safe level around the $8000 mark.
There is always talk surrounding Bitcoin, and at the moment it is in the hopes that the King of Crypto will find its feet soon and dominate the market once again. However many still feel that the current bear market will be staying for quite a few more weeks until Bitcoin experiences major growth again.
