In 2017, when everything concerned with cryptocurrency and blockchain still looked fresh and interesting, it seemed that there would be no day without a new revolutionary project or idea. Decentralized financial system, decentralized torrent tracker, decentralized office documentation system. Decentralized, decentralized, decentralized.

The overuse of terms like transparent, distributed and blockchain-based soon made most press papers look generic. The closer we got to the peak of the Bitcoin price at the end of 2017, the more absurd the names of new projects became: Ethereum-based payment system for slaughterhouse industry workers, decentralized blockchain-based dwarf horse breeding platform, peer-to-peer personal banking service for divorced blind people, and so on.

Who would ever need any of that, one might ask. Well, in many cases, nobody. Of the several thousand cryptocurrencies launched since the spread of blockchain technology, only about 30 are currently of any investment interest.

Following cryptocurrencies, many crypto exchanges launched on the wave of blockchain popularity are dying they just have nothing to trade anymore. The situation is especially visible on review platforms, which store cards of hundreds of closed projects, often together with angry user reviews.

Lets take a look at a few projects and analyze the reasons for their failure.

In late 2017 to early 2018, it was first reported that Telegram was planning to launch its own blockchain platform and native cryptocurrency.

Also known as Grams, the TON coins were intended to be based on Telegram Open Network, with the TON blockchain at the core of the platform. In the project white paper, the developers presented this future coin as a potential standard cryptocurrency that could be used for the regular exchange of value in daily life.

It was stated that while Bitcoin (BTC) was considered digital gold and Ethereum was a platform for token crowd sales, this new TON cryptocurrency would be a substitute for traditional money and traditional payment systems such as Visa and Mastercard. According to the white paper, other cryptocurrencies lacked the qualities required to attract a mass consumer. In its turn, Telegram would be able to implement a system eligible for mass use, given its expertise in encrypted distributed data storage, experience in creating user-friendly interfaces, and an enormous user base.

While the company did have a point in part of its claims, to me all of it looked like a huge PR campaign. Why should Telegram implement this new financial system and not some corporation with experience in the financial services industry? How would it be able to distinguish this new currency from other, similar products? How would it be any better than traditional financial systems being implemented by a large centralized company?

No answers were given. However, the Telegram initial coin offering, launched in 2018, was a huge success. The company was able to raise $1.7 billion from investor funds in two private token sale rounds, and that was really promising.

Related: Exclusive: New report reveals details of Telegrams TON blockchain

But it didnt end well. On May 12, 2020, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram would officially terminate its involvement with the project after a long legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Surely, the company didnt have the legal resources necessary for implementing such an ambitious idea. Most likely, technical difficulties and strong competition on the market also played a role.

Related: SEC vs. Telegram: Part 1 Key takeaways for now

For me, this case epitomizes the whole cryptocurrency hysteria of 2018 a company that gets involved in an enterprise for which it is not ready, either legally or technologically, without a clear positioning of the product. The end result is failure.

Petchains was presented as the future global information management system and trading platform for the pet market. According to its press papers, the system would allow its users to maintain and keep data of the animals living in homes and shelters. The presented project goal was to create a community of pet owners, experts, professionals, institutions, service providers and volunteers. The system was intended to be developed using blockchain and big data technologies as usual. The initial funding was going to be gathered through the process of an initial coin offering.

Its a good question if the world really needs a blockchain-based information and trading platform for the pet market. I wouldnt say there are many problems with over-centralization there. Pet shops are usually chosen by customers after analyzing brand reputation and online presence.

Some problems that customers on this market may face include unreliable information about the acquired animals health or previous owners. However, these difficulties comprise not a technical, but a legal problem that is unlikely to be solved using blockchain technology.

Moreover, since animal welfare laws vary between different countries, creating a unified international platform in this field is a legally challenging task, hardly suitable for a small technological startup.

The Petchain project team consisted mainly of no-names who had no proven experience in any serious projects. It was not even possible to say for sure whether these were real people some of the project advisors turned out to have been presented with fake photos.

Despite some marketing efforts, no serious funding was attracted to the project. At the moment, the official website of the project is inactive and its social media accounts havent been updated for more than a year. The link that used to lead to the projects white paper now contains a text describing in general terms the reasons for failures in the cryptocurrency industry.

One more dead project with an incoherent, not thought-through idea at the base of it.

Wiki token (WIKI) was an Ethereum-based, ERC-20 compatible token designed to be used as a means of payment at the so-called Crypto University. This future platform, built around the Bitcoin Wiki project, was described as a totally independent, decentralized, censorship-free educational system.

The learning courses for Crypto University were meant to be created by members of the project community. For writing articles and creating courses, these members would get the previously mentioned ERC-20 Wiki tokens. These tokens would be listed on various crypto exchanges and could be spent on other Crypto University courses.

I first noticed this project in 2018, and it didnt make much sense right from the beginning. First of all, what kind of secret knowledge is there in the cryptocurrency industry that it should be distributed using token-based payment systems? How would it compete with other content, available for free?

Theoretically, its possible to create a platform similar to Coursera based on blockchain. Crypto University, like Coursera, could become a platform that brings together creators and consumers of educational materials. But here, some difficulties arise.

The value of an educational product is usually based on the reputation of its creators. Most of the courses at Coursera are university education programs created by well-known, highly reputable institutions. These courses include interaction with a teacher, who is also a well-known education professional. Upon completion of a course, students usually receive certificates recognized by companies and educational institutions. All these factors add up to the value of the course, and its thanks to them that people are willing to pay for it.

In its turn, the Wiki token project could hardly offer any of the above. No collaboration with large institutions or renowned educators. Moreover, the highly specialized area of expertise (cryptocurrency and blockchain) chosen did not imply the presence of educational professionals who could potentially create valuable educational content. Why would it be any better than free YouTube videos or easily searchable internet articles?

What we see here is just another technical embodiment of a dubious business idea. Having neither a well-thought-out concept nor a product, the team rushed to implement it using fashionable technology. The result is a technical wrapper with no content and no interest outside of blockchain hysteria.

As of October 2020, the projects website is no longer available and its social media accounts have been dead for a couple of years.

The projects listed above did not in fact offer anything except technical execution that was fashionable at the time. Hastily launched on the wave of blockchain popularity, with no market or audience research, they were unable to offer any meaningful value to a potential customer.

One of the key marketing rules: Sell the problem to be solved, not the product you offer. Product developers should always think about consumer needs first. Otherwise, they risk ending up in the same way as the developers of the projects mentioned above creating only product packaging that has no intrinsic value.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Bert Kozma is a writer and an associate editor at Cryptogeek.info. Previously a sales and marketing expert, he has been an author covering cryptocurrency and financial markets for the last decade. He holds a bachelors degree in international business from Saimaa University of Applied Sciences.

Originally posted here:
The cryptocurrency sector is overflowing with dead projects - Cointelegraph

Bitcoin held on to its gains above the $15,000 psychological mark, up 0.6% at press time early Wednesday, as a former public official who is considered to be cryptocurrency-savvy was appointed to lead the financial policy transition team for President-elect Joe Biden.

What Happened: Former Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Gary Gensler has been appointed to lead the financial policy transition team for President-elect Joe Biden, CoinDesk reported Tuesday.Gensler has studied cryptocurrency closely and earlier testified before the Congress advocating against comparisons between cryptocurrencies and Ponzi schemes.

Meanwhile, the deposit contract for Ethereum 2.0 has reached over 50,000 ETH or 10% of the required needed to usher in the new update, according to CoinDesk.

The Vitalik Buterin-created cryptocurrency is making a move away from proof-of-work to a model that supports proof-of-stake.

In order to become a validator on the new network, an Ethereum user must stake a minimum of 32 ETH. Once the new network goes live the validators will start earning block rewards to the tune of 8-15% annually, CoinDesk reported.

Ethereum (ETH) traded 3.73% higher at $460.68 at press time, Chainlink (LINK) traded 3.55% higher at $13.13 and XRP traded 1.62% higher at $0.255.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Monero (XMR) wereoutliers to the upward movements of the altcoins declining 2.18% and 0.93%to $257.45 and $115.83, respectively.

Why It Matters: Analysts pointed to institutional interest in the cryptocurrency space and the bullish movement of these assets overall, CoinDesk reported separately.

Bitcoin has returned 114.94% returns and Ethereum has shot up 254.26% on a year-to-date basis.

Various institutions are committing to new products and R&D and giving a new set of investors more comfort that the space is maturing,Brian Mosoff, CEO of Ether Capital, told CoinDesk.

BTC is digesting the recent confusing macro and political events and consolidating before its next move, said Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner at Tellurian Capital, as per CoinDesk.

Bonnefous noted the rotation from BTC to decentralized finance (DeFi), which he said was in full swing now and was typical of traders redeploying capital to higher yielding assets.

Price Action: Bitcoin traded 0.59% higher at $15,389.19 at press-time.

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Bitcoin Holds, Ethereum Surges As Biden Appoints Cryptocurrency-Savvy Gary Gensler To Lead Financial Policy Transition Team - Benzinga

Previously, the role of a cryptocurrency exchange was very straight-forward; provide a platform and facilitate the buying and selling of cryptocurrency. It seemed simple enough and for a long time, this method worked for most of the community. However, innovation has since caught up, and to be successful, an exchange has to have a community element.

Besides traditional trading services, strong exchanges should provide innovative products such as margin trading, as well as community-focused tools like debit cards and native tokens. Newer exchanges have taken note of this and are launching with more advanced products that help satisfy consumer demands.

Introducing DEXFIN

One new exchange is DEXFIN, which will formally launch its full version on November 25. DEXFIN does not function merely as a platform for token trading. DEXFIN acts as a one-stop solution for digital assets: buy/store/trade/manage your assets, profit from staking, save on fees, take advantage of tokenization, and more. The platform also allows you to manage your digital assets easily and efficiently, even on the go.

It is also worth noting that while DEXFIN is a European company, they are aiming for a global experience for their customers. DEXFINs business model is based around circular tokenomics, bridging the gap between cryptocurrencies, company capitalization processes, and individuals. This is possible through a transparent, secure, and token-based circular economy using blockchain technology.

While several popular exchanges have created offshoots of their main platforms to serve different regions, DEXFIN appears to be doing all this from a single platform.

Why Is The Industry Changing?

First, it should be noted that more people than ever hold cryptocurrency wallets and actively use cryptocurrencies in their everyday lives. In fact, there are now over 30 million wallets holding some amount of Bitcoin.

More trading activity means that more options will be needed for both depositing and withdrawing funds. Due to common issues that cryptocurrency firms often face when conducting business globally, more exchanges began creating their own debit cards to encourage seamless use. Over time, this was expected in the industry rather than a special feature used to market an exchange.

With this maturity and mainstream attention came institutional funds that brought traditional financial services experience and legitimacy. Naturally, this class of investors would not be satisfied with simply trading tokens, and to accommodate them, exchanges began to evolve. Margin trading, crypto lending, and extensive trading pairs also grew in popularity, and exchanges were forced to adapt to survive.

When these exchanges wish to raise funds, they often do so by selling a native token that acts as the trading mechanism on the exchange. The increasing impact of strong communities with crypto exchange implies consumers also seek speculative value in the exchange tokens they use and trade. They become token holders, users, and spokespeople for the exchanges and tokens they are affiliated with.

DEXFIN And Virtual Reality

After the launch of DEXFINs exchange, DEXFIN will exclusively list the VICTORIA VR Token project. This virtual reality project is aiming for global reach and is based on Unreal Engine and Oculus technology. Their goal is to connect people through a whole new medium.

This listing will provide an opportunity to participate in global companies that are helping facilitate a new virtual world of collectibles. Thanks to the DEXFIN exchange and the sale of the VICTORIA VR token, you have a unique opportunity to participate in global companies and exploit the growth and potential of the virtual world.

Exchanges Of The Future

Consumers now want communities, accessibility, innovative features, and a sense of belonging. DEXFIN is a good example of an upcoming exchange looking to integrate features that are innovative and in demand. New exchanges must adapt and create systems that value and include their users, are accessible to a changing crypto landscape, and create a better environment for all who use crypto.

Disclaimer: the writer does not have any relationship or vested interest in DEXFIN. Please consult your financial advisor before investing in or using any cryptocurrencies or cryptocurrency exchanges as both pose risk. This article is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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How New Exchanges Are Changing The Landscape Of Cryptocurrency Use - Benzinga

KEY POINTS

The chief technology officer of Ripple, David Schwartz, has said he lost a total of $300,000 after makinginvestments in altcoins or alternative cryptocurrencies.

Schwartz was replying to a question posted on Quora, asking if anyone "lost money trading in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies." It received answers from different people, but of them, only Schwarzer had a strong background in the cryptocurrency industry. XRP, which is issued by Ripple, is one of the top five cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Schwartz said he made some investments in cryptocurrencies that turned out to be disasters. He did not list all the cryptocurrencies but said the following had to be written off as worthless: TIX, DICE, FLASH, VEZT, AMP, SIG, BEE, KIND, PRYZE, KUDOS, NRN.

Most of these coins had peaked in 2017 and 2018 but are currently worth zero. For instance, TIX is worth $0.001, according to CoinGecko, and KIND is worth $0.000997, CoinMarketCap data shows. Some of the coins can no longer be found either on CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko, suggesting that their value had been zero for quite some time, Cointelegraphreported.

It is not the first time Schwartzhas spoken about some of hisbad investment decisions. In a tweet in October, he revealed that he sold 40,000 Ether very early for $1 each in 2012; 40,000 ETH is currently worth $18.5 million. He alsosold a sizable amount of Bitcoin for $750 and a large number of XRP for $0.10, Schwartz said in a tweet.

When asked why he is advocating for cryptocurrencies when he himself did some de-risking, Schwartz said he is a risk averse-type of person. Also, because there are people who depend on him financially and emotionally, he could not risk it all into cryptocurrency. He said he is now into XRP and owns Ripple stock, while acknowledgingthat the risk is very high in the entire cryptocurrency space.

"I'm just too rational to pretend otherwise and suggest others do the same,"headded.

Here, a man walks past a display cabinet containing models of bitcoins in Hong Kong, Aug. 3, 2016. Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images

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Ripple Chief Officer Loses $300,000 By Making This Cryptocurrency Investment Mistake - International Business Times

Payment platform expanding to include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital currencies

PayPal has announced that its US customers will soon be able to pay for goods using cryptocurrency, as the payment platform moves towards offering a wider range of services.

Last month, the company revealed it would give a select few customers the opportunity to buy and hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Lite Coin on its platform. Buyers can also sell any unwanted currency back to PayPal.

Due to the overwhelming demand from users, PayPal has now expanded the scope of its trial to offer the cryptocurrency service to all US customers over the coming weeks.

The price of Bitcoin has been skyrocketing over recent weeks. And for one industry-watcher, the rally has been galvanized by PayPals announcement that it was bringing Bitcoin to the mainstream.

Its probably one of two factors, Oliver Knight, crypto reporter at Coin Rivet, told The Daily Swig, citing major investment in the past year as another reason for the spike in Bitcoins price.

The price of 1 BTC topped the $13,000 mark on November 5

I dont know how sustainable it is, Knight added. Im not saying Bitcoin will go to $100,000, but its definitely a lot brighter outlook than a few months ago, based mainly on the PayPal news.

Speculation is rife over how long the Bitcoin rally will continue, but one thing is certain: security will be at the top of PayPals concerns as it looks to bring cryptocurrency to the masses.

Over the past few years, a number of high-profile crypto-exchanges around the world have fallen victim to cyber-attacks, with malicious hackers gaining access to internal networks, emptying users virtual wallets in the process.

Crooks also continue to target crypto-enthusiasts with phishing emails designed to gain access to their accounts.

Since PayPal is essentially opening the door for more people to venture into the cryptocurrency market, including those inexperienced with blockchain-related payment processes, could this spark a fresh wave of economic cybercrime?

Not exactly. PayPal is not offering what crypto experts call a custodial service, meaning that users cannot transfer the cryptocurrency they have bought there off the platform in order to use it elsewhere.

Read more of the latest cryptocurrency security news

Knight said: The service that theyre offering is a non-custodial service, so essentially if I were to go to another exchange [and] deposit 100 of Bitcoin, I could do whatever I want with that.

I could withdraw it from my [virtual] wallet, I could withdraw it to a paper wallet, and bury it in a desert whereas with PayPal they essentially have all the custody.

By offering a non-custodial service, Knight argues that accounts making use of PayPals cryptocurrency offering will be no less secure than those that hold regular, fiat currencies.

He said: I feel like the security issues are sort of the same as having a lot of regular currencies in your PayPal account if your password gets stolen, youre at risk, but in terms of Bitcoin I think theyre going to make it really quite easy to use.

When it comes to security, PayPal is held in fairly high regard among the infosec community. An early adopter of crowdsourced security, the company launched its bug bounty program in 2012, which has since expanded.

In the same stroke, however, Knight urged vigilance among those new to cryptocurrencies, and warned that PayPals easy-to-use platform could cause problems for users by giving them false confidence in securely navigating the wider crypto market.

Knight explained: If someone goes to PayPal, buys some Bitcoin, and thinks, Look its really easy!, then goes to another exchange and loses their private key theres essentially no way of retrieving it.

READ MORE Collision avoidance: OpenSSH lays out plans to ditch aging SHA-1 hashing algorithm

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Security concerns doused as PayPal brings cryptocurrency to the masses - The Daily Swig

The internet is alive with rumours of the cryptocurrency mining prowess of AMDs new RDNA 2 architecture, as seen in the new Radeon RX 6800, 6800 XT and 6900 XT GPUs. According to a user on QQ, a snapchat-esque social media platform in China, the vanilla RX 6800 is fully 1.5 faster than Nvidias mighty GeForce RTX 3090.

If accurate, it would make the 6800 and by implication all AMD RDNA 2 cards dramatically more efficient for crypto mining than Nvidia's Ampere GPUs. It would also imply a huge bun fight among miners competing to buy RDNA 2 cards and in turn inflated prices and run on availability. Not nice if youre thinking about buying one of these gaming cards for, you know, gaming.

We have, after all, been there before back in 2017 and 2018 when the retail pricing of many graphics were twice the recommended prices thanks to mining demand. Indeed, mining is at least partly to blame for the way even the MSRP pricing of all GPUs has escalated over the past four or five years.

But is the rumour of RDNA 2s mining muscle actually true? On balance, probably not. Apart from the source hardly being the last word in fact-checked authority, the workload for most cryptocurrencies is bandwidth sensitive. That just happens to be a notable weak point of all the new RDNA 2 GPUs thanks to their relatively narrow 256-bit memory buses.

Arguably, there is scope for RDNA 2 to perform well if the bandwidth sensitive parts of the mining workload can fit inside AMDs 128MB of Infinity Cache, a feature designed to reduce the need to fetch data from VRAM over that 256-bit bus. However, to take one example, Ethereums current DAG file is around 4GB. To avoid polling VRAM when hashing Ethereum, therefore, RDNA 2 would need a 4GB on-chip cache.

In any case, many currencies are expressly designed to avoid being accelerated by cache hits. Moreover, its AMDs CDNA architecture that we would expect to be the mining beast. RDNA and RDNA 2, broadly speaking, has been designed to be a rendering and rasterisation monster, not a compute beast.

In fact, were one setting out to design a GPU architecture that was fast for gaming but not so much for mining, it would look an awful lot like RDNA 2 with its modest 256-bit plus Infinity cache technology and conventional ratios between compute units, texture processing and pixel output.

Anywho, it will certainly be an interesting issue to track as RDNA 2 cards are released later this month. If it turns out that Nvidias Ampere-based RTX 3000 series boards are instead the weapon of choice for crypto mining, that will only make Nvidias supply and pricing problems even worse. Watch this space.

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Is AMDs Radeon RX 6800 a cryptocurrency mining beast? - PC Gamer

Coinmerce, a Dutch cryptocurrency platform, announced on Monday it has been added to the crypto registry of the Dutch Central Bank. Coinmerce claims it is one of the first companies that offer both wallet and trading functionalities in The Netherlands that is accepted.

Founded in 2017, Coinmerce states it is the cryptocurrency trading platform for everyone and makes it possible for everyone to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies.

We started Coinmerce to provide a simple way to manage cryptocurrency. Since then, we have grown the platform and our community without losing sight of our mission; cryptocurrency for everyone, everywhere.

Speaking about the milestone, Nick Smits van Oyen, Founder of Coinmerce, shared:

This is a very important step for the future of Coinmerce, as we can now remain doing what we are doing in the Netherlands. This would not be possible without a registration. Its a confirmation for our customers that they buy, sell and store their cryptocurrency on a platform which fulfills its regulatory requirements when it comes to prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism.

Coinmerce further revealed that the preparation for registration started at the end of 2019, the actual registration process started in May this year. Smits van Oyen went on to add:

It has been a very extensive and intensive process, which mainly involved implementing and documenting the policy, the underlying procedures and controls. All with the aim of minimizing the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing and fraud.

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Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinmerce Added to the Crypto Registry of the Dutch Central Bank - Crowdfund Insider

Losses from cryptocurrency thefts, hacks, and fraud declined to $1.8 billion for the first 10 months of the year compared with last year, but crime in the hot decentralized finance sector rose, according to a report from crypto intelligence company CipherTrace.

Crypto crime hit $4.5 billion globally in 2019.

What we have seen is that exchanges and other cryptocurrency players have implemented more security procedures, Dave Jevans, CipherTraces chief executive officer, told Reuters.

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They have taken the guidance and implemented the procedures to secure their funds better. So youre going to see less mass-scale hacks.

So far this year, losses from thefts and hacks, excluding misappropriation and fraud, grew to $468 million as of end-October, up 30 per cent from $361 million for the whole of last year, the CipherTrace report said. About 20 per cent of those hacks, or roughly $98 million, came from decentralized finance or DeFi, which are transactions on platforms that facilitate lending outside of banks.

The total number of loans on DeFi platforms was $12.6 billion as of late Monday, industry site DeFi Pulse data showed, up more than 200 per cent from roughly $4 billion in August. DeFi sites run on open infrastructure, with algorithms that set rates in real time based on supply and demand.

The surge in DeFi was what ultimately attracted criminal hackers, resulting in the most hacks for the sector this year.

In 2019, DeFi hacks were virtually negligible, CipherTrace said.

Companies and individuals have rushed DeFi products to market that have not gone through security verification and validation, said Jevans. So people are figuring out that theres a weakness here.

With DeFi networks permissionless by design, which means they often lack clear regulatory compliance, anyone in any country is able to access them with little to no customer-verification hurdles involved.

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As a result, Jevans said DeFican easily become a haven for money launderers.

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Cryptocurrency crime has slowed this year, but 'DeFi' hacks on the rise: report - The Globe and Mail

The crypto seizure order is part of a scheme that has allegedly defrauded "tens of thousands" of ... [+] Brazilian investors.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced yesterday (4) the seizure of virtual currency worth around $24 million on behalf of the Brazilian government as part of an investigation into a large-scale fraud scheme.

According to the Brazilian authorities, more than US$ 200 million was obtained through the cryptocurrency fraud scheme, which is believed to have impacted "tens of thousands" of investors.

The US seizure order was obtained after an official request from Brazil and is part of a cooperation between the two countries around legal assistance in criminal matters.

The fraud scheme is being investigated by the Brazilian federal police as part of Operation Egypto, launched in May 2019 to investigate financial institutions operating without authorization from the Central Bank, as well as other crimes such as financial embezzlement and money laundering.

As a result of the latest developments within the investigation, several individuals have been charged. Central to the fraud case is Marcos Antonio Fagundes, a Brazilian national that is being accused of owning or controlling the virtual currency that has been seized. The crypto firm holding the wallets involved, which has not been named, has cooperated with the law enforcement authorities in the case.

In addition, Fagundes is being accused of several violations of Brazilian law, including the operation of a financial institution without legal authorization, misappropriation and money laundering, as well as securities law violations. Fagundes is the founder of InDeal, a company based in the Brazilian city of Novo Hamburgo that operated with crypto exchanges established in the U.S., China, Japan and Malaysia.

According to the DoJ, court documents relating to criminal proceedings involving Fagundes describe an operation where the Brazilian and his associates pitched investments in cryptocurrency to potential backers online and in person, describing them as "innovative investment opportunities".

The Brazilian court has found, however, that the conspirators have allegedly made "false and inconsistent" promises to investors regarding the way the funds were invested and the return rates were exaggerated.

The DoJ's Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section International Unit and the Office of International Affairs are now working with the Brazilian authorities, as well as the FBI and the US Marshals Service to restrain the cryptocurrency and preserve it for forfeiture proceedings pending in Brazil. That is so investors impacted in the fraudulent investment scheme can receive some compensation.

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US Seizes $24 Million In Cryptocurrency On Behalf Of Brazilian Government - Forbes