Microsoft and Enjin are collaborating to develop a blockchain-based recognition program. The cryptocurrency jumped 44% on the news yesterday, ending the day at $0.0859 on Bitfinex.

Singapore-based IT firm, Enjin, one of the largest cryptocurrency focused gaming community platforms out there, is rolling out a pilot reward system in conjunction with Microsoft.

Azure Heroes is a tokenized recognition program that rewards contributions to Microsofts cloud-based computing platform, Azure. Consequently, participants who contribute to the Azure ecosystem can expect to earn digital collectibles in the form of cryptocurrency for their efforts.

Azure Heroes aims to reward individuals for verifiable acts of impactsuch as coaching, creating demos, building sample code, blogging about Azure orcompleting certain challenges. Community members that have demonstrated their contributions will be recognised with badges across a number of categories.

The reward program operates under a five-tier system. Those being, from most prestigious to least, Inclusive Leader, Content Hero, Community Hero, Mentor, and Maker.

It works by way of nominating individuals, either yourself or someone you know, who have made a positive contribution to the Azure cause. Meanwhile, those selected will receive a QR code to scan, in order to claim their digital badger.

At present, there are just 11,700 badgers up for grabs, but each season will produce newly minted badgers.

Specifically, when you receive a cute badger in your wallet, youre actually taking ownership of Non-fungible Tokens (NFT) which is unique and one-of-a-kind.

The badgers are tokenized into a digital asset on the Ethereum public blockchain. However, being an ERC1155 token, they also allow for a standard interface for contracts to manage multiple token types. This means a single deployed contract can include any combination of fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens or any other configurations.

Not only can true ownership be verified on the assets data itself, but personalization is also possible at the same time. This opens up some interesting use cases, for example, bragging rights on being the first to get a particular item.

Many see money, or even store of value, as the route to mass adoption of blockchain technology. However, in reality, gaming is a pathway with far fewer obstacles. And with the advent of tokenization in gaming, its a concept already familiar to gamers.

Having said that, blockchain gaming is still replete with uncertainties. Developer, Jonathan Sterling points to the problem of earning virtual rewards and trading them for money:

If you can just go sell that for $5 on some network, it devalues the entire game for legitimate players The game producers are jumping on that bandwagon when really they should be against it for the long term health of their game.

As such, the work of Enjin, in bringing real-life economies to virtual worlds, only adds to the major problem seen in free-to-play games. That is, money spent equates to success.

All the same, that doesnt detract from what Enjin is trying to achieve. After all, the scope to improve gaming with blockchain technology is massive. This includes immutable ownership, cross-platform/community asset transference, and fostering trust between players, developers, and distributors.

Featured Image From Unsplash

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This Cryptocurrency Jumped 44% On News Of Collaboration With Microsoft - newsBTC

India has a curious relationship with blockchain. On the one hand, the Indian government is a huge proponent of blockchain technology, and nearly half the states in India have already initiated government-sponsored blockchain projects. At the same time, the government has been very ambivalent toward cryptocurrency, drafting a slew of measures in the last couple of years to control its growth.

In April last year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which functions as the countrys central bank, issued a ban prohibiting banks from receiving or transferring any money related to cryptocurrencies. This came as a huge blow to the crypto ecosystem in India because people were no longer able to cash out their cryptocurrency holdings. Some of the countrys top crypto exchanges like Koinex and Zebpay ended up shutting down while others like WazirX decided to navigate the situation by creating alternate peer-to-peer exchanges.

The RBIs ban isnt the only stumbling block for Indias cryptocurrency ecosystem. In July this year, a committee appointed by the Indian government proposed a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies across the country and recommended imposition of severe fines and penalties on all crypto-related activities. The committees recommendations have taken the form of a draft law that will soon be up for discussion in the Indian Parliament. If it gets passed, this law could mean the end of Indias already struggling cryptocurrency scene.

Activists fight back

Naturally, these measures have met with major protests from Indias cryptocurrency players. Their attack is two-pronged. As far as the RBI banking ban is concerned, the Internet and Mobile Association of India has filed a petition in the Supreme Court that is still being heard. They argue that the RBI is acting out of its zone of authority by banning banking for virtual currencies. They claim that unless theres a legislative policy regarding cryptocurrency in place, the RBI has no business creating regulations around this issue at all.

As for the proposed legislation that will soon be up for discussion in Parliament, there is a strong grassroots movement coming from within Indias cryptocurrency community calling for a rethink of these regulations. Their stance is simple and pragmatic given the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency transactions, the government will find it very hard to actually prevent them from happening.

Read more: SFC aims to regulate digital asset trading platforms

Instead, these transactions will enter the gray market. This means that chances of fraudulent activity will now go up dramatically, and fraud victims, who would be seen as complicit in illegal activity, will likely hesitate to seek redress. Positive regulation, rather than a blanket ban, would be a much better approach. Not only would the government be in a much better position to monitor fraudulent activity, but it would also be able to realize revenue through cryptocurrency taxation.

Another argument is that it would be really hard for the Indian government to continue promoting and supporting blockchain technology if it bans cryptocurrency completely. Cryptocurrency and blockchain are intrinsically linked, with many blockchain startups issuing their own tokens and raising money through ICOs, or initial coin offerings. A blanket ban will end up discouraging the growth of blockchain in India.

Growing public support

This call for a more informed approach toward cryptocurrency has found massive support across the board. #IndiaWantsCrypto a social media campaign for positive cryptocurrency regulation is well over 300 days old but continues to see a growing following. There also seems to be a growing demand for cryptocurrency investing in the country, particularly among high-net-worth individuals. A survey by the Hurun Research Institute shows that as many as 9.6 percent of Indian high net-worth individuals said that they would increase their cryptocurrency investments in the next three years.

Then there are the cryptocurrency exchanges, the entities that are the most affected by this environment of uncertainty. While some have bowed to the inevitable and closed down, others continue to innovate. CoinDCX, one of Indias top crypto exchanges, already offers a suite of services, including a P2P platform, margin trading in more than 200 markets, and cryptocurrency lending. Now, it has partnered with Australian crypto trading platform Koinfox so that its users can access advanced trading tools like risk-management strategies and algorithmic trading.

WazirX, another crypto exchange, has recently launched a Smart Token Fund program. This is a community-driven initiative where cryptocurrency enthusiasts can connect with more advanced traders who can trade with their funds in return for a percentage of the profits.

Despite Indias draft legislation and the overall uncertainty, there does seem to be some cautious optimism in its cryptocurrency community. The grassroots movement for positive regulation seems to be gathering significant momentum, and most experts are convinced that India wont be saying goodbye to cryptocurrencies anytime soon.

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India vs. the people: The battle over cryptocurrency ownership continues - Forkast News

Carlos Acevedo, a teacher at a public high school in the South Bronx, recently invited a group of his former students back for a two-day course in cryptocurrencies. He planned to cover decentralization, blockchain, peer-to-peer networks, and fiat currencies. Each student would then get five dollars, in a form of cryptomoney called Zcash, to spend. After these two days, youre going to be the one per cent, he told the twenty-five young people who had gathered at the South Bronx Business Lab. Youre going to know more about cryptocurrency and blockchain than ninety-nine per cent of people out there. You have the opportunity to get in on the industry right now.

Until last month, Acevedo taught English at Morris Academy, in Morrisania, which is in the poorest congressional district in the country. Having read about Bitcoin, he started investing in cryptocurrency in 2014, and hes been hooked ever since. He views it as a way of helping what he calls the unbanked, so he created the Crypto Community Project, with the goal of building a cryptocurrency economy in the South Bronx.

Acevedo, who wore a Zcash T-shirt, reminded the students that they were in the Forty-first Precinctknown as Fort Apache, he explainedwhich was at one time the most dangerous precinct in New York City. Low-income neighborhoods like theirs often lack banks where people can open savings accounts or apply for loans; instead, they rely on pawnshops and check-cashing joints that charge huge fees. Over truck noise on the Bruckner Expressway outside, Acevedo said, For the first time in history, if you have a phone you can participate in a worldwide economy without the need of any bank.

Mejreme Musaj, who had braces and wore her long brown hair in a bun on top of her head, raised her hand. When we first talked about Bitcoin in your class, I thought, Criminals, she said.

Her friend Ashley Perez Camacho, a science major at City College whose nails were painted blue, cut in. I see it like an ideology, the people taking control, she said. But how does this not create chaos? How is this not going to?

Blow up the world? Acevedo said.

Lets say this is the next big thing, instead of Chase and TD Bank, Musaj said. Wouldnt crime rise more?

You guys are going heavy, Acevedo said. Im not talking about machine guns on the street. Its not Mad Max out there. He suggested that they take a break to eat; trays of Puerto Rican and Italian-Bronx dinner had been laid out.

They piled paper plates with rice and beans, pernil and chicken parm. I believe capitalism is built to collapse, and then go back up, collapse, and go back up, Perez Camacho said. So how does Bitcoin actually fit into a capitalist system?

Musaj answered that she wasnt sure, but that cryptocurrency might come in handy when she wanted to send money to her relatives in Kosovo.

Brandon Gonzalez, who had carefully styled hair and wore torn jeans, said that he had already invested a hundred dollars in Bitcoin but that he knew it was risky. I dont have a thousand dollars I can just lose like that, he said. Ive seen Bitcoin go down. It was ten thousand, then down to seven thousand, in an hour. And later it goes back up.

I got into Bitcoin at thirteen, Alexis Ortiz Estrella said. He had a pair of headphones around his neck. He was interested in computers as a kid, and then his father, a landscaper, introduced him to the cryptocurrency Ethereum. So we invested, like, four dollars, because we didnt have a lot to invest, he said.

What happened? someone asked.

Gone, he said, in two days. We didnt realize we could lose it real quick.

Most of the other kids said that their parents didnt know that they were dabbling in cryptocurrencies. My mother will think Im wasting my money, a girl named Teshura Francis said. That Im, like, throwing it away.

I talked to my mom, a bespectacled boy named Jos Pimienta added. Even with trading stocks, shell tell me, No, no, no! She dont really knowshe dont understand it.

After dinner, Acevedo was planning to explain the concept of digital wallets, and there would be a presentation by representatives of Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

Nobody tells us, You could actually do this, Perez Camacho said. Having someone tell us, This is how the real world worksI like that. Youre at a young age, in high school. I appreciate that a lot. I know more than my mom.

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Cryptocurrency 101 in the South Bronx - The New Yorker

Is cryptocurrency enthusiast Virgil Griffith a friendly unofficial liaison to North Korea la Dennis Rodman, or is he a criminal helping North Korea evade United States sanctions?

The 36-year-old cryptocurrency developer, whose life story reads like the screenplay to a thriller, has been making headlines since his arrest on Thanksgiving purportedly for giving a talk to North Koreans on how to launder money via cryptocurrency. Yet it is unclear still whether Griffith is some kind of anti-imperialist folk hero, a traitor to his country, or just a hapless techie caught up in something way bigger than himself.

Heres what we know: On November 28, Griffith was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport. It is unclear why he was in Los Angeles; as an American living in Singapore, he could have been traveling for the holidays to the United States. Formally, he was arrested because of a trip he made to North Korea in April 2019.

According to a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Justice Department in the Southern District of New York, Griffith spoke at a conference called the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) last April. During the presentation, he supposedly described how blockchain and cryptocurrency technology could be used by the DPRK to launder money.

Cryptocurrencies are electronic currencies that can be digitally traded. The most well-known is Bitcoin, though there are literally thousands of others of various trading volumes and structure. All cryptocurrencies are decentralized, and are not controlled by any government, though governments occasionally issue their own coins. The U.S. federal government says Griffiths presentation in North Korea constituted a transfer of technology, which violates the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and Executive Order 13466, which says Americans cant export any goods, services, or technology to the DPRK without a license from the Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Griffith is currently sitting in jail, and will be held until bail is posted, according to a statement by his lawyer given to cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk. Griffith's defenders believe the arrest was an overreaction. He now faces up to 20 years in prison.

Who is Virgil Griffith?

Griffith is a programmer who first gained notoriety in the hacker community for creating WikiScanner, a public database that existed between 2002 and 2007. WikiScanner linked anonymous edits on Wikipedia to the organizations where those edits originated, using the public IP addresses that are logged by Wikipedia. Griffith said he created the tool with the intent of "creat[ing] minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike. The tool produced a trove of insight into how corporations spread misinformation and propaganda amid PR disasters, and famously revealed how corporations like Exxon would spin oil rig disasters on their respective Wikipedia pages. It also helped citizen journalists observe whitewashing of Wikipedia pages by big corporations. In 2008, the New York Times called Griffithan Internet Man of Mystery in a profile piece.

Prior to his arrest last week, Griffith had other run-ins with the law. In 2003, the educational software maker Blackboard sued to prevent him from presenting research on security flaws in the companys software.

In 2014, Griffith received a Ph.D. in computation and neural systems, which is when he moved to Silicon Valley, according to his LinkedIn page. Since October 2016, he has worked as a research scientist for Ethereum, a blockchain-based cryptocurrency.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency and a decentralized computing platform. While it is often associated with Bitcoin, there are substantial differences. First, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital cash system that enables online Bitcoin payments. Ethereum is a ledger technology that enables companies and organizations to build other cryptocurrencies, or tokens, using the same protocol as Ether, the cryptocurrency made by the Ethereum platform, which can be distributed on different blockchains. Most recently, Chinas internet firewall, which is used by the government to regulate access to foreign internet sites, blocked an Ethereum block explorer website, according to Coindesk.

What did Griffith talk about at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference?

According to the DPRKs official website, the conference took place from April 18 to April 25 though those dates conflict with the criminal complaint, which states that Griffith attended the conference on or about April 26 and April 27 with approximately 100 other attendees. The complaint states that an organizer of the conference instructed him to emphasize the potential money laundering and sanction evasion applications of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology as such topics were most likely to resonate with the DPK audience. Thus, at the conference, Griffith allegedly discussed how cryptocurrency technology could be used to achieve independence from the global banking system. His presentation was allegedly titled Blockchain and Peace.

After his presentation, the complaint alleges that Griffith started to formulate a plan to facilitate the exchange of cryptocurrency between the DPRK and South Korea. The complaint states that Griffith allegedly knew such an action would violate sanctions.

How did Griffith get to North Korea?

Federal prosecutors say that Griffith was aware that his trip violated US sanction laws. According to the charging document, Griffith sought approval for the trip from the US State Department, but his request was denied due to sanctions. He still made the trip possible by traveling through China. Griffith did not try to hide his trip. He tweeted a photo of his visa, writing on Twitter: "Visa to DPRK fixed without passport number. He reportedly spoke with an FBI agent after his trip, too, and allowed authorities to inspect his cell phone. He also reportedly encouraged other American citizens to visit the DPRK after his visit.

Why do his defendants believe the arrest was unwarranted?

2600 Magazine, the storied hacker quarterly named for the frequency that once let phone phreakers make free long-distance calls, tweeted that the arrest was an an attack on all of us. Virgil is a friend, a 2600 writer, a HOPE speaker, & a true hacker who has always stood up for freedom & democratic ideals, the magazine wrote.

The magazine's editor, Emmanuel Goldstein ( a pen name), told the New York Times that he spoke with Griffith the evening before he met with the FBI and said he was going to tell the authorities the truth.

He would not help a murderous dictator, Goldstein said. Hes a typical hacker who loves technology and adventure.

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Here's why the FBI arrested a cryptocurrency developer for speaking in North Korea - Salon

Hackers are using new malware methods which lift copy-and-paste data to steal cryptocurrency from unsuspecting victims.

The malware, called a clipper, replaces users crypto addresses with the hackers own address when copy and pasting.

Cybersecurity researcher Lukas Stefanko discovered the exploit earlier this year. It is most often deployed through fake or infected apps on the Google Play store.

It is believed that similar malware has been used on Windows devices from as early as 2017.

The exploit, which is still being used today, waits for users to copy a receiving cryptocurrency wallet address and then hijacks the clipboard of a users machine to replace the paste value with the hackers wallet address.

This results in cryptocurrency users sending their funds directly to a wallet they dont control.

The exploit works so well because many users neglect to double-check the pasted address, instead relying on the copy-and-paste data to be accurate.

The malware is delivered through downloads, some of which are impersonations of legitimate cryptocurrency software such as MetaMask.

Stefanko claims that the malicious downloads arent restricted to dodgy sites or app stores, and some are even being downloaded through highly trustworthy sites such as CNET.

Many cryptocurrency experts have called for user-friendly wallet addresses that are easier to remember or recognise at a glance but which dont compromise on cryptographic security.

Current addresses, which may be in excess of 34 characters long and case sensitive, are incredibly difficult to read and compare, which is why most users rely on copy and pasting to ensure theyve got the right address.

Stefanko wrote on Bitcointalk, the popular Bitcoin forum where the exploit was first revealed, that:

Even if you check part of the pasted Bitcoin address, chances are the first few characters are the same, and you still wont notice the address was changed.

Story continues

The most simple way to avoid falling prey to such scams is to double-check every single digit of a pasted cryptocurrency address, no matter how tedious this may seem.

Stefanko also warned against using Windows software such as Cortana, as the built-in AI helper contains key-logging capabilities which could be used by hackers.

Multiple entities have been blamed for the proliferation of cryptocurrency malware, from shady organised criminal gangs to highly clandestine North Korean hacking groups.

If youd like to learn more about the threats of crypto malware and steps you can take to protect yourself, read here.

The post Clipper malware used to steal cryptocurrency funds appeared first on Coin Rivet.

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Clipper malware used to steal cryptocurrency funds - Yahoo Finance

The cryptocurrency market has recovered from the recent sell-off; however, the further upside in major coins looks to be limited in the short run Bitcoin and all major altcoins are mostly range-bound during early Asian hours, with marginal gains registered on a day-to-day basis. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization increased to $201 billion from $196 billion this time on Thursday; an average daily trading volume stayed retreated to $59 billion. Bitcoin's market share settled at 66.9%.

BTC/USD is hovering around $7,400 during early Asian hours; This area is packed with technical levels, which makes it hard to break. Once it happens, the upside may gain traction with the next focus on $7,700 and the recent high of $7,700. On the downside, thee coin is supported by a confluence of SMA50 (Simple Moving Average), SMA100 and the lower line of the Bollinger Band 1-hour clustered on approach to $7,300.

Ethereum is struggling to settle above $148.00; however, with little success so far. At the time of writing, ETHUSD is changing hands at $147.98, which is 2% higher from this time on Thursday and unchanged since the beginning of the day. The initial support awaits us at $147.00. It is reinforced by SMA50 1-hour and the lower line of 1-hour Bollinger Band. The upside is limited by $148.00 and $148.70 (the upper border of 4-hour Bollinger Band). Once it is out of the way, $150.00 will come back into focus.

Ripple's XRP topped at $0.2268 late on Thursday but failed to hold the ground. At the time of writing, XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.2210, unchanged since the beginning of Friday, with over 3.5% gains on a day-to-day basis. The initial support is created by a psychological $0.2200. However, we will need to see a sustainable move below $0.2170 (SMA200 1-hour) for the sell-off to gain traction. The resistance is created by a $0.2260-0.2270 area that includes the recent high and the upper line of 1-hour Bollinger Band.

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The Cryptocurrency Market Update: Bitcoin is in recovery mode ahead of the weekend - FXStreet

Legendary venture capitalist Tim Draper is still confident that the Bitcoin price is going to reach $250,000 in 2022.

In his recent interview, he explained that the uber-bullish forecast is not based on the halvening.

Back in September 2014, Draper predicted that Bitcoin would be able to hit $10,000 in only three years. That prediction turned out to be conservative -- the Bitcoin price skyrocketed to $20,000 in December 2017.

Now, Draper claims that he's more confident about his $250,000 prediction than his previous one.

"I am more confident of $250,000 by 2022 or the first quarter of 2023 than I am of the prediction of $8,500 on December 31."

The most interesting part about his prediction is that it's not based onBitcoin's stock-to-flow model(S2F). The coin's flow is halved every four years, which historically leads to a massive bull run.

Instead, he expects Bitcoin to secure a five percent market share as an alternative currency.

"My prediction was really based on creating enough of an infrastructure for Bitcoin to get a 5% market share around the world, as a currency."

Draper claims that he's still buying Bitcoin because he takes it for tuition at Draper University.

Draper states that he's moving towards a decentralized world that relies on Bitcoin and smart contracts. The media and governments around the globe will soon realize its potential.

"The currency business today is $86 trln. If you add crypto in 10 years from now, I think it's going to be $120 trillion. That's a huge, huge market..."

Draper also says that he does like the idea of forks because he loves innovations.Hebelieves that Bitcoin Cash has potential since it has some "bright" people working on it.

"My religion is in building progress and getting us to this new decentralized world, which I think is coming."

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Crypto Disruption: French Central Bank to Start Testing Its Own Cryptocurrency in 2020 - U.Today

Australian police have reportedly seized a record amount of cryptocurrency after intercepting a drug delivery from the UK.

The dodgy drug delivery eventually led police to search a property in Marangaroo, Perth and seize AUD$1,524,102 ($1,022,827) worth of cryptocurrency.

Detective Senior Sergeant Paul Matthews, the officer in charge of the drug and firearm squad, said the confiscation is believed to be the biggest single haul obtained by the Western Australia police.

A 25-year-old woman and a 27-year-old man have also been arrested in connection to the bust.

The assets have been frozen and the pair are due to appear in court on Wednesday.

The drugs were spotted during a screening of international mail where border forces in Australia uncovered 27.5g of MDMA tablets and 27.5g of MDMA powder hidden in a childs painting set, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Clandestine activity of this nature is not uncommon. Australian Border Force commander for Western Australia Rod ODonnell said mail-screenings uncover small amounts of drugs in mail every day.

While this might be one of the biggest single seizures of cryptocurrency, authorities in Australia are well aware that drug running criminals use the digital assets.

Back in 2016, Australian Federal Police began proceedings to seize US$5,000 worth of Bitcoin. By the time they got their hands on it, it had increased in value by over 2,000 percent.

Published December 4, 2019 08:51 UTC

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Drugs hidden in childs toy lead police to massive $1M cryptocurrency stash - The Next Web

In a little under a year, DeFi has become a significant component of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. But which platforms pay the most interest?

Decentralized finance is often hailed as a prime use case for digital assets. Lending practices among DeFi platforms follow similar patterns: loans are overcollateralized, meaning the risk of default is negligible and lending is more responsible than that of the fractional reserve banking system used by legacy lending institutions.

As global interest rates hover around zero to negative yield, digital assets can offer an alternative way of generating passive income. Crypto.coms eye-popping 18 percent annualized returns on CRO tokens locked up for three months by MCO token holders are undoubtedly appealing on the surface.

But these returns can come with risks. CRO tokens, of course, can depreciate in value, easily chipping away at the returns over the lock-up period. With many entrants in the market, a side-by-side comparison of lending rates can help crypto hodlers keep track of where they can earn the highest rates of interest.

BlockFi bears the most resemblance to a traditional bank inasmuch as its centralized nature makes it the trusted party between lenders and borrowers. Zac Princes company pays 4.1 percent on Ether deposits and 6.2 percent on Bitcoin deposits. Limits are capped at 1,000 and 10, respectively, before the rates drop.

The platform that provides access to high-interest crypto accounts and low-cost credit products to clients worldwide also pays 8.6 percent on GUSD.

Celsius pays 4.1 and 3.15 percent on Bitcoin and Ether deposits, while also supporting Tether at a staggering 12 percent. Unlike BlockFi, Celsius pays interest on deposited crypto and allows users to also borrow directly against those holdings. BlockFi distinguishes between crypto deposited for loan collateral and crypto deposited to earn interest.

The BitGo-secured platform pays single-digit interest rates on a range of cryptocurrencies, including XRP, Dash, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash to name a few. CEL token owners earn favorable rates. Having originated over $4 billion in loans, it claims to be the largest DeFi player in the industry.

Nuo is a Singapore-based purely peer-to-peer facilitator of loans and deposits between crypto traders, making it distinct from the more centralized and regulated players like BlockFi. The platform offers a limited suite of tokens for which it provides lending and borrowing markets. SNX tokens pay a whopping 27.6 percent, almost double the rate to borrow the token.

Courtesy of Nuo

From its inauspicious beginnings as Monaco Coin, the double-tokened Crypto.com is on a mission to accelerate the worlds transition to cryptocurrency. The platform is not just a pure DeFi company, however, offering credit cards, a wallet, quant trading services, and a recently launched exchange.

The ambitious firm also offers highly attractive rates to digital asset lenders. It has a sizeable and growing stable of coins for which it offers attractive rates to depositors in its Crypto Earn program.

Courtesy of Crypto.com

The company pays up to 12 percent on some stablecoins, and up to 18 percent on its native CRO token. Preferential rates are offered to holders of its other native token, MCO.

Nexo is a more conventional DeFi platform offering lending and overcollateralized borrowing. Interest is compounded and paid out to lenders daily. Currently, the firm supports stablecoins and fiat only, with an 8 percent interest payout across the U.S. dollar, Euro, and the British pound, in addition to stablecoins TUSD, SAI, PAX, USDC, and Tether.

In contrast to many of its competitors, it holds depositors fiat and stablecoins and allows borrowers to borrow non-pegged crypto. It also allows crypto hodlers to deposit crypto to borrow more. Non-pegged crypto depositors dont earn any interest on their crypto holdings, but they can borrow crypto, using their deposits as collateral.

Exchanges are now offering interest-bearing products. Binance offers ten percent annualized interest on BUSD holdings over a 14-day fixed loan period. For BNB, it pays 6 percent. Its flexible deposit rates are far less attractive. Poloniex also offers a way to earn interest on crypto holdings, by matching lenders and borrowers. Bitfinex pays interest on certain tokens.

Just as DeFi platforms are beginning to offer trading services, exchanges are beginning to offer decentralized finance facilities as competition in the industry intensifies.

Different digital asset holders have different risk profiles. The most important aspects of a DeFi company to consider apart from the rates they offer are where they are located, how and by whom they are regulated, and how credible and established they are in the industry.

All DeFi companies are startups, so counterparty risk where someone potentially loses their principal because the company receiving the loan fails will be present, for the short term at least. The most established among them, and those regulated and insured should be regarded as more conservative and safer places for your money. Licensed and regulated startups in stable jurisdictions can fail. But it is reasonable to place more trust in them than in less regulated companies.

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Best Places to Earn Interest on Your Cryptocurrency - Crypto Briefing

Virgil Griffith must have known there was a chance that his decision to attend a cryptocurrency conference in North Korea was going to land him in trouble. Now hes experiencing firsthand the heavy force of US sanctions against the country: he faces up to 20 years in prison.

According to a criminal complaint unsealed last week by the US Department of Justice, Griffith, who works for the nonprofit Ethereum Foundation, traveled to North Korea without permission from the State Department, a requirement of US law. The Federal Bureau of Investigation alleges that Griffith subsequently conspired to provide services to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) in a way that violates US sanctions.

His defenders, including Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, say Griffith gave a harmless presentation about open-source technology, based on information that was already publicly available. But now it will be up to a court to determine whether what Griffith was doing with the North Koreans should land him in jail for two decades. In the meantime, its also worth asking: What were the North Koreans doing with Griffith?

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Griffith attended thePyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference along with approximately 100 others, according to the criminal complaint. It alleges Griffith told FBI investigators that the DPRK government approved his presentation topics in advance, and a conference organizer told him to stress the potential money laundering and sanction evasion applications of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

According to the FBI, Griffith and other attendees did indeed discuss these topics, as well as how DPRK could use these technologies to achieve independence from the global banking system. Then, after the event, Griffith allegedly tried to help set up an exchange of cryptocurrency between North Korea and South Korea, a transaction that would have violated US sanctions.

Sanctions are diplomatic (as opposed to military) tools of coercion that governments can use against foreign adversaries. The North Korean government faces expansive restrictions on trade under sanctions from the US and many other nations intent on curtailing its nuclear weapons program. (Unfortunately for Griffith, executive actions by both the Obama and Trump administrations have made the US-imposed restrictions very broad in recent years as the conflict over the weapons program has escalated. US persons arent allowed to provide any goods, services, or technology to North Korea.)

Cut off from the global financial system, the North Korean regime under Kim Jong-un is looking for ways to grow its economy that dont depend on that system. Thats why it finds cryptocurrency technology, and financial technology more broadly, so compelling, says John Park, director of the Korea Project at Harvards Kennedy School's Belfer Center.

Even if economic sanctions against North Korea were dropped, its economy is so chronically underdeveloped that standing up a viable national currency and building up its international trade would be extremely difficult, says Park. North Koreas leaders are enthusiastic about cryptocurrencys potential as a tool to help the regime achieve these goals more quickly, without having to rely on traditional middlemen like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, says Park.

In August a United Nations report revealed that the regime had stolen as much as $2 billion via cyberattacks on financial institutions, including cryptocurrency exchanges, and was using the money to fund its weapons program. That report said North Korean officials were also mining cryptocurrency and using it to fund the military.

This sort of behavior has contributed to a sense of urgency that the US already feels toward North Korea as it continues to expand its nuclear weapons program, says Park.

So what were the North Koreans doing with Virgil Griffith? We cant really know. In September, the cryptocurrency-focused news site Decrypt published details provided by an anonymous attendee of the Pyongyang conference. The person said the other attendees were government officials, employees at the state-owned bank, and economics professors. The North Koreans wanted to know how to use Bitcoin as a replacement for SWIFT, the global bank-to-bank payment system, said the anonymous attendee, adding that they were also interested in using Ethereum smart contracts to automatically enforce agreements outside of their own borders. (Meanwhile, another attendee, Fabio Pietrosanti, recently told CoinDesk that sanctions were not discussed at the conference.)

The alleged cryptocurrency-exchange hacks and mining activity suggest the North Koreans already have their own understanding and even homegrown talent. But if the regime is really going to use cryptocurrency as a tool of economic development, it has a lot of work to do, says Park: Gathering information about how to do that is under the heading of initial steps.

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A blockchain expert is accused of helping North Korea's leaders. But what would they want from him? - MIT Technology Review