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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Originally posted here:
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.

Read more here:
US Seizes $24 Million In Cryptocurrency On Behalf Of Brazilian Government - Forbes

Written by Tim Starks Nov 5, 2020 | CYBERSCOOP

The Department of Justice said Thursday that it seized approximately $1 billion worth of bitcoin, its biggest cryptocurrency seizure ever.

Theannouncement solves aa years-oldmystery about the shuttered Silk Road dark web market for illegal drugs and other unlawful goods, widely regarded as the largest and most extensive dark web marketplace of its time before its 2013 demise.

The law enforcement action solves another riddle about a bitcoin wallet that just saw a nearly identically valued amount of cryptocurrencywithdrawn after sitting dormant for a long time.

The successful prosecution of Silk Roads founder in 2015 left open a billion-dollar question. Where did the money go? said U.S. Attorney David Anderson. Todays forfeiture complaint answers this open question at least in part. $1 billion of these criminal proceeds are now in the United States possession.

Motherboard reported Wednesday on the Election Day emptying of the wallet. Then the complaint, filed Thursday, detailed how federal investigators tracked down someone identified only as Individual X, who had hacked the funds from Silk Road much to the dismay of Silk Road creatorRoss Ulbricht.

According to the investigation, Ulbricht became aware of Individual Xs online identity and threatened Individual X for return of the cryptocurrency to Ulbritcht, the complaint reads. Individual X did not return the cryptocurrency, but kept it and did not spend it.

On Tuesday, Individual X signed an agreement to forfeit those Bitcoins, whereupon feds took over the money.

The U.S. government still must prove its case in court to retain the cryptocurrency.

Original post:
DOJ seizes $1 billion in cryptocurrency tied to Silk Road dark web market - CyberScoop

Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scalable, Flexible and Applicable to Multiple Use-Cases Metrix Coin and its ticker MRX is not just another PoS cryptocurrency, but rather a blockchain technology that offers benefits to consumers and businesses, scalable to encompass growth and flexibility to implement in multiple use-cases.

About PoS cryptocurrencies

A little background about PoS crypto algorithms first. In this kind of algorithm, anyone with a certain amount of coins participates in the transaction validation and block creation process that renders a stake reward (a process known as staking). It is simple, one must create a wallet, hold coins until maturity is reached, and have it connected online participating in the network to start receiving stake rewards. In order to prevent centralization and monopolization of the network by someone with the highest value of coins at stake, a number of techniques (i.e. randomization, age of holdings, staking limits, etc.) are used in the consensus algorithm to determine which user will create the next block.

About Metrix Coin

There is no dearth of PoS cryptocurrencies in the crypto economy. However, few of them have enough flexibility built into them that they can be used for a wide range of use-cases. Most of them are built for specific use cases only (i.e. gaming, e-commerce, P2P payments, etc.). But for mainstream adoption of PoS cryptocurrencies, it is necessary that PoS cryptocurrencies become multipurpose. Metrix Coin has fast transaction speeds of 10,000 transactions per second, ~90 second block times, is cost affordable, and harbors Bitcoins Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environments which make it perfect for e-commerce transactions and smart-contract development. The Metrix Coin blockchain is a hardfork from Quantum. However, Metrix Coin offers products and services that make it a robust blockchain and project overall that is for everyone and everything.

Consumer Benefits

Metrix Coin has incorporated a deflationary model that may attribute the value of the coin to appreciate over time. Consumers that stake their Metrix Coins will receive per annum in succession 10% for 2 years, 5% for 4 years, 2% for 6 years and 1% until max supply is reached. People may hold their Metrix Coin using any of the following products made in-house: Altitude, a desktop wallet available in multiple operating systems (OS); MyStakingWallet, an online wallet staking 24/7 that is also available as a mobile app for either android or iPhone; or MyNodePool, a stake pool service.

Business Partner Benefits

Metrix Coin aims to enhance business models customized to the needs of the business practice while also focusing on improving business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships. Partners that integrate Metrix Coin blockchain technology may expect to grow their brands to a worldwide audience while participating in Metrix Coins Partner Network at zero costs.

As mentioned earlier, Metrix Coins deflationary model will be a contributing factor to Metrix Coin value appreciation over time. Consumers that hold Metrix Coin as an asset will gain in passive income through the stake rewards. In addition to the inherent value that the blockchain offers to consumers, partners that integrate a custom incentive business model will not only grow their client base, but also retain them.

Metrix Coin products: Altitude, MyStakingWallet, and MyNodePool are accessible, without the technical hassles, that facilitate consumers to use Metrix Coin as a means of payment.

Metrix Coins marketing model further propels business partners to reach a worldwide audience at zero cost. Metrix Coin Business Developers have fine-tuned this productive model to provide an ease of mind to business partners underlining business growth.

Metrix Coin support team is available 24/7 to assist with any technical issues.

Developments

Metrix Coin also comes with its own ecosystem of a payment processing app, wallet, an altcoin pool, a gaming platform, and many other apps that are still being built. These apps were built by the core team of Metrix Coin to show its immense capabilities. The project also established a DIY technical support guide, email support system, and a support chat service to assist with their user-bases technical needs.

Metrix Coin Blockchain Solutions

A challenge that has been witnessed time-and-time again in the crypto-space is blockchain ecosystem disruption, or hardforking and softforking to fix security issues, smart-contract issues, and outdated blockchain parameters (block gas limit, block size, gas schedule, etc). Hardforking is when another blockchain is created from the existing chain, thus allowing two chains. Softforking is when only script lines of code are added to the current blockchain, think of it as an update to the existing blockchain.

One of the fascinating aspects of Metrix Coin is its Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP) built on smart-contract technology. As the protocol implies, blockchain issues are addressed without the need for disrupting the network with forks by appointing Governor nodes, or Governors, to oversee blockchain changes via the DGP lens. If the existing chain needs an upgrade or an update, DGP and the governor node consensus will mandate to apply necessary changes to the betterment of the Metrix Coin blockchain. Under the same governance protocol, governor nodes may vote on budget proposals allocating necessary funding to development. Metrix Coins governance protocol is a force of significant improvement that will push beyond the boundaries of its own development. Project development will never be hindered such that the power of the community will always ascertain its potential growth.

Metrix Coin is a DeFi Ready Blockchain

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has reshaped how we visualize the financial and banking system. DeFi is a permission-less financial service ecosystem that does not need banking support. Recently, DeFi protocols which are built on smart-contracts have gained much popularity by giving the liquidity provider (LP) financial gains. How it works is the LP deposits a stablecoin, which is pegged against ETH, another cryptocurrency, or fiat currency into a liquidity pool and earns a %APY in return. These assets may be traded in available decentralized markets or deposited into other liquidity pools offering the best yield in return. There are multiple DeFi protocols that are tailored to serve various financial services (lending and borrowing, yield farming, derivatives, margin trading, etc). Metrix Coin is a DeFi Ready blockchain, meaning that it offers the scalability that DeFi protocols warrant without congesting the network and raising the cost of a transaction to increase. DeFi protocols on Ethereum have caused gas prices to rise making it expensive to submit transactions across the platform affecting other projects. And as mentioned previously, Metrix Coins DGP provides the network oversight to address any smart-contract issues or blockchain problems. Developers may have a peace of mind to build their DeFi protocols on the Metrix Coin blockchain without the burden of network congestion and security.

Metrix Coin. For Everyone. For Everything.

There are very few Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies that are fast, scalable, and affordable at the same time and offer consumer and business solutions. Metrix Coin is a proven blockchain that offers more to e-commerce transactions and smart-contract developments. With its superfast transaction speed, deflationary staking model, quick block times, decentralized governance, scalability and DeFi capabilities, its one of the few PoS cryptocurrencies that can become mainstream.

And now it has become even more important because it is listed on the WhiteBIT exchange. This is its 4th major exchange listing after BarterTrade, DigiFinex, and P2PB2B. With a fast-growing and loyal community, robust features, and solid team, Metrix Coin has the potential to outperform many other PoS cryptocurrencies in the game of mainstream adoption.

For more information about product services visit http://www.metrixcoin.com, or email trent@metrixcoin.com if you would like to learn how our business model and blockchain may enhance your business practice.

Join Metrix coin Telegram and discord:Telegram: https://t.me/officialmetrixcoin Discord: https://discord.gg/DY4d7AV

Media Contact Details:Company Name: Metrix CoinCompany Email: trent@metrixcoin.comCompany website: https://www.metrixcoin.com/

Link:
Metrix Coin: An Efficient Decentralized Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Cryptocurrency That Exhibits Many Benefits for Consumers and Businesses - GlobeNewswire

Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones named it as the top bet to hedge against bitcoins post-pandemic inflation. The average investor probably does not know much about bitcoin. In this case, this cryptocurrency is seen in the news, Bitcoin, which is considered as the first cryptocurrency digital currency. Cryptos are not managed at all by a bank and by a public agency. In order to perform all transactions of cryptocurrency tokens, the public blockchain is entered into it. It contains the stored digital information of the database. In this, the future of everyone remains uncertain. To know more you can visit bmmagazine.co.uk

The co-founder of Framework Ventures, also known as Michael Anderson, uses tokens or coins used in its decentralized network that are not at all the same as all the companys shares. It requires new models to succeed in order to advance all networks. We are in its first inning to prove it.

Cryptos Are Risky

By the majority of start-up companies in it, most of the crypto assets in it can fail, says Anderson. All non-professional investors should invest in it for an amount that you can be prepared to lose. By all investors, despite a story of making millions in it, to invest in its inadequate time It can also rapidly reach its peak loss as a result before. In the year 2017, the business of bitcoin (BTC) had reached about $ 1,500. At the end of May 2017, the Bitcoin (BTC) unit traded up to about $ 1,500. Talking about December 2017, it peaked at its peak, bitcoin that rose to nearly $ 19,800. BTC had recently reached a price of about $ 6,600 to $ 7.600 from April 7 to April 15. Investing in crypto gives you a chance to make you rich, its market which is very volatile, there is also a possibility of loss.

The Uses for Cryptos Vary

The cryptocurrency is also known for its illegal transactions and financing. Crypto is accepted for all legal business transactions. Cryptos that offer their fast, low cost and their own money transfers. This makes the transfer of international money popular. In fact, it takes only two and a half minutes for all $ 99 million worth of bitcoin (LTC) transactions. It costs very little more than a dollar in remittance transaction fees. It is completely free from cryptos authorities, and cannot be frozen so easily, because it contains the wallets private key that the owner owns. Investors who can also speculate listed in cryptocurrencies can easily make this betting successful.

Cryptocurrency Investors Use Many Strategies

In order to make simple speculation investments, it gives an approach to cryptocurrency. In order to invest in this stock market, it has specific strategies for all investors. Marcus Swanepoel, CEO of global cryptocurrency company Luno, said that you can easily do the day-trading of crypto, and with both fundamental and technical analysis, you can easily buy and sold its assets, and we can evaluate it as well. Despite the difficulty of predicting digital currency fluctuations, Swanepoel claimed that it also had some methods of market analysis that informed all investors to buy and sell. All strategies for evaluating cryptocurrencies include concepts for demand and future use for its asset supply.

Excerpt from:
Some Important Things to Know Before Investing in Cryptocurrency - Programming Insider