Daily Archives: January 17, 2021

Indian police have seized $1.2 million in bitcoin from a hacker who allegedly hacked a government website, online game portals, and cryptocurrency exchanges. He was previously arrested for stealing $1.5 million from an Indian state government.

The Bengaluru Central Crime Branch (CCB) Police have revealed that bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore ($1.23 million) have been seized from a 25-year-old hacker, local media reported Friday.

The hacker known as Shri Krishna is a software engineer and resident of Jayanagar in south Bengaluru. He was arrested on Nov. 18 for sourcing drugs through the darknet using bitcoins. Bengaluru Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Sandeep Patil explained that during the investigation:

We have recovered 31 bitcoins from Krishna, which is worth Rs 9 crore.

Besides buying drugs, Patil said that the hacker and his friends were also using these bitcoins to lead lavish lives and stayed in star hotels and resorts.

Krishna also hacked the Karnataka governments e-procurement portal in August 2019 and was booked for stealing Rs 11 crore from the site.

In addition, a senior officer detailed that Krishna deployed ransomware to force the owners of the websites he hacked to pay ransoms. He also used to create mirror sites and get information on credit or debit cards used by people who accessed sites to steal money, the official said. The Indian Express described that according to the police:

Further investigation has revealed that Krishna, along with five friends, hacked into three bitcoin exchanges and ten poker websites by pushing three types of malware into them.

The police added that they also hacked into YFI coin (Yearn Finance) Ethereum sites in various countries using a similar modus operandi.

Patil noted that the accused hacked into various international poker sites and stole data, adding that his team has shared all the relevant information on the case with the concerned companies through Interpol.

After hacking websites and stealing data and money, the accused converted funds into bitcoin and cashed out through an alleged financing partner, Patil described. He added: The bitcoins were traded for money through another accused, identified as Robin Khandelwal. He deposited the money in Krishnas bank account after trading the bitcoins through hawala channels.

What do you think about India seizing bitcoins from the hacker? Let us know in the comments section below.

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India Seizes Bitcoins Worth $1.2 Million From Hacker of Government Website and Crypto Exchanges | Regulation - Bitcoin News

Bitcoin has received a lot of attention from investors, especially over the past year, as the price of the cryptocurrency skyrocketed from around $8,000 at the beginning of 2020 to more than $40,000 as 2021 began.

But recently, theprice of bitcoin dropped suddenly, and the slide has once again ignited the debate over whether bitcoin is a viable alternative payment system or just a speculative investment. Whatever side of that argument you may fall on, there are many great companies that are far better long-term investments than bitcoin.

Read on to find out why three Motley Fool contributors believe thatFiverr International (NYSE:FVRR),Square(NYSE:SQ), and PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ:PYPL) have the potential to beat bitcoin.

Image source: Getty Images.

Danny Vena (Fiverr): One of the draws of bitcoin is no doubt the potential for a small investment to pay out big over time. Catching an investment early and riding it to untold riches has a certain appeal, but it rarely works out that way. That's why I believe investors should forget bitcoin and put their money to work in Fiverr International.

It seems that these days, everybody has a side hustle, a way to make a little money on the side. Then there are those who have broken away from the traditional workforce, opting instead for the freedom that comes from self-employment. The challenge for freelancers, however, is finding businesses with needs that match their skillsets. That's where Fiverr comes in.

The company provides one of the world's largest digital sales platforms that helps connect freelancers with these businesses, and does so for as little as $5 -- the reason for its moniker. Sellers (freelancers) post their talents and services (called gigs) in a growing list of 300 categories, allowing for businesses to shop their services. Fiverr acts as the escrow, holding the finds to ensure that both parties are satisfied, charging a 20% commission for its services as matchmaker. The pandemic accelerated the pace of the digital transformation, playing right to Fiverr's strengths.

Its position as gatekeeper and toll collector has been extremely lucrative for Fiverr. The company has generated revenue that's accelerated in each of previous four quarters. In the third quarter, revenue jumped 88% year over year, while Fiverr's net loss improved 95%, knocking on the door of profitability much sooner than investors had anticipated.

Activity on the platform is helping drive its financial results. Active buyers increased 37%, but perhaps more importantly, existing buyers are spending more. In fact, the average spend per buyer has climbed relentlessly, notching gains every single year all the way back to 2012, and has more than tripled during that time frame.

Future growth looks brighter than ever, as each cohort of buyers increases the company's foundation, with many becoming repeat users. In 2019, 58% of revenue came from existing buyers, with the remaining 42% coming from new users. The company is also courting enterprise clients with its Fiverr Business platform, helping match sellers with the big businesses that need their services. This move upmarket will help boost average spending per buyer even further.

The gig economy will only grow from here. Fiverr's management pegs the company's total addressable market at $115 billion and counting. With trailing-12-month revenue of just $100 million, Fiverr has plenty of worlds left to conquer.

Brian Withers (Square): If you are interested in profiting from the bitcoin trend, why not buy into the company that sold $1.6 billion of the cryptocurrency last quarter? Square and its popular Cash App allow users to buy and sell bitcoin, but this fintech has so much more to offer.

Square has two ecosystems: its original business centered around serving sellers, and Cash App, focused on serving individuals. The company started by selling a small square-shaped device that plugs into a mobile device to help sellers and small businesses collect payments. This ecosystem has expanded to support all aspects of running a small business, including payroll, customer engagement, and even setting up e-commerce websites. Last quarter, its seller ecosystem posted $965 million in revenue and $409 million in gross profit, up 5% and 12% year over year, respectively. The coronavirus has hampered growth in the last several quarters, but as vaccines get rolled out globally, small business activity should recover and this ecosystem will return to strong growth.

The Cash App ecosystem has been an incredible growth driver this year. Not only have gross profit gains been in the triple digits year over year, but they have accelerated over the last three quarters, reaching a jaw-dropping 212% growth last quarter. Cash App is popular because of its ability to buy bitcoin, but customers love many of its other features, too. Over 2.5 million customers have used Cash App to buy and sell stocks, and users carried more than $1.8 billion in cash in their accounts, up 180% year over year.

But this fintech is just getting started. With its seller ecosystem's addressable market of more than $100 billion annually and the Cash App market exceeding $60 billion, it's captured less than 3% and 2% of each market, respectively. There's a lot to like about this fintech: accelerating Cash App growth, a seller ecosystem that's set to bounce back when the economy picks up, and a popular bitcoin trading platform. Why just settle for buying bitcoin when you can buy into shares of this tech company with two strong ecosystems serving two massive addressable markets?

Chris Neiger (PayPal): If you're drawn to bitcoin because of its potential to disrupt traditional ways of buying and selling goods, then you may want to consider PayPal's bet on digital payments.

PayPal has long been a household name for online payments, but the company has continued to grow far beyond its original payment platform. For example, the company's Venmo app, which allows peer-to-peer payments, has become an important service for the company over the past few years.

Venmo can now be used to pay for goods and services at physical locations, and, if you're still interested in bitcoin, can be used to buy and sell cryptocurrencies as well.

Aside from Venmo's potential in digital payments, PayPal also recently partnered with CVS HealthandNike to allow PayPal users to make contactless payments with QR codes at physical stores. This move by PayPal blends digital payments with physical locations and is helping the company continue to expand how it generates sales through its platform.

In the most recent quarter, PayPal added an impressive 15.2 million net new active accounts, sales jumped 25%, and the company's earnings skyrocketed 121% from the year-ago quarter. And the company's management estimates that the company's full-year 2020 generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) earnings will be up 38% year over over.

The U.S. digital payments market will reach an estimated $2 trillion by 2025,and PayPal is already a clear leader in this space. For investors who are looking for a great investment in digital payments, PayPal's customer growth, solid earnings, and expansion into new services make it a more solid bet than guessing whether the price of bitcoin will rise or fall.

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3 Stocks That Are Better Than Bitcoin - The Motley Fool

Bitcoin is showing signs of maturity but the level of institutional investment in the nascent market is still very small, according to Goldman Sachs' Jeff Currie.

The investment bank's head of commodities research said that more money from the financial world would need to flow into bitcoin in order for it to stabilize. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies saw a brutal sell-off on Monday that wiped off as much as $200 billion from the market value of all digital coins combined in just 24 hours.

That came after a remarkable surge for bitcoin in the last few months, with the world's most valuable virtual currency hitting a record high near $42,000 last week. Bitcoin is still up roughly 15% since the start of the year, trading 4% higher at a price of $33,873 as of 10:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday. Ether, the second-largest digital currency, was up 5%, trading at $1,058.

"I think the market is beginning to become more mature," Currie told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick in an interview Monday. "I think in any nascent market you get that volatility and those risks that are associated with it."

"The key to creating some type of stability in the market is to see an increase in the participation of institutional investors and right now they're small," he said, adding that, of the more than $600 billion invested in bitcoin right now, "roughly 1% of it is institutional money."

Investors increasingly view bitcoin as a store of value similar to gold, amid worries that unprecedented economic stimulus in the face of the coronavirus pandemic will devalue major sovereign currencies like the dollar.

Last year saw the emergence of well-known Wall Street investors like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller betting on bitcoin. Some asset managers have also allocated a small portion of their portfolios to the cryptocurrency, seeking to get some exposure to its wild gains.

Strategists at JPMorgan have said bitcoin could surge as high as $146,000 in the long term as it competes with gold as a safe-haven asset. They also noted, however, that bitcoin would have to become substantially less volatile to reach this price.

Digital currencies are notoriously volatile. The last time bitcoin had a rally similar to this was in 2017, when it soared close to $20,000 a coin before crashing as low as $3,122 the following year. Skeptics, such as stockbroker Peter Schiff and economist Nouriel Roubini, view bitcoin as a speculative asset and a market bubble likely to burst.

A big question among investors has been how to value bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't like a stock, which has traditional metrics for figuring out whether it is overpriced or undervalued. The cryptocurrency has a market value of more than $600 billion, and this is calculated by multiplying the price by the total number of coins in circulation.

"That can give you some long-run equilibrium," Currie said. But he added that the level of volatility and uncertainty in the market "makes it very difficult to forecast it."

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Goldman says bitcoin is starting to mature but institutional money is a tiny fraction of the market - CNBC

The wonder of the universe is that it is always in motion and, because of this, that everything changes over time. So, anything can be something completely different tomorrow, just like that no guarantees.

Karl Marx expressed this brilliantly with the phrase "All that is solid melts into air." The same occurred with Bitcoin (BTC), which over the years has undergone transformations, and from a cypherpunk idea, it has become a simple Che Guevara T-shirt.

The following words, which Eric Hughes published in A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, was the great orientation of the developers in the creation of e-cash, or electronic money, that was universal, private and without control:

It was this idea that gave rise to Bitcoin, a decentralized money oriented toward privacy and for each one to be their own bank.

Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks: This phrase from The Times is even recorded forever in the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain. However, time has transformed Bitcoin, and from a restricted circle of cryptographers, BTC has conquered the world and arrived at the International Monetary Fund, Bank for International Settlements, G-20 and G-8. Who knows before the moon, it can reach Mars.

So, as Bitcoin changed, so did the ideas around it. The desire for privacy gave way to to the moon, and the fruit of a manifesto became just another product of what we wanted to fight.

Today, instead of the phrases include unbanked people and be your own bank, we celebrate that major traditional banks advertise Bitcoin custody services. Instead of privacy, we rush to take selfies with documents in search of higher limits for trades, leverage, options and futures. We are happy that billionaire funds and big companies and corporations are buying all the Bitcoin they can, believing that they are now also Bitcoiners.

In politics, there is a phrase that says that if you did something so good and so wonderful to change the world that even your opponents are applauding you, it means you did everything wrong.

We are applauding the great capitalists those who were bailed out by the governments, those who caused the economic crises and those same banks that spit in our face. We are happy today to sit beside them and sell our Bitcoin to them, believing that they love us.

We celebrate that countries create regulations for Bitcoin, highlighting that it brings security to the crypto industry, and were proud to see that the biggest companies in the market are collaborating with authorities to reveal hackers and malicious agents.

Many big players are ashamed to say that Bitcoin is used by hackers, and they forget the history of BTC and its main objective: to be anonymous money.

We accept giving up our privacy to sit at the table with those we criticize all the time, thinking that they really love us when, in fact, they are only looking for profits.

Stamping Fiat is a shitcoin on dollar bills is like being an "independent" teenager who decides to live alone but whose parents pay rent, buy food and do the laundry. What matters is the dollar value that Bitcoin will break $30,000, $50,000, $100,000 or $300,000 inventory, and flow... To the moon.

Fiat sucks, but the more Bitcoin is worth in U.S. dollars, the better. After all, what matters is that 1 Bitcoin will always be equivalent to 1 Bitcoin. It matters how much I bought and how much I hope to sell in order to buy more.

We went so far as to find silly people who traded Bitcoin for pizzas or acted like Sirius, who sold 5,000 BTC to help create the first Bitcoin exchange. Hold, hold and hold so that it can be worth more and more I just heard that.

Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate and accumulate more and more value in Bitcoin. After all, it is the digital gold and value reserve of a new era. But the new normal is nothing but the old normal with a new face.

Whales went from names like Joe007 to Paul Tudor Jones, MassMutual, MicroStrategy and other institutional investors the same ones that will be bailed out by the government if a bankruptcy approaches.

I have nothing against this. After all, "Lamborghini" and "Bitcoin lifestyle" were already part of this market, and the world, like all things, is always in transformation.

I am happy to buy my Bitcoin, just as I buy a Che Guevara T-shirt and light a cigarette, believing that I am fighting the system while I wait for my mom to bring me dinner.

To the moon. Or better, to Mars, in Elon Musk style.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

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

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Bitcoin has become nothing but the new Che Guevara T-shirt - Cointelegraph

TipRanks

Watching the markets with an eye to the main chance, Raymond James strategist Tavis McCourt sees both risk and opportunity in current market conditions. The opportunity, in his opinion, stems from the obvious factors: the Democrats won both Georgia Senate seats in the recent runoff vote, giving the incoming Biden Administration majority support in both Houses of Congress and increasing the odds of meaningful fiscal support getting signed into law in the near term. More importantly, the coronavirus vaccination program is proceeding, and reports are showing that Pfizers vaccine, one of two approved in the US, is effective against the new strain of the virus. A successful vaccination program will speed up the economic recovery, allowing states to loosen lockdown regulations and get people back to work. The risks are also coming from the political and public health realms. The House Democrats have passed articles of impeachment against President Trump, despite the imminent natural closure of his term of office, and that passage reduces the chances of political reconciliation in a heavily polarized environment. And while the COVID strain is matched by current vaccines, there is still a risk that a new strain will develop that is not covered by existing vaccinations which could restart the cycle of lockdowns and economic decline. Another risk McCourt sees, beyond those two, would be a sharp rise in inflation. He doesnt discount that, but sees it as unlikely to happen soon. product/service inflation is only really a possibility AFTER re-openings, so the market feels a bit bullet proof in the very near term, and thus the continued rally, with Dems winning the GA races just adding fuel to the stimulus fire, McCourt noted. Some of McCourts colleagues among the Raymond James analyst cadre are keeping these risks in mind, and putting their imprimatur on strong dividend stocks. Weve looked into Raymond James' recent calls, and using the TipRanks database, weve chosen two stocks with high-yield dividends. These Buy-rated tickers bring a dividend yield of 7%, a strong attraction for investors interested in using the current good times to set up a defensive firewall should the risks materialize. Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) Well start in the energy sector, a business segment long known for both high cash flows and high dividends. Enterprise Products Partners is a midstream company, part of the network that moves hydrocarbon products from the wellheads to the storage farms, refineries, and distribution points. Enterprise controls over 50,000 miles worth of pipelines, shipping terminals on Texas Gulf coast, and storage facilities for 160 million barrels oil and 14 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The company was hurt by low prices and low demand in 1H20, but partially recovered in the second half. Revenues turned around, growing 27% sequentially to reach $6.9 billion in Q3. That number was down year-over-year, slipping 5.4%, but came in more than 6% above the Q3 forecast. Q3 earnings, at 48 cents per share, were just under the forecast, but were up 4% year-over-year and 2% sequentially. EPD has recently declared its 4Q20 dividend distribution, at 45 cents per common share. This is up from the previous payment of 44 cents, and marks the first increase in two years. At $1.80 annualized, the payment yields 7.9%. Among the bulls is Raymond James' Justin Jenkins, who rates EPD a Strong Buy. The analyst gives the stock a $26 price target, which implies a 15% upside from current levels. (To watch Jenkins track record, click here) Backing his bullish stance, Jenkins noted, "In our view, EPD's unique combination of integration, balance sheet strength, and ROIC track record remains best in class. We see EPD as arguably best positioned to withstand the volatile landscape With EPD's footprint, demand gains, project growth, and contracted ramps should more than offset supply headwinds and lower y/y marketing results" Its not often that the analysts all agree on a stock, so when it does happen, take note. EPDs Strong Buy consensus rating is based on a unanimous 9 Buys. The stocks $24.63 average price target suggests an upside of 9% from the current share price of $22.65. (See EPD stock analysis on TipRanks) AT&T, Inc. (T) AT&T is one of the markets instantly recognizable stock. The company is a member in long standing of the S&P 500, and it has reputation as one of the stock markets best dividend payers. AT&T is a true large-cap industry giant, with a market cap of $208 billion and the largest network of mobile and landline phone services in the US. Its acquisition of TimeWarner (now WarnerMedia), in a process running between 2016 and 2018, has given the company a large stake in the mobile content streaming business. AT&T saw revenues and earnings decline in 2020, under pressure from the corona pandemic but the decline was modest, as that same pandemic also put a premium on telecom and networking systems, which tended to support AT&Ts business. Revenues in 3Q20 were $42.3 billion, 5% below the year-ago quarter. On positive notes, free cash flow rose yoy from $11.4 billion to $12.1 billion, and the company reported a net gain of 5.5 million new subscribers. The subscriber growth was driven by the new 5G network rollout and by premium content services. The company held up its reputation as a dividend champ, and has made its most recent dividend declaration for payment in February 2021. The payment, at 52 per common share, is the fifth in a row at current level and annualizes to $2.08, giving a yield of 7.2%. For comparison, the average dividend among tech sector peer companies is only 0.9%. AT&T has kept its dividend strong for the past 12 years. Raymond James analyst Frank Louthan sees AT&T as a classic defensive value stock, and describes Ts current state as one with the bad news baked in. [We] believe there is more that can go right during the next 12 months than can get worse for AT&T. Throw in the fact that shares are heavily shorted, and we believe this is a recipe for upside. Large cap value names are hard to come by, and we think investors who can wait a few months for a mean reversion while locking in a 7% yield should be rewarded for buying AT&T at current levels, Louthan opined. In line with these comments, Louthan rates T an Outperform (i.e. Buy), and his $32 price target implies room for 10% growth from current levels. (To watch Louthans track record, click here) What does the rest of the Street think? Looking at the consensus breakdown, opinions from other analysts are more spread out. 7 Buy ratings, 6 Holds and 2 Sells add up to a Moderate Buy consensus. In addition, the $31.54 average price target indicates ~9% upside potential. (See AT&T stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for dividend stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

Read more:
Why Jack Dorsey Sees Bitcoin As The Answer To Donald Trump Ban Controversy - Yahoo Finance

One prognosticator following PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ:PYPL) feels the company is deserving of far more investor love. In a research note circulated on Friday, Dan Dolev of Mizuho Securities raised his price target on the stock to a "street high" of $350 per share, quite a hike from the previous $290. His recommendation, not surprisingly, is a buy. The new level is 46% higher than the shares' most recent closing price.

One big factor is at play with Dolev's increase -- bitcoin specifically, and cryptocurrencies generally.

Image source: Getty Images.

"Both our survey and management commentary unveil a dramatic increase in engagement due to crypto," he wrote in his note. He pointed out that PayPal said 50% of its users active in cryptocurrency were interacting with the company's app on a daily basis.

Dolev believes that this activity will add roughly 10% to PayPal's adjusted net revenue in 2023, or around $2 billion.

PayPal and cryptocurrency are recent partners. Following a pilot program, in November the company opened cryptocurrency services to all customers throughout the various PayPal services. At the time, it said it would roll this out to its popular peer-to-peer service Venmo too.

In doing so, PayPal was and is heeding high demand for such functionality. In a recent company earnings call, CEO Daniel Schulman said that "our base is very eager for us to offer these capabilities."

Cryptocurrencies have been on a serious tear lately. This rally has been led, as ever, by pace-setter bitcoin. In just the last month, even after several pull-backs, one bitcoin has zoomed in value to over $36,843 from a shade over $19,194.

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Analyst: PayPal Holdings Has 46% Upside Thanks to Bitcoin Surge - The Motley Fool