Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

DCEBrief (press release)

Tech Revolutions: Cryptocurrency vs. Personal Computers Interview with Alan Yong DCEBrief (press release) Like many technological advances before it, cryptocurrency has spawned a rapidly developing industry. In this highly competitive field it is important to have every advantage you can get. Anyone can put together a team of individuals and give ...

See the rest here:
Tech Revolutions: Cryptocurrency vs. Personal Computers Interview with Alan Yong - DCEBrief (press release)

You Are Here: Home 2017 March 1 Botnets mining cryptocurrency

Security vendor Forcepoint has identified a new mining botnet targeting the Monero cryptocurrency. Using bots to mine cryptocurrencies is nothing new and there have been several claims that botnets are targeting Monero over the last 15 months. This blog by Luke Somerville and Abel Toro goes further. It provides the evidence for an active botnet exploiting SMEs and local government systems in the Haut-Rhin region of France.

Using a botnet to mine for cryptocurrencies today makes sense. The complexity of the problems to be solved require an ever increasing amount of compute power. This has created a number of cooperatives where members join a mining consortium to share compute power and make money. What is happening here is that cybercriminals are looking for a more profitable route than being part of a mining consortium.

Somerville and Toro reference a Malwarebytes report from January. In that report, researchers looked at the use of the Sundown exploit kit to deploy a cryptocurrency miner. That mining tool was focused on Monero and was being actively updated. It appears from the Somerville and Toro blog that other campaigns to infect machines have been successful. Surprisingly both blogs call out the lack of obfuscation of the code used in the attacks. This has made it easy for the researchers to identify and examine the attacks.

The command and control servers are mainly hosted on legitimate websites. Interestingly the majority of those websites are hosted on OVH. This might be the attackers using sites based in France to get around security controls on the machines. The theory being that security software would expect users to access sites based in France rather than in Vietnam, Russia or China.

It is a surprise that we havent seen more campaigns aimed at botnet mining of cryptocurrency over the last few years. The increasing price of most cryptocurrencies is enough to make it attractive. Given the size of some botnets and their cost, it is certain cost effective. What is interesting is that this is targeted at cryptocurrency that is relatively unknown outside the DarkNet.

Ian has been a journalist, editor and analyst for over 30 years. While technology remains the core focus of Ian's writings he also covers science fiction, children toys, field hockey and progressive rock. As an analyst, Ian is the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Practice Leader for Creative Intellect Consulting Ltd. A keen hockey goalkeeper, Ian coaches and plays for a number of clubs including Guildford Hockey Club, Alton Hockey Club, Royal Navy, Combined Services, UK Armed Forces and several touring sides. His ambition is to one day represent England. Ian has also been selected to be the goalkeeping coach for Hockey for Heroes, a UK charity supporting the UK Armed Forces.

Read more:
Botnets mining cryptocurrency - Enterprise Times

Kraken, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading venues in the world, has acquired the charting and trading platform Cryptowatch.Used by thousands totrade up to 22 digital assets, Cryptowatch has seen rapid growth in the past two years increasing its active user-base by 700%.

The financial details of the acquisition have not been made, but it is revealed thatCryptowatch founder,Artur Sapek is joining Kraken to lead the development ofits interface as part of the deal while continuing to develop Cryptowatch.Kraken has also already leveraged Cryptowatch to release an upgraded trading interface based on the platform.

In just 2 years Cryptowatch grew into one of the pillars of the digital asset trading community, Sapek said. Teaming up with an exchange was the natural next step, and Kraken was my first choice. The Kraken team has built a very mature and reliable exchange, and I look forward to working with them to deliver the best trading software in the industry.

Im thrilled to welcome the Cryptowatch trading platform and its founder into the Kraken family, said Kraken CEO Jesse Powell. As the industrys leading charting tool for traders, we plan to devote more resources and talent to further enhance its offering. And weve purposed the technology to provide a great new charting and trading platform to Kraken clients as the first step in improving our own interface. Its a great start to 2017 and I cant wait to share what else weve got in the pipeline.

In 2016 Kraken acquired threemajor bitcoin exchanges(Coinsetter, Cavirtex and CleverCoin) as well as the bitcoin wallet funding service Glidera soon to be rebranded as Kraken Direct.

Link:
Kraken Acquires Yet Another Cryptocurrency Firm, Cryptowatch - Finance Magnates

Thanks to the amount of technical savviness one needs to posses to use them,many cryptocurrencies are rather inaccessible for average users. PascalCoin a new cryptocurrency is ready to change this with deletable blockchains.

The project has made considerable headway since releasing its first beta version in July last year.According to The Merkle, there is a lot of trading activity and buzz aroundthe new altcoin but as of yet there are no merchants or platforms accepting it as a payment option.

PascalCoin is therefore not going to oust bitcoin any time soon, but it does employ interesting new strategies to create a cryptocurrency. Instead of relying on transaction history in blockchains, like most other cryptocurrencies, PascalCoin uses safebox with a safebox hash.

The safebox feature makes it unnecessary for the end user to download a blockchain of historical operations, making PascalCoin the first cryptocurrency to do that. The balance is included in each block of the blockchain so the chain can be deleted without affecting the ability of making transactions.

By saving the balance of the account on each block, thenew altcoin hopes to simplify cryptocurrencies and become moreappealing to the general public. Instead of long hacker-esque series of random numbers and letters, PascalCoin features up to 10-digit account numbers that include the balance and make the experience more similar to regular bank accounts.

The safebox is also meant to avoid the issues that have been detected with bitcoin. One of those issues beingdouble spending, when people attempt to do two transactions with the same funds, which is aknown problem with bitcoins.

When discussing cryptocurrency, the issue of traceability often arises. Many worry that cryptocurrency can aid criminals in their illegal dealing, although that might be changing. Pascal Coin will not be any more untraceable than bitcoin, even though it allows you to delete the blockchain. Deleting the blockchain can make the transaction history more obscure but anybody that possesses the full block chain will be able see it.

Its way too early to tell whether PascalCoins take on cryptocurrency will change anything about the future of cryptocurrency. However, new additions to the world of digital currencies are always interesting, especially if they bring it closer the public.

PascalCoin Is A Cryptocurrency With a Deletable Blockchain on The Merkle

Read next: First Uber, now Tesla: Employee sues over sexism, inappropriate conduct

Read the original here:
Deletable blockchain might make cryptocurrency more user-friendly - TNW

Privacy focused cryptocurrency Dashs recent rally is still going strong and it is now carrying the project to never-before-seen heights. Dash is now the fourth biggestcryptocurrency in circulation by valuation with a totalmarket capitalization of $200 million.

Since we last reported on the rally ten days ago, Dashs price continued to climb from around $19 to over $28 right now. And over the last week alone, theexchange ratehas jumped by about 28%. The move is supported by strong trading volumes as well, as about $4.5 million worth of buying and selling of Dashs cryptocurrency has taken place just over the lastday much higher than its previously typical daily volumes.

Dashs recent price and volume growth is largely attributed to its recent software launch of Sentinel, which sets the foundation for its decentralized payments system Evolution. In addition the company has made several key integrations with new partners recently.

On ThursdayDashsigned a business partnership with digital payments platform BlockPay that allows people to pay for goods with the cryptocurrency.

Headquartered in Munich, BlockPay is popular particularly in Europe and Latin America for enablingPoint of Sale (PoS) transactions at no cost to the merchant and low fees for the consumer. It boasts a team of over 50 representatives in 36 countries, each working on securing the platform implementation in hundreds of convenience stores, grocery marts, gas stations, supermarkets, hotels, and ecommerce outlets.

Daniel Diaz, Dash VP of Business Development, said: Dash is a project that has been focused a lot on usability as digital cash, and we want people to have a similar experience doing both online and Point of Sale transactions. BlockPay has taken solid steps in this direction, developing software to make it easier for brick and mortar shops to accept digital currency seamlessly.

Dash joins several other leading cryptocurrencies available for use on the BlockPay POS platform, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Steem, Litecoin and Dogecoin. Cryptocurrency users can pay at BlockPay terminals by scanning a QR-Code or tapping their phone on the NFC-Terminal. The payment and settlement process takes just a few seconds.

See the rest here:
Dash Is Now the Fourth Biggest Cryptocurrency with $200m Market ... - Finance Magnates

China is forging ahead to be the first country to offer its own digital cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology, following successful trials.

Despite instances of enormous fluctuation in price, cryptocurrencies such asbitcoin remain incredibly popular, thanks to its detachment from any nation states bank and its ability for users to trade anonymously.

For this reason, traditional banks and governments have been sceptical about its potential for undermining existing currencies.

Yet now, one of the worlds largest economies is throwing caution to the wind by potentially launching the worlds first national cryptocurrency under the Peoples Bank of China.

According to Bloomberg, the Chinese government has been exploring the possibilities of cryptocurrencies for nearly three years, having set up a research team in consultation with digital firms such as Deloitte.

For the end user in China, services such as WeChat or Alipay would remain largely the same but transaction costs would be lower, as a state-run cryptocurrency would mean payments coming directly from the buyer.

This possible launch of a digital currency comes at a time when the number of Chinese people making online payments is continually increasing, from 200m in 2014, to an estimated 630m by 2020.

The core of the digital currency will be based around blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that has made bitcoin what it is today and could possibly revolutionisemodern and future business.

By using blockchain, China will be able to collect vast quantities of data on every transaction in the hope of better predicting monetary forecasts.

Larry Cao, director of content at the CFA Institute in Hong Kong, has described the move as revolutionary.

Cutting costs is an obvious benefit, but the impact of shifting to blockchain-based digital money from the current payment structure goes beyond that, he said.

Theres a potential you can pay anybody in the system, any bank and any merchant directly. Blockchain will change the whole infrastructure.

With plans to launch thiscryptocurrency soon, China will replace a significant amount of its paper tender, with analysts predicting that banks and payment companies will need to radically rethink their business models in the years to come.

Peoples Bank of China tower in Hong Kong. Image: chingyunsong/Shutterstock

Original post:
China preparing to launch blockchain-based cryptocurrency - Siliconrepublic.com

Monday, February 27, 2017 5:28 AM UTC

SBXbank, a fintech company headquartered in London, is going to launch Coinxmart a unique marketplace where transactions are carried out using cryptocurrencies, Jakarta Globe reported.

Speaking with Jakarta Globe, SBXbank's Asean vice president of marketing Abdul Rahman said that company intends to sink up to Rp 100 billion ($7.5 million) into developing fintech services that offer e-commerce, peer-to-peer investment and lending, all of which will use a cryptocurrency.

Rahman further said that Coinxmart will be launched in Indonesia, alongside its iOS and Android apps, in May. SBXbank's proprietary cryptocurrency SBXCoin will be used in the marketplace.

He noted that the prospects of cryptocurrency is positive in Indonesia as it can also be used in many traditional banking services, including lending, deposit, payment and transfer.

"Soon fintech products will be used widely in all aspects of the financial industry's value-chain," Rahman added.

SBXbank is currently negotiating with Indonesia's Financial Services Authority (known as the OJK) to convince them that fintech services, including its cryptocurrency, are safe for the customers. Rahman is hopeful to convince OJK that the cryptocurrency is safe and cannot be easily used for money laundering activities particularly as SBXbank strictly follows know-your-customer (KYC) policies.

"We have to build public awareness of crypto currency. We have to let the public know the advantages of using crypto currency," he said.

In order to give time to the customers to familiarize with SBXCoin and promote its use, SBXbank intends to allow up to 30 debit cards to be used in the marketplace.

"There's no physical money in the internet, everything will be done using SBXCoin eventually," he said.

Human Life Could Be Extended Indefinitely, Study Suggests

Goosebumps, tears and tenderness: what it means to be moved

Are over-the-counter painkillers a waste of money?

Does an anomaly in the Earth's magnetic field portend a coming pole reversal?

Immunotherapy: Training the body to fight cancer

Do vegetarians live longer? Probably, but not because they're vegetarian

Could a contraceptive app be as good as the pill?

Some scientific explanations for alien abduction that aren't so out of this world

Society actually does want policies that benefit future generations

Six cosmic catastrophes that could wipe out life on Earth

Big Pharma Starts Using Cannabis For Making Drugs In Earnest

Do you need to worry if your baby has a flat head?

Read more:
SBXbank to launch cryptocurrency-powered marketplace 'Coinxmart' - EconoTimes

Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), a fintech company specializing in blockchain technology, has signed two partnership deals with the University of Edinburgh and the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) to further advance blockchain research.

Last week, IOHK and the University of Edinburgh launched the Blockchain Technology Laboratory. Located within the universitys School of Informatics, the lab aims to bring together academics and students to collaborate on blockchain research and development with a focus on industry inspired problems.

The lab is led by Prof. Aggelos Kiayias, chair in Cyber Security and Privacy at the University of Edinburgh and chief scientist at IOHK. Prof. Kiayias will organize collaborations with fellow academics at the university and oversee researchers and students from undergraduate to PhD level in a broad range of topics related to blockchain systems. Research collaborations will be interdisciplinary and will include beyond cryptography and computer science, economics, game theory, regulation and compliance, business, and law.

Prof. Kiavias said that blockchain and distributed ledgers are upcoming disruptive technologies that have the potential to scale information services to a global level. The academic and industry connection forged by this collaboration puts the Blockchain Technology Lab at Edinburgh at the forefront of innovation in blockchain systems, he added.

Sir Timothy OShea, the principal of the University of Edinburgh, said:

We are delighted to be at the forefront of UK institutions in the field of distributed ledgers and proud to have a dedicated research laboratory for industry inspired research in this important emerging area.

The lab will provide a direct connection between developers and researchers, helping to get projects live faster. It will also seek to pursue outreach projects with entrepreneurs in Edinburghs vibrant local technology community.

Recruiting and outreach will begin immediately, and the full facility will be operational from summer 2017.

The new research lab at the University of Edinburgh will serve as the headquarters for IOHKs growing network of global university partnerships. The company plans to establish further research laboratories in the US and Greece later this year and more in 2018.

Earlier this month, the Tokyo Institute of Technology launched a similar center with IOHK.

The Input Output Cryptocurrency Collaborative Research Chair, within the Tokyo Tech School of Computing, focuses on promoting joint research in cryptocurrencies and blockchain related technologies among teams of researchers and professors of the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and IOHK.

In particular, researchers from IOHK will join Tokyo Tech, while professors and graduate students will tackle industry challenges in this rapidly developing area of research.

Similarly to the Blockchain Technology Laboratory, the Cryptocurrency Collaborative Research Chair aims to nurture talent and develop high-level expertise in cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

Commenting on the launch, Yoshinao Mishima, president of Tokyo Tech, said:

This agreement is important because Tokyo Tech is seeking to enhance the collaboration with industries and universities in Japan and abroad by producing groundbreaking results in research and engineering which will be published in internationally renowned scientific journals and conferences.

The two organizations have committed to produce knowledge via joint activities such as seminars as well as the production of academic papers. Another activity is to open courses related to blockchain technologies like lectures about cryptographic protocols and cryptocurrencies offered to Tokyo Tech students.

Like the Blockchain Technology Laboratory, all research and developments undertaken in the laboratory will be open source and patent-free.

Read this article:
IOHK Signs Partnerships with Universities in Scotland and Japan to ... - CoinJournal (blog)

SPONSORED POST

Global Resource Coin (GRC) is the first cryptocurrency in the world specifically created for casual users, who want to obtain resources from the investment point of view. Cryptocurrency was developed in 2013, however after long registration procedures, contracts signing and creation of a special licensed trading platform, the official launch only took place at the beginning of 2017.

So what is the uniqueness and peculiarity of the GRC? It is quite simple: global corporations and governments in many countries do not allow ordinary people to become engaged in investing in natural resources. In order to do this, you need to have a considerable amount of money, a special financial education and a special license. However, cryptocurrency GRC solves this problem. Due to the fact that GRCs trading marketplace has a specialized license, anyone is able to invest their savings in a particular natural resource, whereas cryptocurrency acts as an intermediary between users from all over the world.

Due to a great interest demonstrated from international producers and developers of minerals and natural resources, GRC has introduced proprietary cryptocurrency code, which will valid until 2018. It was created in order to secure the process of mining and users activity against possible hacker attacks. However, at the beginning of 2018 cryptocurrencys trade will be deployed on the worlds largest stock exchanges, specializing not only in cryptocurrency, but also on commodity exchanges, such as NASDAQ.

The group of GRCs cryptocurrency developers is headed by Tomas Beran, a well-known developer from Czech Republic, who belongs to the famous family of Berans billionaires. At the end of 2016 a number of international media have published information about the beginning of operations on the trading platform, using GRCs cryptocurrency.

Therefore, GRC is the first cryptocurrency in the world based on natural resources. We all know that any investment is a high risk. But our platform helps to minimize those investment risks, offering the most relevant sources of income. Hundreds of GRCs platform specialists analyze all the offers on the natural resources markets on a daily basis and select only the most interesting ones for our users. This way, each of you can take advantage of the offers that appear daily on our platform.

In addition, from the year 2018 GRCs cryptocurrency rate is expected to grow due to its social usefulness and relevance. For this reason, you can use our cryptocurrency not only as an investment tool in natural resources, but also as a cryptocurrency that is followed by a perspective financial future.

Start changing your life right now and register on the GRC platform.

Global Resource Coin: https://grcoin.eu/

ThisisReno is your source for online Reno news and events since 2009. We are locally owned and operated. #thisisReno

Read the rest here:
Global Resource Coin: Invest in natural resources with cryptocurrency - ThisisReno

If there is one thing a lot of people would like to change about bitcoin, it is the rather long time in between blocks being generated on the network. This is also why various outcomes are so popular, as they process transactions a lot quicker. Interestingly enough, Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency to suffer from very long block times. In fact, there are at least four other well-known currencies, which suffer from this problem.

Similarly to bitcoin, NameCoin is another SHA-256 cryptocurrency using the same proof-of-work algorithm. It also has a total coin supply of 21 million coins, and a difficulty retarget mimicking the one of bitcoin. The similarities dont end there, though, as Namecoins block time is 10 minutes as well. Unfortunately Namecoin never become a mainstream success, even though it is still popular among the early cryptocurrency adopters.

There seems to be a trend among older SHA-256 coins, as quite a few of them have a 10-minute block time. PeerCoin is a bit different than NameCoin, though, as it combines both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake. Moreover, PeerCoin has no fixed coin supply and a much lower mining difficulty compared to other popular SHA-256 coins.

It is worth noting Peercoin offers a one-block mining difficulty retarget, which is rather unusual. Then again, this block reward of over 65 coins per network block is rather high, which may be part of the reason why Peercoin never became much of a success either. Without scarcity and clear use cases, there is not much use for Peercoin, even though it still holds a value of roughly US$0.31 per coin.

BitBar is the odd one on this list, as this altcoin never amounted to much. Whether that is due to the developer abandoning the project, or just a project that failed to capitalize on bitcoins hype, is a discussion for a different day. We do know Bitbar has a 10 minute block time, which makes it one of the slowest cryptocurrencies to date. Ten minutes is rather long for a Scrypt-based cryptocurrency, though, as those coins usually generate new blocks within three minutes or less.

Contrary to what most people would like to believe, bitcoin is not the slowest cryptocurrency in the world right now. That title goes to Quatloo, a rather obscure altcoin targeting the sci-fi enthusiasts around the world Although this currency has a specific appeal to this group of users, it never became a big success by any stretch of the imagination.

With a block time of 22.25 minutes, Quatloo transactions take ages to confirm. For a Scrypt-based proof-of-work cryptocurrency, that block time was the undoing from day one. Although Quatloo is still being mined as we speak, its community remains rather small and it appears that will not change anytime soon.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

Excerpt from:
Top 4 Cryptocurrencies Suffering From Slow Block Times - The Merkle