Law Decoded: All vs. One and One vs. All, Jan. 22-29
In a week that saw meme-driven investors rail against Robinhood in what coverage painted as a David and Goliath story, considerations of who exactly policy should defend flared up.
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Ripple and CEO Brad Garlinghouse Face Another Lawsuit Over XRP Crypto Being a Security
Another class-action lawsuit has been filed against Ripple Labs and CEO Brad Garlinghouse. This lawsuit follows the one filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging that the defendants sold XRP, which it considers unregistered security, for over $1.38 billion.
- The lawsuit, filed Monday in a Florida district court alleges that the “sale of XRP cryptocurrency tokens to Florida residents” violates Florida securities laws.
- The suit names Ripple Lab Inc., XRP II LLC, and Garlinghouse as the defendants. They have allegedly sold “millions of dollars (or more)” in XRP tokens since 2013 without registering either with federal or Florida authorities.
- Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, Garlinghouse, and co-founder Christian Larsen alleging that they sold over 14.6 billion units of XRP for at least $1.38 billion. After the SEC’s lawsuit, several major cryptocurrency exchanges delisted XRP, including Coinbase, Binance, Okcoin, and Blockchain.com. Ripple has insisted that XRP is not a security and plans to fight the SEC charges.
- The plaintiff, Tyler Toomey, said he purchased 135 XRP on or around Nov. 24, 2020, for $97.80 and then sold the coins at a loss. The lawsuit states that the “plaintiff sustained a loss of $48.56, or just over 50% of his initial investment.)” Although the plaintiff’s own loss is small, he “seeks to represent a class defined as all persons or entities in the State of Florida who purchased XRP.”
- Toomey is seeking monetary compensation including “reasonable” attorney’s fees, expenses, and costs of the suit, on his own behalf and on behalf of other class members.
What do you think about this new lawsuit against Ripple over XRP? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Real-Time Blockchain-to-Everything Platform PARSIQ (PRQ) Now Listed on OKEx
PRESS RELEASE. PARSIQ, a blockchain monitoring and workflow automation platform connecting on-chain and off-chain applications in real-time, announced that its PRQ token is now listed on OKEx with USDT base pair.
Please take note of the following go-live schedule:
- PRQ Deposit : 07:00am January 28, 2021 (UTC)
- PRQ Spot Trading : PRQ /USDT: 10:00am January 28, 2021 (UTC)
- PRQ Withdrawal : 10:00 January 29, 2021 (UTC)
PARSIQ is a blockchain monitoring and workflow automation platform that serves as a multi-level bridge between blockchains and off-chain applications. PARSIQ’s features automate the blockchain analytics and monitoring process, providing customizable workflows with real-time intelligence.
Developers and individual users can transform the blockchain data to their favorite off-chain application or web service.
Among the obvious use cases is monitoring the wallets of traders and ordinary users. Among the non-obvious are complex system integrations for financial institutions and DeFi projects that use the PARSIQ infrastructure to improve security, conduct audits, comply with regulatory requirements, AML, and expand their workflows in other ways.
The infrastructure underneath PARSIQ’s user interface is built with their proprietary programming language ParsiQL, and its users’ benefits are multiplying with each supported integration.
PRQ Token
PARSIQ Token (PRQ) is an essential piece of the PARSIQ platform that co-exists with FIAT payments for using its services. Payments within the platform that are made in PRQ tokens guarantee a discounted rate. During the first Epoch when PRQ tokens are used as payment for running Smart-Triggers users receive higher execution limits, unlock transport methods, and are able to propose features that can be added to the platform.
In October 2020, the PARSIQ team released plans for Epoch 2.0.
#1. Public Projects
With Public Projects users can subscribe to existing PARSIQ Projects that were pre-made by other users. By paying in PRQ, users that have subscribed to the Public Project will incentivize the creators to create interesting, complex, and more important – problem-solving projects.
#2. User Data and PRQ
Every single monitoring target (primitive of type address, a struct with the field of address type, table row) would require 1 PRQ to hold after the implementation. It means that if there are 1000 addresses (960 in the table as rows, 30 as primitives, 10 in the structs) then the User would need 1000 PRQ on the connected Ethereum Account balance.
#3. IQ Protocol
IQ Protocol will allow risk-free PRQ lending and collateral-less borrowing. Risk-free PRQ lending means that PRQ is not transferred from the lender’s address to the borrower’s address. Details on the algorithm are available in the dedicated explainer on PARSIQ’s blog.
#4. PRQBoost
PRQ Boost is a liquidity boost program to incentivize PRQ/ETH liquidity providers on Uniswap, which goes with the PRQBOOST utility tokens to increase rewards for liquidity providers.
PARSIQ is actively working to partner with major layer 1 blockchain protocols to expand the range of blockchain integrations and give projects that build on those protocols the ability to monitor and automate workflows between blockchain and off-chain.
Visit the PARSIQ website to discover some possible use-cases and find more details on the project and token: https://parsiq.net
Media contact: [email protected]
This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.
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Dogecoin Price Skyrockets 325%, Crypto Fueled by Elon Tweets and Redditors
The infamous meme token dogecoin has been skyrocketing in value rising more than 325.21% during the last 24 hours. After remaining below a U.S. cent for years, the humorous crypto asset is now exchanging hands for $0.05 per unit. The reason behind the big dogecoin price spike is similar to the recent Gamestop/Wallstreetbets story as a Reddit group called Satoshistreetbets has been behind the recent pump.
In April 2019, the Tesla founder Elon Musk said dogecoin (DOGE) was his “fav cryptocurrency.” In June 2020, day traders from Tiktok decided to encourage people to buy dogecoin in order to get the price per unit up to a dollar. The dollar price per DOGE never came to fruition, but the crypto asset saw some significant gains from the pump. Then during the first week of January 2021, news.Bitcoin.com reported on dogecoin gathering well over 500% gains during the year.
Now the K-9 crypto asset is making headlines again as the price has been surging during the last 24 hours. DOGE is currently swapping for 5 U.S. cents after trading below a penny for quite some time. The digital asset has a whopping $4.83 billion in global trade volume today and the asset is well above the all-time high (ATH) it captured in 2017.
Weekly stats show dogecoin is up over 585% and during the last 30 days DOGE is up over 1,150%. Against bitcoin (BTC), dogecoin has gained a colossal 871% against the leading crypto asset. Moreover, during the last 12 months, dogecoin has jumped in value by over 2,270%.
Okay I caved and bought the dog stocks lmaoooooo
— Mia K. (@miakhalifa) January 29, 2021
Rumor has it the dogecoin (DOGE) pump was started by the Redditors from r/satoshistreetbets who have been following the recent action spurred by the Gamestop/Wallstreetbets fiasco.
One particular thread talks about holding dogecoin in order to get the price per unit to $10. The Reddit post which is on the front page has over 11,000 upvotes has a lot of participants and people have been discussing the best exchanges to utilize.
Then on Thursday, the popular Elon Musk decided to tweet a meme of a magazine called “Dogue,” which is a play on the “Vogue” magazine title. Moreover, the Onlyfans star, Mia Khalifa, tweeted about the dogecoin madness on Twitter to her 3.4 million followers.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2021
The tweet from Musk got the dogecoin crowd excited and one individual tweeted a meme that featured Musk, a bunch of cartoon Doges, and said: “DOGE is the answer.” Dogecoin is also one of the only older coins, besides BTC and ETH, that has managed to surpass its ATH from 2017, while many other older crypto assets have yet to do so.
Dogecoin is over seven years old and was developed by Jackson Palmer and the programmer Billy Markus. The digital currency’s existence has always been to exist for fun, promote laughter, and reach a broader demographic. It has managed to do so and stay in the limelight, as the asset is now holding the 11th position among the top crypto market caps.
The cryptocurrency featuring the likeness of the Shiba Inu dog has 127.7 billion DOGE in circulation. Since the recent price spike, crypto supporters have been hunting for their old dogecoin wallets as the asset is far more valuable today.
What do you think about dogecoin’s meteoric rise during the last year and the gains seen over the last week? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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Guggenheim Investments’ Scott Minerd Says There Is Insufficient Institutional Support to Sustain BTC Prices Above $30K
As bitcoin struggles to kickstart yet another record-breaking rally, Scott Minerd, the CIO at Guggenheim Investments says this could be down to the inadequate institutional support. According to Minerd’s assessment, this lack of sufficient institutional investor support means it will be hard for bitcoin to trade above $30,000.
The CIO, however, thinks the viability of the crypto as “an asset class is still very likely.” In a short video, Minerd chronicles bitcoin’s rise and how the crypto initially did not have a large enough market capitalization to attract institutions.
However, after the crypto rose to $10,000, perceptions changed. The CIO explains:
When we had bitcoin at $10,000, it was pretty easy to see that there was a clear path to $20,000.Once it went past $20,000 you could definitely see based on technical work how you could get to $35,000 or even higher.
Minerd, who has previously predicted a maximum price of $400,000 for the BTC, says the current investor base is not big enough to support a valuation above $30,000.
Not Everyone Agrees
However, not everyone agrees that bitcoin, which grew by more than 300% in 2020, will remain stuck at current prices. Michael Geiger, the CEO at a financial brokerage firm Libertex, disagrees with Minerd’s view. Geiger explains to News.bitcoin.com that “an overextension does not mean that bitcoin would permanently stay below the figure.” The CEO adds:
Eventually, bitcoin would move above the figure even in the lower part of the logarithmic regression band, provided that the asset still holds any meaningful value.
Meanwhile, despite Minerd’s comments, bitcoin has dropped below $30,000 only twice since January 1, 2020. At the time of writing, the crypto appears to have resumed its rally after it went past $37k handle for the first time since January 20.
Do you agree with Minerd’s prediction that BTC will struggle to stay above $30,000? You can tell us what you think in the comments section below.
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Robinhood ordeal shows broken system and importance of regulation, crypto industry execs say
Richard Byworth of EQUOS and Aleks Svetski of Amber share their thoughts on Robinhood’s suspension of GameStop stock buys.
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BIS Chief Banker Criticizes Bitcoin as Inherently Risky, Says BTC Vulnerable to 51% Attack
Bank for International Settlements (BIS) general manager Agustin Carstens has criticized bitcoin saying the asset was inherently risky and “increasingly vulnerable” to a 51% attack.
A long time bitcoin (BTC) skeptic, Carstens stressed that only central banks should be issuing digital currencies.
“Investors must be cognizant that bitcoin may well break down altogether,” he opined, in a speech delivered at Hoover Institute on January 27, 2021. “Scarcity and cryptography alone do not suffice to guarantee exchange,” Carstens stressed.
Carstens, who runs the Basel-based central bank for central banks, speculated that the Bitcoin network becomes “increasingly vulnerable” to majority attacks as the cryptocurrency approaches its maximum supply of 21 million coins.
With fewer coins being produced, rewards to miners for processing transactions will also decline, he said, and confirmation wait times will increase. As a result, bitcoin’s vulnerability to majority attacks will go up.
Carstens described bitcoin as “a speculative asset” that lacks “the actual value backing” and as such, should be seen as a “community of online gamers.” He also cited mining using “more electricity than all of Switzerland” and alleged price manipulation as reasons for this impending breakdown.
“Bitcoin poses as its own unit of account, but fluctuations in value mean it is unrealistic to set prices in bitcoin. This also undermines its usefulness as a means of exchange, and makes it a poor store of value,” noted Carstens.
The BIS chief banker also took aim at stablecoins, such as the one proposed by Facebook originally known as Libra, but recently renamed Diem. He finds fault with private entities running a public monetary system by issuing coins that are backed by other assets such as fiat currencies.
“Private stablecoins cannot serve as the basis for a sound monetary system. They need to be heavily regulated and supervised,” Carstens thundered. In his book, governments should forever remain in control of issuing money.
“Clearly, if digital money is to exist, the central bank must play a pivotal role, guaranteeing the stability of value, ensuring the elasticity of the aggregate supply of such money, and overseeing the overall security of the system,” he explained.
What do you think about Agustin Carstens’ remarks on bitcoin risk and vulnerability? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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International Operation Disrupts Ransomware Group Netwalker by Tracing Cryptos With the Help of Blockchain Analysis
In collaboration with Bulgarian authorities, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) disrupted a well-known ransomware gang’s infrastructure. Law enforcement seized their servers and traced the illicit funds with the help of blockchain forensic analytics via Chainalysis.
US Authorities Seized Over $454,000 Worth of Cryptocurrencies
Per the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement, the coordinated action took down Netwalker, a highly active ransomware group over the last year, specifically targeting the health care sector.
The U.S. authorities also indicted a Canadian national, Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins, who allegedly obtained $27.6 million as a “Netwalker affiliate.”
The authorities seized a server that hosted their site on the dark web, where the gang redirected their victims to arrange the ransom negotiations. Moreover, the U.S. DOJ said that $454,530.19 in cryptocurrency from ransom payments were seized.
With the support of blockchain analysis, law enforcement took advantage of investigative tools of Chainalysis to trace Netwalker transactions. In fact, the blockchain firm had traced more than $46 million worth of funds in Netwalker ransoms since it first came on the scene in August 2019.
The U.S. authorities believe the ransomware gang targeted 205 victims from 27 different countries during its lifetime, including 203 in the U.S.
Speaking with news.Bitcoin.com, Brett Callow, threat analyst at malware lab Emsisoft, commented on the authorities’ action against Netwalker:
Ransomware groups have operated with almost complete impunity for a very long time, which means there’s very little deterrent. The rewards are enormous, while the risks are small. The action against Netwalker changes that. In addition to disrupting the group’s revenue stream, it also sends a clear message that cybercriminals are not beyond the reach of the law. Will that create a deterrent? No, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
Netwalker ransomware works with an affiliate scheme, where external people could deploy the ransomware and share revenues with the gang. Chainalysis elaborates on what the blockchain analysis unveiled about the infrastructure:
Typically, there are four roles that receive proceeds from Netwalker attacks: the likely administrator or developer (8-10%), the affiliate (76-80%), and two commissioned roles (2.5%-5% each). An affiliate, like Vachon-Desjardins, is usually responsible for obtaining access to the victim network and deploying the malware. There are also cases when one wallet gets 100% of the payment, which we believe belongs to the Netwalker administrator and indicates that he or she may also be directly involved in some of the attacks.
The analytical firm says that there were fewer than 20 unique affiliates. Some of them rarely deployed the ransomware, while others moved on to other similar ransomware strains. That’s why a tool used by the authorities named Chainalysis Reactor traced payments received by the affiliates from other variants.
To confirm the fact that some affiliates moved to other strains, Chainalysis found out that Netwalker administrator published an advertisement on darknet forums. The admin was seeking new affiliates, as vacancies “had freed up.”
Tracing Suspected Netwalker Affiliate
On how the authorities traced Vachon-Desjardins’ activities, Chainalysis explained:
Blockchain analysis revealed at least 345 addresses associated with Vachon-Desjardins going back to February 2018 with transactions continuing to the date of this writing (January 27, 2021). He allegedly received more than $14 million worth of bitcoin at the time of receipt of the funds, ultimately possessing at least $27.6 million given its rising value.
Citing government partners, Chainalysis claims Vachon-Desjardins was involved in at least 91 attacks using Netwalker ransomware since April 2020, deploying the malware as an affiliate and receiving 80% of the ransom. The analytical firm also suspects the alleged Netwalker affiliate was involved in the deployment of other ransomware strains.
What do you think about this massive operation against the Netwalker ransomware gang? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Dutch Bitcoin Exchange Files Preliminary Injunction to Suspend Wallet Verification Rule Enacted by the Netherlands
A Dutch bitcoin (BTC) exchange has filed a preliminary injunction at a court in Rotterdam to suspend the central bank’s additional wallet-verification requirements. Bitonic seeks to challenge the new rules enacted by the De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) on Sept. 21, 2020.
Dutch Exchange Argues Additional KYC Rules Lack ‘a Proper Legal Basis’
Per the bitcoin exchange’s announcement, the additional know your customer (KYC) requirements imposed by the central bank violate users’ privacy. However, the crypto firm clarifies that the legal obligations “are not under discussion” within this case.
A section of the first set of rules published by the Dutch central bank in 2019 reads:
Crypto service providers must check whether their clients and any ultimate beneficiary owners (UBOs) are on a Dutch or European sanctions list and report any hits to DNB. Risk-based checks are not permitted … Compliance also entails that institutions must check incoming and outgoing payment transfers.
But when Bitonic was granted registration as a “provider of crypto services” by the DNB, they were required to comply with the new measures that they disagreed with in the first instance. At the time, the bitcoin exchange said:
From now on, we are required to ask additional details such as the purpose with which you intend to purchase bitcoins and what kind of wallet you use. Furthermore, we are obligated to verify that you are the legitimate owner of the given bitcoin address by requesting you to upload a screenshot from your wallet, or by signing a message.
Following independent expert advice, the company claims the additional KYC requirement “lacked a proper legal basis.” Bökkerink Compliance International provided the advisory.
The Netherlands-based bitcoin exchange commented on the matter:
We did not receive a convincing answer to the fundamental questions [from the DNB] we raised on this matter during the registration process. In addition, we are also still awating a reply to a letter to DNB, sent in early November 2020 by 25 of the 38 registering parties. Meanwhile, we are for some time now, forced to work in a way that violates privacy rules. To avoid doing so, we asked DNB again, early this year, to revoke the requirement. This request was denied with a referral to the Sanctions Act. However, we do not agree with that explanation.
KYC Rules Are Still a Controversial Hot Topic Among the Dutch Crypto Community
The history of the Netherlands looking to regulate the crypto industry dates back to 2018. The government argued that they wanted to prevent money laundering and alleged terrorist financing that cryptocurrencies could be favoring.
However, the KYC measures implemented by the Dutch central bank sparked controversy among the local crypto community. In fact, Dutch users have been complaining on social media about crypto exchange Bitstamp’s passivity to challenge the DNB’s rules.
What are your thoughts on the reasons behind this preliminary injunction? Let us know in the comments section below.
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YFX.Com – DEX That Offers 100x Trading Leverage on Perpetual Contracts
PRESS RELEASE. YFX, the first DEX that offers 100x trading leverage on perpetual contracts has just launched, adding an important piece to the DeFi money legos, and creating a direct competition against CEX on derivatives trading.
The most traded Bitcoin product in centralized exchanges is Bitcoin futures, which is 10 times bigger than spot trading in terms of the trading volume. But in DEX, spot trading platforms like Uniswap are occupying a large portion of the total trading volume, and there is not a single decentralized futures trading platform that could reach even 1/10 of Uniswap’s trading volume. What stops decentralized futures trading platforms from becoming 10 times bigger than Uniswap? Why are decentralized futures trading platforms performing worse than their centralized counterparts?
The main reason is that decentralized futures exchanges don’t currently provide an attractive futures product to compete with centralized futures exchanges. For instance, centralized futures exchanges like BitMex can provide 100x leverage on Bitcoin futures trading. On the other hand, decentralized futures exchanges like dYdX only offer 10x leverage. None of the decentralized exchanges can keep up with the 100x leverage offering from centralized exchanges.
YFX Descartes V1 uses QIC-AMM and a system de-risk mechanism to migrate perpetual futures trading from CEX to DEX without reducing the trading leverage, which makes YFX the first DEX that could offer 100x leverage on a perpetual contract. You can do everything on YFX that you can do on BitMex or OKEx. YFX is poised to compete directly against established centralized exchanges. YFX Descartes V1 runs on the TRON MainNet, for faster transaction times and cheaper gas fees compared to Ethereum. The YFX team is also working on Ethereum’s Layer 2 solution to provide pragmatic perpetual trading on DEX. YFX team plans to launch their DEX on Huobi Heco and Ethereum Test net in Q1, 2021.
About YFX
YFX is the first DEX that offers 100x trading leverage on perpetual contracts. YFX Descartes V1 launched on the TRON MainNet, and all trades are held and processed by smart contracts. The main goal of the YFX team, which is formed by a group of engineers who have years of experience working on trading systems and blockchain, is to build a DEX that can compete with CEX on derivative trading.
Reference:
Website: https://www.yfx.com/
Trading: https://trx.yfx.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/YFX_Defi
Telegram: https://t.me/YFX_EN
Discord: https://discord.gg/xwAtjpabC5
Media Contact: [email protected]
This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.
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