Day: August 8, 2017

The venture arm of the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is expanding its exploration of blockchain to include ethereum.

A joint effort in Australian politics seeks to make the country’s central bank adopt Bitcoin.

We have seen multiple iterations of crypto-ransomware over the past few months. In some cases, developers have employed images and logos related to existing law enforcement agencies. Such scare tactics often work quite well against less tech-savvy users. Developers are also looking for more efficient ways of securing payment from their victims. Scotch Tape Locker v1.0 boasts a large DOJ logo and requires three different keys to unlock one’s data.

Scotch Tape Locker v1.0 Is an Interesting Creature

It is interesting to see ransomware developers getting a bit more creative when it comes to designing malware. Although that is not good news for victims and security researchers per se, some of the more unique malware types will always spawn intriguing discussions. Scotch Tape Locker v1.0 — which is probably not its final name — is certainly intriguing in this regard. Despite having the worst name in history, it is actually somewhat convincing.

Looking at the ransom note screen below, it is clear that this malware would be taken seriously. It boasts the logo of the U.S. Department of Justice and aims to trick users into paying for their internet “crimes” sooner rather than later. We have seen similar messages to this one before in other instances of ransomware. Using a law enforcement agency logo may trick more people into paying ransom, but all this is still fake in the end.

"Scotch Tape Locker v1.0" sample: https://t.co/tvN8vbeESH
@BleepinComputer @demonslay335 pic.twitter.com/dzduSNjGHp

— MalwareHunterTeam (@malwrhunterteam) August 1, 2017

That message is pretty clear: victims have committed severe violations while browsing the world wide web, including downloading child porn, committing rape — hard to do online, but OK — promoting violence, and eating children (once again, quite difficult when browsing the internet). The message simply seeks to scare people more than anything, and there is a plethora of illogical content in this ransom. The one thing most people would feel guilty about is promoting violence, as that is subject to very wide interpretation.

However, that is not the part of this ransomware that caught our attention the most. Scotch Tape Locker v1.0 also requires three different decryption keys to restore one’s computer files. It is the first time we have come across this in the area of malware, since most types only require one key to decrypt files. Considering how victims are expected to pay a $150 sum in Bitcoin, three keys would seem to make even less sense than normal. It is certainly possible you do not even need three keys to unlock files.

It is unclear who designed this malware or how big of a threat it really poses. If nothing else, it goes to show that anyone in the world can create his or her own ransomware and get very artistic with it. Then again, Scotch Tape Locker v1.0 is certainly something unique. It does not appear to be part of any active ransomware distribution campaign. There are a lot of unknowns regarding this malware, but for now it is seemingly harmless until proven otherwise.

The world of ransomware will witness many changes in the future. With more and more people having access to ransomware-as-a-service platforms, the oddest creations are bound to pop up. Scotch Tape Locker v1.0 is certainly a creative attempt, but it is doubtful anyone will suffer any losses from it whatsoever. We can only hope three decryption keys does not become a real thing, since that would make the ordeal even less pleasant for malware victims.

Black Death Group kidnapped and tried to auction 20-year-old British model Chloe Ayling to the highest bidder Bitcoin online.

We are pleased to announce that the Russian start-up DARFChain is entering the pre-ICO stage on August 1, 2017 on the Waves platform.

Distributed Accounting, Resource and Financial system in blockChain (DARFChain) is a unique distributed system of accounting, financial and resource accounting, which is compatible with all major ERP-systems, where blockchain technologies are used for distributed, trusted, unchanged storage of accounting data and access.Currently, ERP-system on the blockchain is an essential element for the revolution in digital crowdfunding

Fundraising through initial coin offering (ICO, token selling) has become a new, promising way of obtaining financing for start-ups, enterprises and cooperatives. The amount of funds raised through ICO in 2017 is approaching $ 1 billion, which suggests a new boom in the investment market, when inefficient intermediaries in the form of banks and investment funds are excluded from the process.

Today, on the wave of ICO boom, the number of failed and simply fraudulent projects is growing rapidly. Most scandal scam coins are: OneCoin https://www.onecoin.eu, s-coin http://coinspace.com/, coinsnack http://www.profvest.com/2017/04/coinsnack-otzivi-obzor.html, mincoin https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/mincoin/, cloudcoin https://cloudcoin.ru/ .

The latest decisions of the US Securities and Exchange  Commission note the insecurity of investing crowd investors because the team does not have any legal obligations to use the funds received. At the same time, in the absence of mechanisms for accounting and distributed control, the future legal protection of ICO-investors seems even theoretically extremely difficult both in country jurisdictions and in the context of international law.

It is here that DARFChain comes to the rescue. Integrating the advantages of ERP systems and blockchain technologies creates new business opportunities: distributed, unmutable, trusted accounting with financial accounting, CRM systems and project management and multi-dimensional OLAP analytics.  With it, crowd investors will have an opportunity to follow directly the implementation of the invested project. As a result, all ICO participants – entrepreneurs, investors and future consumers of products or services of the project – have their own benefits, and the level of mutual trust increases being provided with the necessary level of distributed control.

In the Russian Forbes of 6/6/2017, in the article “Putin and the blockchain: how to develop the digital economy”, the DARFChain project is noted as an indispensable part of the mosaic of the future digital economy – after all, it gives an opportunity in the future to withdraw 100% of the share capital of any legal company into a blockchain and transfer to public or partially public metrics of business using ERP-systems in the blockchain.

In the long term, the project is aimed at supporting the ecosystem of interchange of tokens by enterprises producing specific products or services. One of the pioneers of the digital economy in Russia, M.Shlyapnikov, a Moscow farmer, known for including the release of his digital currency “colion”, speaks about the need for such an ecosystem, for example, in his interviews. Founders of the start-up DARFChain visionary, serial IT entrepreneur Stanislav Taktaev and economist, philosopher, director of the Institute for Social and Economic Modernization Konstantin Bakulev call this economy of the future “tokenomy.” Here, the ERP-system provides distributed multi-toned accounting using block libraries as a transport medium and an unchanged storage environment.

With their help, trade transactions are optimized, including with the participation of other tokens, issued for real production support and traded on exchanges. And the built-in visual designer of semantic smart contracts will allow to automate inter-system exchange and execution of transactions, and it is also convenient to set up the deposit management of investor and buyer funds in accordance with the results of the ICO roadmap. A cooperative movement would be one of the legal mechanisms for triggering a tokenomy existing in the world. Thus, this will solve the acute problem of monetary deficit for local economies, not only in Russia, but throughout the world.

During the pre-ICO, the DARF token will be sold at a preferential price of 4,000 to 5,000 Satoshi. The assets received for the pre-ICO will be used to advance the project, as well as to debug the DARFChain prototype. This prototype will be used to control the work of the DARFChain project by the crowdinvestors when DARFChain come to the ICO in October 2017.

Attention! The first version of our ERP-system on the Waves blockchain using Bigchaindb is already built and in the coming days will be laid out for testing – do not miss it! Follow our updates here:

• https://github.com/stanta/darfchain/
• https://www.facebook.com/DARFChain/
• https://twitter.com/DARFChain
• https://t.me/joinchat/AwK-gENtLR8IfVr0jVlUZA
• https://www.reddit.com/user/DARFChain/

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of any The Merkle employees. This is not investment or trading advice, always do your own independent research.

Online retail giant Overstock has partnered with ShapeShift as part of a bid to accept more cryptocurrencies as payment.

Nearly two months ago, ViaBTC introduced a BIP148 futures market. All tokens are traded under the 148 ticker. These tokens are valued against Ethereum, which always caused some confusion. Under normal circumstances, this market should have been removed on August 1st. However, the futures are still trading today and the market generates a lot of … Continue reading ViaBTC Still Trades BIP148 Futures for Some Unknown Reason

The post ViaBTC Still Trades BIP148 Futures for Some Unknown Reason appeared first on NEWSBTC.

As we had somewhat expected, the Bitcoin price keeps marching on toward US$3,500. Reaching that goal would be a significant milestone for the popular cryptocurrency. It seems Bitcoin Cash is also going through a healthy recovery process. Other top 10 currencies note smaller gains or even losses. Exciting times are ahead, especially now that the total cryptocurrency market cap surpassed US$120bn.

Bitcoin Price is Looking Extremely Well Right Now

Just yesterday, we were contemplating whether or not the Bitcoin price could reach US$3,500. After all, we saw a major price boost just yesterday, which is often difficult to maintain for more than an hour or so. This time is very different as far as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are concerned, that much is evident. In fact, the Bitcoin price hasn’t touched US$3,500 just yet, but it also shows no sign of retracing whatsoever. In fact, it keeps rising ever so slightly now and then, slowly inching closer toward that illuster US$3,500 target.

With a market cap of nearly US$57bn, there is no discussion as to which cryptocurrency is the biggest one right now. The number two on the list, which is still Ethereum, is more than US$30bn behind Bitcoin right now. At one point, it looked a Sif both currencies would reach parity, but that is not going to happen anytime soon. The Ethereum price notes a 4.64% gain over the past 24 hours, though, which is nice to see. Competing cryptocurrencies can yield some interesting results, that much is certain.

While many people focus on the Bitcoin price for obvious reasons, that other Bitcoin currency is doing quite well in its own regard. More specifically, Bitcoin Cash has reclaimed around US#2bn of its lost market cap over the past 24 hours. One BCH is now valued at US$357.5, representing a 36% price increase over the past few hours. A more than respectable gain, to say the least, but maintaining the upward momentum has proven to be very difficult for Bitcoin Cash so far.

That being said, the Bitcoin price is on everyone’s mind right now, and it will continue to be for quite some time to come. Assuming Bitcoin can break the US$3,500 level, there is nothing preventing it from reaching around US$4,000 or more before the year is over. That may still be a pretty conservative Bitcoin price estimate, all things considered, although only time will tell how things will evolve in the coming months and years. There is no reason to think the Bitcoin price won’t break US$3,500, though, but it may take a lot longer than some people are willing to admit.

As has become somewhat of the norm, Bithumb is controlling the market based on trading volume right now. Their BTC/KRW pair represents over US$150m in 24-hour volume, which is well ahead of Bitfinex’s BTC/USD pair, which sits just below US$100m. Bittrex is still in the top five with two trading markets, as their BCC/BTC and NEO/BTC markets are doing quite well so far. bitFlyer closes out the top five. It is evident Asian exchanges are once again pushing the Bitcoin price ahead, although none of them have effectively registered a value of over US$3,500. HitBTC is the only exception, but the overall community seems to disregard this exchange’s price for some reason.

If this momentum keeps up, good things will continue to happen to the Bitcoin price. Surging past US$3, 500 is the number one priority for the time being, but it seems to be a matter of time until it happens. Other cryptocurrencies are reaping the benefits from this price surge as well. NEO is the only top currency to note any value declines right now, but given its recent price surge, that is not surprising at all. Considering how the overall cryptocurrency market cap keeps growing, there is absolutely no reason for concern whatsoever.

IOTA has forged a partnership with REFUNITE, the world’s largest missing persons database to use the former’s Blockchain to reunite families during and after conflicts.