Day: August 25, 2017

OneCoin is slowly catching the attention of more law enforcement agencies worldwide. After initial investigations in India, Italy, and the United Kingdom, it now appears the notorious Ponzi scheme is under investigation by the Finnish authorities as well. It is good to see a global crackdown against OneCoin, since this pyramid scheme has taken money from thousands of investors. Moreover, the team seemingly is not too concerned with providing any transparency regarding the project or the technology being used.

Another Police Investigation Involving OneCoin

Most cryptocurrency users are all too familiar with the name OneCoin. This project claims to be a much better version of digital currency than Bitcoin will ever be, without backing those claims up whatsoever. There is also no evidence of any technology allegedly used by OneCoin, as the company has no blockchain or mining setup. Instead, the team manages a tightly-controlled mutable database of numbers which can be edited as they see fit. Anyone who has invested in OneCoin ultimately risks losing all their money when trying to cash out.

There is a cult-like mentality when it comes to the people who invest in and represent OneCoin. Not too long ago, we highlighted a few of the better-known individuals officially representing OneCoin. Unfortunately, it turns out virtually every major city around the world has at least one person who is involved in this pyramid scheme. There are also regular meetups to recruit potential investors, who are urged to invest in the scheme as a way to get rich quick.

Any promise of quick financial gain without too much involvement is often too good to be true, and investing in OneCoin is no exception. The company does not require users to refer others, yet it certainly encourages doing so. Every person one brings into the fold will net him or her a lucrative affiliate bonus, making it worthwhile to go out of one’s way to speak to others about the program. Officially representing OneCoin often attracts the attention of law enforcement officials, though.

Several news sources in Finland report that is exactly what is happening in their country. It seems the local police have taken a keen interest in OneCoin and anyone who openly affiliates with this Ponzi scheme. Several criminal reports have been filed against the company, originating from both private individuals and tax authorities. This news comes on the heels of OneCoin facing a multi-million euro fine as well. Authorities around the world are smartening up when it comes to these nefarious schemes. OneCoin is a plague that needs to be eradicated completely before more people lose their money.

Finland has been keeping a close eye on OneCoin since early 2015. It is believed around 20,000 Finnish residents are involved, having invested as much as “tens of millions of euros.” If that is the case, things do not bode too well for OneCoin right now, as all of these people may try to get their money back sooner rather than later. It is doubtful the organization would be able to pay them all, even if it wanted to. With the tax authorities looking into the matter, there could be more fiscal penalties on the horizon for the company and any payment processor facilitating its payments.

With so many court cases being built against OneCoin, it appears this notorious Ponzi scheme may meet its demise sooner rather than later. It is unfortunate so many people have lost their hard-earned money by investing in this scheme, but they should have done their homework first and foremost. Never believe any financial promise someone talks you into, as there is always a catch. In the case of OneCoin, that could be having nothing to show for your investment.

BTC-e says it will publish more frequent updates about its recovery plans after August 31, according to a newly released statement.

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Users of the MacOS operating system should steer clear of a new CS:GO “cheat” known as vHook. Anyone who plays Counter-Strike: Global Offense is always looking to gain a competitive edge in one way or another. Resorting to cheats is frowned upon, but it is also the only option in the minds of some players. The new vHook cheating app for MacOS should not be trusted, as it installs nefarious cryptocurrency mining software on devices.

CS:GO Cheating on MacOS Has Multiple Consequences

We never condone cheating of any kind when it comes to online gaming, especially if that game is part of the growing eSports industry. CS:GO is one of the most well-known games in the world, and it is both competitive and fun to play. However, the game is haunted by cheaters who try to take advantage of technologies such as vHook applications. Addressing these cheats has been quite a challenge, yet it has also attracted the attention of cybercriminals looking to get their hands on some more cryptocurrency.

Criminals are now packaging a new CS:GO vHook cheating app containing cryptocurrency mining malware. Interestingly, this new toolkit is designed specifically for MacOS users. The vast majority of CS:GO gamers use the Windows operating system, thus targeting MacOS users seems like a weird decision. Only time will tell if any MacOS gamers are affected by the new malware distribution campaign.

Unfortunately, there is a precedent for packaging a CS:GO cheating tool with malware. A similar incident occurred back in December of 2016. That particular malware had nothing to do with cryptocurrency mining, though. Instead, the toolkit successfully rewrote a player’s master boot record altogether, which prevented their machine from rebooting. It was a way to successfully eliminate some of the other competitive CS:GO players, although the method of attack raised a lot of questions at the time.

It appears this new CS:GO vHook cheating app for MacOS is distributed through the Vlonc.cc website. Knowing which website distributes this malware-laden package should make it easier for researchers to ensure it is taken offline. Whether or not that will actually happen remains to be seen. The website has been around for quite some time and is still accessible at the time of writing. The tool also has a few dedicated YouTube advertisement videos to help spread awareness. It is based on the original vHook cheating app, which has been around for almost as long as the game exists.

What is rather remarkable is the cryptocurrency mining malware itself. This is another instance of cybercriminals actively distributing malware capable of mining the Monero cryptocurrency. Since Monero is far more anonymous than Bitcoin – and rather profitable as well – it makes a lot more sense to hijack other people’s computing resources to mine XMR instead of BTC. The malware goes by the name OSX.Pwnet.A and has been specially modified to wreak havoc in the MacOS ecosystem.

As we have seen with other types of cryptocurrency mining malware, the criminals use the MinerGate pool to mine XMR with other people’s computers. This has become somewhat of a trend and two user accounts have been identified as participants in this malware’s distribution. The malware itself is a rewritten Minergate-cli package written for the QT framework. There is also evidence of this malware having been developed by a criminal distributing yet another type of cryptocurrency miner.

Former US Chairman of the Federal Reserve has been invited to be the keynote speaker at a Blockchain conference.

So there we go then, another week complete in our bitcoin price trading efforts. In this morning’s analysis, we highlighted the fact that we would be on the lookout for a breakout and a subsequent run (ideally to the upside) as indicative of some strength being on the cards for the weekend. We also noted … Continue reading Bitcoin Price Watch; Weekend Strength?

The post Bitcoin Price Watch; Weekend Strength? appeared first on NEWSBTC.

ICOs were driving me crazy. In fact, as I think about it, a lot of “altcoins” were driving me crazy, too. Why were they worth much of anything at all, much less billions of dollars?

Ethereum’s ‘Metropolis’ upgrade is still being developed, though the project’s core developers have set a testing schedule for the fall.

With Segregated Witness successfully activating on the Bitcoin network, there are some valid questions being raised. One is whether or not we still have to contend with the so-called covert AsicBoost problem, which would give specific mining hardware a competitive mining advantage over other devices.  It seems the current SegWit implementation will not get rid of shenanigans related to AsicBoost entirely. In fact, it appears Antpool is mining empty blocks despite SegWit activating.

AsicBoost is no Longer an Issue, Sort of

The Bitcoin community was up in arms over the AsicBoost scandal not too long ago. This particular “technology” seemingly has the potential to give Bitcoin mining hardware manufactured by select companies an advantage over other miners. It can result in a much higher hashrate. Although this technology is not native to just one company in particular, Bitmain has gotten a lot of flack over their implementation of AsicBoost technology.

However, the company has always stated – and continues to do so – they are not using AsicBoost by any means. Whether or not that is the full story will always remain subject to substantial discussion. There will always be people who claim Bitmain and Antpool are up to something and trying their best to hide it. It is certainly true Antpool remains the biggest Bitcoin mining pool to date. However, they also manufacture a lot of hardware, which makes this factor less surprising.

Now that Segregated Witness has successfully activated on the Bitcoin network, any activity related to Asicboost should be effectively a non-issue. Considering how Bitmain allegedly never used this technology in the first place, it should not matter to them all that much whether or not it is still a useful technology. All of these AsicBoost issues should be put to rest once and for all. This does not mean there will not be any future discussions related to this technology in the future, though.

One recent discussion on Reddit touches upon Asicboost again. One user questions whether or not covert AsicBoost is still a problem. On paper, that should not be the case. That does not necessarily mean Antpool will play nice all of a suddenly. The company recently mined a Bitcoin network block which is empty. Although there is no such thing as an entirely empty block, it does not include any transactions other than coinbase. This means the block itself is pretty much “wasted’ as there are always Bitcoin transactions waiting to be confirmed by miners.

Considering how this block was identified more than three minutes after the previous block, there is no reason not to fully validate it like other pools do. This appears to be another statement by Antpool and Bitmain regarding how they will not support Bitcoin in the form most people would like them to. Instead, they still have high hopes for SegWit2x, although they are also actively engaged in mining Bitcoin Cash. Some Bitcoin supporters wouldn’t mind if Antpool stuck to BCH and never came back to mining the Bitcoin chain, but that seems highly unlikely.

In the end, it is important to remember SegWit effectively nullifies Asicboost completely. However, there are two different versions of this method, one of which is not easily detectable whatsoever. Without SegWit transactions in a block, any AsicBoost trickery will effectively be rejected by the Bitcoin network. However, pools can still successfully mine empty blocks to oppose this scaling solution in its current form, since that has nothing to do with AsicBoost. It is an interesting situation, but it appears ASICBoost technology is no longer a threat.

The executive branch of China’s government has released new rules on fundraising that could lead to closer oversight of initial coin offerings.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has published in late August 2017 nine additional patent applications related to Blockchain technology that was filed by Bank of America.

Many people still see cryptocurrencies as a somewhat shady market and often associate cryptocurrencies to online drug dealing and other illegal activities.

The cryptocurrencies boom forces analysts to talk about bubbles, and late “miners” to buy up video cards.

There is no boring day in the world of Bitcoin Cash lately. Even though this altcoin has not been around that long, it already made a significant impact to the cryptocurrency sphere. Right now, it appears all of the new hashrate landing on the network has already pulled out again. Interestingly enough, someone successfully triggered the mining difficulty adjustment again to make finding blocks a lot easier.The “gaming” of the BCH mining difficulty adjustment continues unabated.

More EDA Tricks to Keep Bitcoin Cash Ahead?

There are a lot of things going on behind the scenes of Bitcoin Cash which leave most people baffled. One of the main issues is the EDA, or Elastic Difficulty Adjustment algorithm used to determine the current network mining difficulty. This algorithm has been all over the place, indicating at least one entity has successfully triggered it on demand. We have documented what the possible reasons for this could be in articles here and here. There is clearly some manipulation going on to inflate the mining income.

It seems the network hashrate is going through a rollercoaster ride of its own. A few days ago, virtually all major mining pools flocked to Bitcoin Cash in an effort to “help the network.” However, keeping the EDA shenanigans in mind, it seems this was more of an attempt to mine some coins pretty quickly and bail out when the network difficulty increased to a high rate. That change did occur three days ago when the mining difficulty for BCH went from 7% to 30% of the original network.

This increased difficulty made it extremely unprofitable to mine BCH, which also explains why the network hashrate dropped from 3.2 Exohash back to below 400 petahash. This chart will keep fluctuating up and down, depending on how often someone successfully triggers the EDA to make mining easier. Right now the trigger is active again, as the mining difficulty sits at 10% of the Bitcoin chain. Blocks are being found on the network just minutes apart, which keeps the chain going for the time being. Additionally, it also makes mining BCH slightly more profitable, although the margin is almost negligible.

However, with the hashrate dropping when things become too difficult and unprofitable to mine, the bigger question who is triggering this EDA bug. It is certainly possible the BCH developers are behind these changes, although that would not necessarily improve things for them in the long term. Now that all mining pools are back just due to a sliver of profitability, the plot only thickens. So far, the only pools mining BCH through thick and thin are ViaBTC and the unknown mining entity.

There is a lot more going on behind the scenes of the Bitcoin Cash than people are willing to admit. Everything related to its mining ecosystem raises more questions than answers and no one is officially responding to these claims either. People are left in the dark while speculation runs wild. This either indicates the development team is pulling strings behind the scenes or they have bitten off more than they can chew. A solution and explanation for this “gamification of the mining difficulty” needs to be provided sooner rather than later. The BCH community deserves to know what is going on behind the scenes.

At the same time, one cannot deny the Bitcoin network hashrate is climbing back up. All pools temporarily switching to BCH have been going back and forth on their decision. It makes sense to choose the most profitable currency at any given time. However, it would be in the best interest of these companies to take a stance and stick with it once and for all. Let the miners swap between chains on their own, or keep mining one solution and nothing else.