Day: February 13, 2018

Coincheck has met the FSA deadline, handing in a report on the $534 mln NEM hack last month. #ANALYSIS

The blockchain-based game that caused the Ethereum network to grind to halt in December last year could be about to draw in a lot more users. This is because CryptoKitties is getting launched as a Chinese-language iOS application. The mobile edition is expected to be available on February 16 in Greater China and Singapore. The game’s production studio, Axiom Zen, are unsure how successful the new version will be, more so because they were in no way expecting the game to reach the popularity it did the first time around. Benny Giang, the game’s co-founder, spoke to Fortune about his project’s viral success last year:

“We did some models and we some made spreadsheets and had everyone take a guess at how many users we’d see. We ended up hitting every one of those numbers within the first three days.”

Since the game was so successful, the influx of transactions on the Ethereum blockchain actually clogged the network. At the height of CryptoKitty mania, digital felines accounted for close to 30% of all transactions on Ethereum. This caused delays and many transactions to remain unprocessed. This culminated in a backlog of around 30,000 pending transactions.

This time around, the damage to the Ethereum network could be even more severe. In China, mobile gaming is big business. It’s not uncommon for top mobile games to receive millions of players every day. Giang admits that Ethereum probably isn’t ready to handle that. Based on last December’s evidence, he’s almost certainly correct. Other factors that point to a further Ethereum meltdown are the estimated number of mobile gamers in China – 520 million – and the fact that the mobile version will be optimised for Chinese gamers to “pick up and play”. Previously, users would have to play in English and were required to use a VPN to get around China’s “Great Firewall”. The new iOS game will get around this by using a built-in extension.

Despite Giang being sceptical about the game’s potential to grind Ethereum to a halt in the coming weeks, the studio has taken some precautions. For one, they have decided to launch on Apple products only for now. Android devices are much more popular in the region targeted for the first mobile version of CryptoKitties so the decision was made to limit the potential market in this way.

As well as targeting new players, there has been an effort made to excite the estimated 250,000 existing players of the game. The new version, being launched at Chinese New Year, will feature a new cast of New Year-themed cats. In addition, every new feline has been given a Chinese-back story and three incredibly rare, holiday-themed “Fancy Cats” will also be included.

One of the game’s co-founders, Mack Flavelle, spoke to Fortune of the decision to launch the new mobile game in the Far East:

“We’re targeting China, Singapore and other Asian countries because to be honest, we think they’ll love the kitties. The area has a sophisticated and passionate crypto community … plus a long time appreciation for cute things.”

It’s unclear for now whether CryptoKitties will garner the same appeal the second time around and once again force the Ethereum blockchain to grind to a halt, overwhelmed by unique digital cats, or if the game will be a complete flop. Judging by the irrationality of the cryptocurrency market, we’re guessing it’ll be the former. Flavelle summed up the situation for CryptoKitties and cryptocurrency itself (albeit inadvertently):

“The future is deeply exciting and completely impossible to predict.”

The post Cryptokitties is Coming to Mobile: Will Ethereum Handle the Extra Traffic? appeared first on NewsBTC.

Various websites have integrated cryptocurrency mining code on their platforms in the past few months. Some companies are rather open about it, whereas others have done so in a rather sneaky manner. Moreover, it seems some sites contain such code because other people hacked their backends and made unauthorized changes in the process. Various Australian government websites have suffered such hacks, by the look of things.

Hackers Target Government Websites

It is evident there is a bright future ahead for in-browser cryptocurrency mining scripts. Even though this industry has gotten a bit of a bad reputation over the past few months, the core concept seems to make a lot of sense. More specifically, it could replace traditional advertising models, as users simply lend some of their excess computing resources to mine cryptocurrencies on behalf of site owners. Assuming, that is, that site owners are open to integrating such mining scripts.

It seems hackers are now targeting less-secure but highly-trafficked websites to integrate cryptocurrency mining scripts. Going after online platforms operated by the Australian government may sound risky at first, but it does appear that a group of hackers successfully did so not long ago. This is a rather worrisome development, as it shows that Australia’s government websites are not exactly the most secure.

With over 4,000 websites around the globe falling victim to “crypto-jacking“, as this technique is called, it is evident there is a lot of cryptocurrency being mined without people realizing it. Most computer users won’t even notice it’s happening, even though it will tax their computers’ CPUs quite a bit as long as they remain on the website running the script. 

In this case, it seems a lot of government websites accidentally embedded a cryptocurrency mining script due to a “hacked” backend plugin called Texthelp. As most of these platforms use commercial solutions which are globally available, it is only normal that hackers will try to disrupt this industry from within. By modifying existing plugins at the core level, they can embed cryptocurrency mining scripts without too many problems. All it takes is enough users updating their current plugin.

With so many websites suffering from potentially rogue plugins or compromised JavaScript code, it’s clear that hackers are more determined than ever to venture into the world of cryptocurrencies. Even websites such as the UK Information Commissioner’s Office have been affected by cryptocurrency mining scripts in recent weeks. It is evident this particular technique works quite well for those looking to integrate the relevant code into thousands of websites. Moreover, it is such a small change that most site owners won’t even notice it unless enough people report the issue.

Rest assured this is not the last time major websites will suffer from cryptocurrency mining script-related attacks. Criminals are looking for new ways to make money, and cryptocurrency remains an alluring opportunity. Until researchers can determine how hackers modified the aforementioned plugin or website backends themselves, it is expected that more of these attacks will happen in the future. This is a highly worrisome trend, but one that will not be all that easy to counter.

Seeing ads vs. mining crypto? News site salon now gives visitors the option of disabling ad blockers or letting Salon use their excess computing power for “solving calculations”, aka mining crypto, to support the company #NEWS

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

The price of Davorcoin has fallen from over $170 to below $0.10 in the past month.

There is no shortage of cryptocurrency projects in the marketplace right now, even though most altcoins have no clear use cases or purposes. DigitalNote is an exception in this regard, as it focuses on providing untraceable encrypted messages, ASIC-resistant mining, and blockchain deposits with interest. Although some of these concepts can be found in other cryptocurrencies as well, it is evident DigitalNote may become rather valuable in the future.

What is DigitalNote Exactly?

DigitalNote, known as XDN across cryptocurrency trading platforms, wants to be an open currency that everyone benefits from. With its strong focus on privacy, encryption, and interest-bearing blockchain deposits, there is a lot more to this altcoin than most people realize. It is also worth noting that DigitalNote was formerly known as DarkNote and DuckNote, although rebranding is nothing new in the world of cryptocurrency. Instant worldwide privacy-protected transactions are certainly of great appeal to a lot of people.

How Does it Work?

While any cryptocurrency developer can say their coin offers privacy and a degree of anonymity, doing so is something else entirely. In the case of DigitalNote, it makes use of the CryptoNote algorithm. This protocol focuses on anonymous technology, so the foundation for DigitalNote is rather solid. The developers also introduced some unique untraceable encrypted messaging solutions to ensure users get the best of both worlds. Privacy and anonymity are not the same by any means, even though they are closely entwined in this day and age of mass surveillance.

Furthermore, DigitalNote is one of the few remaining cryptocurrencies which prides itself on being ASIC-resistant. As we have seen with Bitcoin and most altcoins, ASIC hardware makes the mining process more efficient but also leads to even more centralization. It is a trade-off which the DigitalNote developers simply didn’t want to make, for obvious reasons. As such, they’ve kept the proof-of-work aspect of XDN fair for everyone, or at least as fair as humanly possible in the mining world.

Moreover, DigitalNote is all about instant worldwide privacy-protected transactions and untraceable encrypted messaging transfers. With low to no fees involved, this decentralized peer-to-peer network certainly packs a punch. There is also the blockchain deposits feature, which allows XDN users to earn 0.5-1% annual interest by locking their coins in a deposit account. Last but not least, DigitalNote claims to be blockchain analysis resistant, which is another major selling point for currencies focusing on privacy and anonymity.

Where can one Spend XDN?

At the time of writing, it was a bit unclear if any merchants accepted DigitalNote as a form of payment. Although this is not uncommon in the world of altcoins, it does highlight the fierce competition in the privacy and anonymity arena. It is very difficult for currencies to make a meaningful impact as of right now. For now, it seems the primary purpose of XDN is to be traded on exchanges and appreciate in value due to speculation first and foremost. This situation will hopefully change in the future, though. XDN is part of the CoinPayments platform, yet it is unclear how many merchants have enabled this feature.

The DigitalNote Roadmap

It is evident there is still a lot of work to be done behind the scenes. For now, the focus is on cooperation with the Freewallet team, ensuring the mobile wallets are production-ready, and database blockchain storage for memory efficiency and scalability. Although all of these features have been in development for some time now, it seems there is still some work to be done. Later this year, we should also see a new Proof-of-Activity layer of security added to XDN.

Cryptocurrency traders will sue hacked exchange Coincheck after the exchange froze withdrawals of crypto to wallets #NEWS

Microsoft considers Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin as three major platforms for developing decentralized IDs for its Authenticator app #NEWS

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, has said it’s not his institution’s job to regulate cryptocurrencies.