Day: August 24, 2018

A large cryptocurrency mining farm operated by Kryptovault north of Oslo, Norway, faces the possibility of shutting down after receiving a bomb threat due to the noise disturbance generated from its operations.

A neighboring resident, Trond Gulestø, says, “The sound of the factory comes 24 hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year. Our summer has been ruined.” Another person went as far as threatening to blow up Kryptovault, saying, “If you are expanding crypto mining and filling the country with noise, then you will be sabotaging the peace. I am threatening to send you some explosives.”

Kryptovault, who owns three farms, has taken this threat seriously and is concerned that potential intruders could threaten the mining farm in the city of Dale particularly. The facility in question is an old paper mill that has 9,500 mining rigs drawing 40 MW of power. They mine several million NOK per week of crypto, equivalent to several hundred thousand US dollars. The facility actually isn’t causing any environmental harm since it uses wind power and hydroelectric but generates a lot of noise, mostly due to the huge cooling fans required in summer.

As anyone who has had a mini crypto mining farm in their house knows, even a few small mining rigs can generate so much noise, especially from the fans. Based on this, large crypto mining farms should be careful to not choose a location near people’s houses.

Now the local municipal government is stepping in and saying Kryptovault needs to shut down since they lack proper permits. Kryptovault asserts that they had the proper permits since they launched the operation, so a legal battle may ensue. If Kryptovault is forced to shut down, by the time they turn back on their machines, they may no longer be profitable even if it’s a relatively short amount of time. That’s because Bitcoin mining difficulty has been rising exponentially even in this bear market.

Apparently, the mining farm emits sound at 60 decibels which is equivalent to a dishwasher or blender even at a distance. They are installing noise reduction equipment which will reduce the noise to 45 decibels, about the same as rain. Also, Kryptovault is applying for the missing permits.

 

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Singapore’s stock exchange is working with the city-state’s central bank to adopt blockchain for faster and cheaper securities transactions.

He’s one of Bitcoin’s most famous evangelists, but Andreas Antonopoulos is now a firm ‘no’ on Bitcoin ETFs. Here’s why…

Six regulatory agencies in China have issued a warning against illegal fund raising and trading activities related to blockchain and cryptocurrency.

It has always been very difficult to predict the future cryptocurrency market momentum. Especially with the declining overall trading volume, it is impossible to make sense of these recent changes. Right now, it appears most currencies enjoy a positive spell, but looks can be deceiving. Even so, the TRON price is firing on all cylinders, for the time being.

TRON Price Gets in the Green Again

It is always interesting to see how individual cryptocurrencies grow and evolve over time. Even though the year 2018 has been very challenging for a lot of projects in this regard, there are positive spells to take note of as well. For the TRON price, the current market momentum is rather positive. How long this current spell will last, is a very different matter altogether.

Over the past 24 hours, the TRON price has seen a healthy 5.58% increase. It is one of the biggest gains in the entire top 15, which also makes TRON more prone to big setbacks once the hype wears off. This latest increase elevates the TRON price back to the $0.021 level, although remaining above $0.02 will prove difficult based on the current low trading volume.

There is also an increase in the TRX/BTC ratio to take note of. Thanks to a 4.1% increase in favor of the altcoin, TRON now sits at 324 Satoshi once again. It is a far cry from its all-time high noted several months ago, but given the worsening market conditions, no one will be really surprised that is the way the cookie crumbles as of right now.

As mentioned before, the overall cryptocurrency trading volume is not looking too appealing. That situation may not change anytime soon either. For TRON, its trading volume of just over $90.7m seems to be sufficient to keep the current price momentum going. However, it is equally possible the TRON price will see a small retrace later on. The weekend is almost upon us, which is always an unpredictable time for cryptocurrencies.

The way things currently look for TRON, Binance is the go-to exchange for TRX trading. Its USDT and BTC pairs are in firm control, followed by Bit-Z’s BTC pair. Huobi offers another USDT market, followed by OKEx’s ETH pair. The first fiat currency market is Upbit’s KRW pair in sixth place, whereas Bithumb’s KRW market is down in tenth place. The lack of fiat currency support may cause this TRON price trend to peter out fairly quickly.

As is always the case in the world of Bitcoin and altcoins, markets tend to evolve in rather unusual directions. If Bitcoin remains in the green for a few days, most altcoins will see similar momentum. Unfortunately for TRON price speculators, it seems highly unlikely this week will end on a positive note. Then again, stranger things have happened in the world of cryptocurrencies, and anything is possible during the weekend.

Coinsquare, a little-known Canadian crypto exchange, is entering the European market to help businesses in the flowering industry with fiat pairs, including Ripple-to-fiat.

Europe Meets Coinsquare

To be frank, the cryptocurrency market hasn’t had the best start to 2018, with the collective value of all crypto assets declining by a staggering 75%. However, this downtrend has not perturbed Coinsquare, one of Canada’s most popular exchanges, as the startup still intends to move forward with its plan to expand into new regions.

On Thursday, Coinsquare issued a press release, which revealed that it would be going forward with its move to enter Europe by Q4 0f 2018.  As per the release, the Canadian startup intends to offer all of Europe with the whole kit and caboodle, including support for the trading of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP, Dogecoin, and Dash, along with “the safety and security that the trading platform has become known for in Canada.” Thomas Jankowski, the chief digital and growth officer of the exchange, commented on this expansion plan, noting:

“Cryptocurrency investors globally want a platform they can trust. Coinsquare is a regulated, fully-compliant trading platform and we’re thrilled to offer the European market the same secure and intuitive interface that we offer to Canadians.”

Many saw this move as a long time coming, as the Toronto-based exchange, which was founded in 2014, alluded to the fact that the U.S. and European markets were on its radar in the past. Expressing his excitement for this foray and the vision for his brainchild, Coinsquare CEO Cole Diamond, stated:

“Entering on a massive market like the EU is an exciting step closer to Coinsquare’s vision of becoming a global 21st century financial institution,” said Cole Diamond, CEO of Coinsquare. “Already the premier cryptocurrency exchange in Canada, we are careful in how we expand internationally to ensure we can offer the same high quality, secure service in every country we operate.”

Coinsquare’s Unbridled Drive For Adoption, Growth, And Innovation.

The firm’s move into the European market comes only one month after the firm’s foray into Japan, which was seen as an ambitious move by many.  As per a NewsBTC report, this move into the heavily-contested Japanese market will see Coinsquare join hands with DLTa21, a so-called “global blockchain investment bank.” In this specific expansion, DLTa21 will work with local regulators, while the Canadian exchange will provide the infrastructure for the collaborative effort.

While the aforementioned moves are ambitious in and of themselves, some fear that the firm’s support for XRP-to-fiat will put Coinsquare into hot water with regulators. As you are likely aware, the regulatory status of XRP, the native asset of the Ripple ecosystem, is still up for debate, with some noting that it is a security, while others see it as just another crypto asset. Although no conclusions have been pinned down as of yet, there are some that believe XRP should be subject to regulatory scrutiny as the inherent nature of the asset may scream that XRP is a security.

Regulatory worries aside, the firm has still been doing its utmost best to not just survive, but thrive in an otherwise bearish market. The Canadian company recently announced the launch of Coincapital, a fintech-centric fund and investment management service that aims to be complementary to the firm’s exchange offering. Additionally, the startup reportedly still has its eyes set on going public on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), planning to raise upwards of $120 million for further expansion plans in the process. But only time will tell whether Coinsquare’s aggressive plans will yield positive returns.

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Alleged North Korean hackers known as the Lazarus Group have hacked a crypto exchange, in what is now being called Operation Applejeus by Kaspersky Lab, who has done an in-depth study on this hacking. Lazarus Group has a long history of attacks on South Korea, banks and crypto exchange since 2007.

Operation Applejeus marks the first time that Lazarus Group has created malware for Mac OS, since they wanted to be sure that there was no operating system barrier for people downloading the malware. For jeus, the codename the hacker gave to this program, they updated a powerful piece of malware known as Fallchill that has been attributed to Lazarus Group in the past.

The group went to great lengths to make crypto trading software and an associated crypto website that looked completely legitimate. They went as far as having proper digital signatures and company info, although upon further research, it was revealed that the company’s address was in the middle of the woods. There were many levels of encryption and spoofing to disguise the malware, which was fully functional as a crypto trading app.

An employee of an undisclosed crypto exchange downloaded the software believing it to be legitimate, leading to the hack. Applejeus sends info from an infected computer to Lazarus Group, believed to be aiming at private keys which would give Lazarus Group the ability to transfer crypto out of hacked wallets.

For Lazarus Group, the only difference from past incidents is they are getting progressively more advanced. In 2009, Lazarus Group began a 3-year distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the South Korean government and the United States. During the “Ten Days of Rain”, the Lazarus Group used highly sophisticated attacks to ruin critical infrastructure in Seoul. The Lazarus Group has stolen USD 12 million from Banco del Austro in Ecuador, USD 1 million from Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam and USD 60 million from the Far Eastern International Bank of Taiwan.

More recently, since the crypto rally in 2017, the Lazarus Group has been focusing their efforts on stealing cryptocurrency. They hacked USD 7 million from Bithumb and stole so much from Youbit that it had to declare bankruptcy. Both of these are South Korean exchanges.

Lazarus Group is incredibly sophisticated and anonymous and have escaped detection. Crypto users worldwide have to be careful not to download 3rd party applications that aren’t from extremely trusted sources, no matter how legitimate the applications look.

 

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Tension is building ahead of an ethereum developer meeting, where a diverse set of stakeholders will be weighing in on contentious changes.

Key Points

• Bitcoin price is forming a support base above the $6,350 and is currently moving higher against the US Dollar.
• There is a short-term contracting triangle forming with resistance near $6,610 level on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair must stay above the $6,420 and $6,350 support levels to move higher.

Bitcoin price is gaining pace above the $6,400 level against the US Dollar. BTC/USD is likely to rise in the near term above the $6,620 level.

Bitcoin Price Analysis

Yesterday, we discussed a decent support formation near the $6,220 level in bitcoin price against the US Dollar. There was a double bottom pattern formed near the $6,220 level from where the BTC/USD pair climbed higher. The price moved above the $6,550 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Moreover, there was a close above the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $6,925 swing high to $6,210 swing low.

There was a slow and steady rise above the $6,350 and $6,420 level. However, the recent rise faced sellers near the $6,570 level. Furthermore, the 50% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $6,925 swing high to $6,210 swing low. Additionally, there is a short-term contracting triangle forming with resistance near $6,610 level on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair. A break above the triangle resistance near $6,610 level is needed for more gains in the near term. Above this, the price may perhaps rise above the $6,700 level.

Looking at the chart, if bitcoin corrects lower, the $6,420 level is a decent support. Below this, the next major support is near the $6,350 level. Only a close below the $6,220 level is likely to increase more bearish pressures in the near term.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for BTC/USD is moving slowly in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI is well above the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $6,350

Major Resistance Level – $6,610

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