IOTA's Trinity Wallet / Email extortion scam / India to use the blockchain for voting

Inside Bitcoin.

Presented by Subscribe | View in browser Market Watch: Coin prices across the board are down during Monday trading. The biggest loser is Bytecoin, which has dropped in value by over 20 percent in 24 hours. Bitcoin: $9,628 (⬇️ 2.94%) // $175.4 billion market cap. Ethereum: $247 (⬇️ 7.00%) // $27.1 billion market cap. XRP: $0.273 (⬇️ 10.14%) // $11.9 billion market cap. Bitcoin Cash: $380 (⬇️ 12.65%) // $6.9 billion market cap. Top 100 Winner: Hedera Hashgraph: $0.047 (⬆️ 4.07%) // $153 million market cap.  Top 100 Loser: Bytecoin: $0.0004 (⬇️ 23.94%) // $75 million market cap. Prices are as of 12:30 p.m. ET. 1. The IOTA Foundation has released a safe desktop version of its Trinity wallet following a reported hack to its official IOTA wallet app last week. In a February 17 update, users should update their Trinity apps so that they can check their balances and transactions through 1.4.2. As per the announcement, this is designed to remove the vulnerability that was found last week. According to IOTA, its network Coordinator remains down until further notice as it investigates reported issues with stolen funds. It adds that users will be unable to send value transactions as it finalizes its "remediation" plan for the network. According to a tweet last week, "about $1.6 Million USD worth of IOTA [was] stolen from ~10 high-value accounts. Bug is likely in the (official) desktop wallet." -IOTA 2. A new email-based extortion scam targeting website owners serving banner ads through Google's AdSense program has started circulating the internet and is demanding payment in Bitcoin to prevent an attack, which would reportedly lead to a user's AdSense account being suspended. A report states that some site owners had received a message as their website had been detected by the malicious program as one seeking to benefit from automated clicks. The message goes on to point out while the site's ad revenue will increase briefly, "AdSense traffic assessment algorithms will detect very fast such a web traffic pattern as fraudulent." In order to prevent such an attack from taking place, the criminals behind the scam then demand $5,000 worth of Bitcoin. -KREBS ON SECURITY A MESSAGE FROM SALESFORCE Tune in to the IT Visionaries podcast for actionable insights from innovative leaders  Get career advice, stories and trends on everything from AI to blockchain to edge strategy. 3. India's citizens registered in any part of the country will reportedly be able to use the blockchain to cast votes to prevent "lost votes" in future elections. India's Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora hopes that this will increase voter turnout following 2019 elections which saw 300 million registered voters failing to cast their vote. According to the report, this was either due to not being politically motivated or because they were not near their registered voting district on the day of the election. The report goes on to note that around 450 million migrants that move for work, education or marriage often don't bother re-registering in a new district. A move to a blockchain-based voting system, however, has raised concerns, such as cybersecurity vulnerabilities and hacks. -COINTELEGRAPH Do you think it's a good idea for countries and other locations to move to blockchain-based voting? Hit reply and let us know. We may feature your replies in an upcoming issue (with permission, of course). - Rebecca 4. Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, the CEO of crypto exchange Binance, has said in an interview that the platform has applied for a license to operate in Singapore. Following updated legislation that passed in January, Zhao said that they submitted an application "pretty fast" to the island's state authorities. The Payments Services Act brings digital payment token (DPT) services, which covers crypto companies and exchanges in Singapore, under anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) laws. As per the act, crypto organizations are required to register first and then apply for a license to operate in the country. -BLOOMBERG A MESSAGE FROM RAGING BULL Don’t Just Beat the Market… Crush It School teacher turned expert trader, Jason Bond, is offering a free look inside his 2 Simple Trading Patterns that he teaches all his students. Start trading like a pro here. Learn More Now! 5. In related news, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao has said that he rarely calls anyone out; however, there are exceptions. Zhao made his remarks today in response to a report about crypto exchange FCoin pausing trading and withdrawals after revealing a shortage of crypto assets worth up to $130 million. In response, Zhao said: "On Chinese social media, I called FCoin a pyramid scheme in mid-2018. Their founder [called] his own plan a "better invention than #Bitcoin." That did it for me. Who would say such a thing? About themselves? except scammers." -@CZ_BINANCE/TWITTER 6. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has revealed that it will distribute over one million soccer match tickets across 51 matches through a blockchain-enabled mobile application to help improve fans' experience. The hope of the blockchain ticket system is to secure distribution and help to prevent replication of tickets with the aid of QR codes. The app will be available to download at the end of May for Android and iOS phones and tickets will be delivered to the app no later than seven days before a match. On Twitter, the news scored big among fans, who wrote "Awesome" and "We are close friends, we are close." -UEFA 7. Crypto-friendly former presidential candidate Andrew Yang has indicated that he may run in local elections in New York's mayoral race. In an interview, Yang who recently pulled out of the 2020 Presidential race, said: "I would certainly not rule out running for office again," indicating that running for mayor was a possibility. Yang has previously explained his proposal for the cryptocurrency industry and talked about rolling out blockchain-based mobile voting. -NY MAG 8. Construction workers in Tomares, Spain, have come across old pots with 1,300 pounds of ancient Roman coins inside. Taking to Twitter, Emin Gün Sirer, CEO of Ava Labs, a decentralized marketplace to create launch, and trade digital assets, said: "Can't wait to see archaeologists doing this with cryptocurrencies stored on ancient disks." -@EL33TH4XOR/TWITTER 9. Speaking at ETHDenver over the weekend, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin gave his views on the development of Ethereum 2.0 and decentralized finance (DeFi), among other things. Expressing his optimism for the launch date of Ethereum 2.0, Buterin said that it has been "preceding quite quickly and regularly in the last few months." On the topic of decentralized finance, the co-founder is of the opinion that the simplest products will get the most users, such as stablecoins, synthetic assets, and decentralized exchanges. -THE BLOCK 10. Copper.co, a London-based crypto custodian, has raised $8 million in a Series A funding round. In an announcement from the company, it noted that investment had come from the likes of Target Global, MMC Ventures, and LocalGlobe. According to the company, this injection of money will go toward developing "regional client-facing operations" in North America and Asia. The firm said that it uses a Walled Garden setup for its crypto solution, adding that this now covers 96 percent of global crypto liquidity and is seeing more than £500 million ($650 million) in transactions each month. -COPPER This newsletter was written and curated by Rebecca Campbell. She has been writing and reporting on various industries for the past 10 years, more specifically tech in the last three. Connect with her on Twitter. Edited by Beth Duckett, staff writer at Inside. Ad Empower everyone to build apps fast with low code on the Lightning Platform.

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