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February 27, 2019 FAKE DUDES: BHB, a crypto project based in China, raised $20 million through a rewards-based marketing scheme, promising token holders dividends (in the form of tether stablecoins) and extra perks if they signed up others. But signs have emerged that something is amiss. An investigation by CoinDesk's Wolfie Zhao found that of the three team members touted on the project's website, at least two were totally fake, their photos lifted from real-life professors who publicly deny any involvement with BHB. And that's not the half of it. From the project's similarity to multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes (the latter of which is illegal in China) to a member gala with lucky draws for luxury cars, this story from the Far East is straight-up Wild West. Full story FIDELITY ON BOARD: Blockchain analytics startup Coin Metrics has closed a $1.9 million seed round with Fidelity Investments, Highland Capital Partners and Dragonfly Capital. Announced today, the startup also released its first suite of commercial products for institutions seeking customized research reports. Coin Metrics co-founder and board chairman Nic Carter told CoinDesk that institutional investors aren’t satisfied with the current crop of price aggregation services that don’t distinguish the integrity of different data sets. “One thing we’re looking at is building out whitelists of exchanges so that the market reference rates are actually based on credible exchanges, as opposed to exchanges that engage in wash trading and other types of nonsense,” Carter said. Coin Metrics also analyzes blockchain data with a methodology that aims to help traders cut through the noise, as Carter put it. For example, purchasing bitcoin on an exchange platform might lead to hops across wallets in the platform’s back-end storage. Failing to account for such patterns could artificially inflate transaction data. “Not all of this is meaningful and economic, only a fraction of this is,” Carter said of the importance of correctly mapping patterns of activity on the blockchain. Full story COMPLIANT TOKENS: Token platform Polymath says its tests have shown how security tokens can be traded on a decentralized exchange without violating regulations. Revealing the news exclusively to CoinDesk on Wednesday, Polymath said that the “successful” test trades – which used smart contracts on Loopring’s DEX protocol – demonstrated that only authorized trades of security tokens based on its ST-20 standard were able to execute, while unauthorized trades could not. Detailing how it works, Polymath said that every time a trade is attempted, the token calls its transfer manager module and effectively asks, “Can this trade be executed?” The transfer manager then checks a whitelist (controlled by the token issuer) to see if the buyer and the seller are allowed to trade the token. Only if the answer is yes is the trade executed. Polymath vice president for marketing Graeme Moore told CoinDesk that the two firms carried out the tests to demonstrate that security tokens can be traded in a compliant manner, even on decentralized exchanges. Full story TURBULENCE AHEAD: Ether price volatility could spike in the days ahead, courtesy of an upcoming ethereum upgrade scheduled for Thursday. The Constantinople hard fork, a planned two-part upgrade to the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, is scheduled to occur once block 7,280,000 on the ethereum blockchain is mined. At the time of writing, ether’s block height is 7,272,826, meaning the fork should occur in the next 24 to 48 hours, given that roughly 4,200 blocks have been mined per day for the past two weeks. However, the change could draw the interest of more than just developers and users, as historical data shows ether price volatility tends to spike hours before a software upgrade. For instance, ether price volatility picked up with the Byzantium hard fork release on Oct. 16, 2017, with the resulting uncertainty prompting traders to sell ETH and unwind their long positions leading to a 20 percent price slide. Full story THREE IN ONE: Capital markets blockchain startup Nivaura has raised a total of $20 million with the closing of its second seed extension round led by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Announced today, other investors in the latest round include Santander InnoVentures, Transamerica Ventures, Digital Currency Group and more. Nivaura closed the original seed round in October 2017 and the first extension round in January 2018. The firm did not provide a breakdown of the three rounds but said the latest was “significantly larger than the preceding two.” The proceeds will be used to increase headcount “significantly across all areas” (including hires in machine learning and natural language processing), to expand into the U.S. and Asia, and invest in further R&D, the firm said. The company’s big idea is providing platforms to automate the entire life cycle for the issuance of financial instruments – bonds, equities, derivatives – and leveraging public blockchains for registration and settlement so that humans don’t need to touch anything and a corporate can do a self-service issuance. Nivaura CEO Dr. Avtar Sehra said that this year, Nivaura plans “a series of high-profile, large-scale projects with high-caliber partners to demonstrate our platform as a valuable solution across the full spectrum of capital markets primary issuance activities.” Full story RELIEF: Bitcoin appears on track to snap its six-month losing streak with a close in the green for February. While the cryptocurrency has pulled back from recent highs above $4,100, a convincing move below $3,714 is needed to invalidate the bullish setup. Watch out in March for a strong bounce from the ascending 10-candle moving average on the three-day chart, as that could recharge engines for a move to $4,000. Full story BEST OF THE BEST   BLOOMBERG: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak defends bitcoin in a video chat with Bloomberg Markets and Finance. The presenter asked if he still believes bitcoin would still become “the world’s single currency” in the future, since it has caused “massive value destruction.” Woz replied: “I’m not sure I can buy that we’ve seen massive value destruction, I think we’ve seen massive value creation.” He also said that, while he has owned bitcoin, it was more to experiment with the technology and not as an investment. “I don’t want to be one of those people watching the price of bitcoin, so I sold out,” he said. THE REST IBM NEWSROOM: Cybercriminals are increasingly turning to “cryptojacking” attacks – illicit mining of cryptos using victims’ computers – seeking greater return on investment, according to IBM Security’s annual 2019 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index. IBM X-Force found that the number of cryptojacking attacks was nearly double that of ransomware attacks in 2018. Cybercriminals were also seen altering their stealth techniques against increased security measures and awareness. "One of the hottest commodities is computing power tied to the emergence of cryptocurrencies. This has led to corporate networks and consumer devices being secretly highjacked to mine for these digital currencies," Wendi Whitmore, global lead of IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS) said. CHEDDAR: Image-authentication startup Truepic is using technologies including blockchain to help fight fake news, according to an interview from Cheddar. The firm's technology aims to prove whether an image or video was genuine when created and uses blockchain to "create immutability of that image and video," Mounir Ibrahim, Truepic's VP of strategic initiatives, told the news source. "When any image taken at any time is on any social media feed, our technology will be able to access the veracity of that," he said. WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER Copyright © 2019 CoinDesk. All rights reserved. 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Neutrino's dark past 😱

February 27, 2019

ARCHIVE

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"If 1% of all Gold holders bought bitcoin, you'd see a bitcoin price of over a million dollars per coin."

- Charlie Shrem

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MARKET

COIN	PRICE	24H
BTC	$3,861.82	+ 0.07%
ETH	$139.11	+ 0.87%
XRP	$0.318247	- 1.04%
EOS	$3.49	+ 0.79%
LTC	$45.55	- 0.20%

*Information as of 10:30 AM EST

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REVIEW

Coinbase Responds to Community Backlash About its Recent Neutrino Acquisition

On February 19th, Coinbase and blockchain security analysis startup Neutrino inked an acquisition deal that would bring the startup's team under Coinbase's wing.

Quickly, however, the community shamed Coinbase.

That's because the CEO, CRO, and CTO of Neutrino were previously executives of the spyware firm Hacking Team - a company that was exposed for selling tools to authoritarian governments.

Against the purpose of crypto?

The problem arises when people realized the tools Hacking Team sold were allegedly being used to:

• Monitor journalists
• Capture activists
• Spy on political rivals

In some cases, the technology was used "to commit violations of human rights and freedom of information," according to Reporters Without Borders.

For many, these morals go against the core promise of cryptocurrency and the important idea of decentralized power.

We're aware and don't care

Now, after days of harsh criticism, Coinbase responded to the concerns in a statement sent to The Block:

"[We are] aware that Neutrino's co-founders previously worked at Hacking Team, which we reviewed as part of our security, technical, and hiring diligence. Coinbase does not condone nor will it defend the actions of Hacking Team [but] it was important for Coinbase to bring this function in-house to fully control and protect our customers' data and Neutrino's technology was the best we encountered in the space to achieve this goal."

For now, Neutrino will continue operating independently, under the same brand, in Coinbase's London office.

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TRADING

Bitcoin Could Snap its Six-Month Losing Streak

Fingers crossed. There is 1 day left in the month and if Bitcoin can stay above $3,467, it will snap its six-month losing streak that started with a tumble below the $6,000 mark.

Actually, this losing streak is the longest on record. Each month's loss varied but the overall bear trend remained strong:

August	- 9%
September	- 6%
October	- 4.4%
November	- 37%
December	- 7%
January	- 7.5%

Before this losing streak, the previous record happened in 2011 when the asset lost value 5 months in a row. It then took 7 years to break that record.

Bullish in March?

We're not going to jinx it or give any random price predictions, but let's just say it can't *not* be good to snap a losing streak for a fresh new month.

But don't get your hopes too high, Bitcoin has lost value 6 out of 7 times in the month of March during the last 7 years.

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EXCHANGE

Hacked Cryptopia Exchange Releases Details After Weeks of Silence

In a series of tweets sent Wednesday, New Zealand-based exchange Cryptopia released some details about its most recent hack.

"Currently, we have calculated that worst case 9.4% of our total holdings was stolen," the account revealed.

Previously, that amount was estimated by blockchain analytics firm Elementus to be around $16 million worth of Ether and ERC-20 tokens.

So when's the comeback?

It's not clear when the comeback for Cryptopia will be, however, the exchange reported it is "securing each wallet individually to ensure the exchange is fully secure when we resume trading."

In addition, the exchange warned users to "immediately refrain from depositing funds into old Cryptopia addresses."

The account left followers saying that more updates will come tomorrow. To follow them on Twitter for the live updates, visit here.

---

BITS

But wait, there's more...

• 😃 Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says we've already seen "massive value creation" from Bitcoin.
• 💰 The London Stock Exchange is leading a $20 million fundraise for blockchain startup Nivaura.
• 🔥 LinkedIn's founder becomes latest to carry the lightning torch.

---

MEME

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XRP on Coinbase / Whales / Mercedes-Benz / Exodus 1 Review

Subscribe | View in browser $BTC (2:10 p.m. EST): $3,855.08 (-1.13%) // 90-day high: $6,286.41 // 90-day low: $3,286.14 / / More… $BCH ABC (2:10 p.m. EST): $134.19 (-3.06%) // 90-day high: $432.88// 90-day low: $80.95 // More… $ETH (2:10 p.m. EST): $136.98 (-3.13%) // 90-day high: $201.35 // 90-day low: $86.08 // More… $LTC (2:11 p.m. EST): $45.25 (-3.42%) // 90-day high: $49.19 // 90-day low: $22.09 // More… $XRP (2:11 p.m. EST): $0.31 (-3.26%) // 90-day high: $0.52 // 90-day low: $0.28 // More…       1. Coinbase launched support for XRP on its professional trading platform, Coinbase Pro. The coin is available in "transfer-only" mode to start, meaning customers can only deposit tokens. The exchange did not give a timeline for adding XRP to its main trading platform, along with its Android and iOS applications, but in the past has launched cryptocurrencies for its non-professional users within a few weeks of launching on Coinbase Pro. The price of XRP saw an immediate increase in price, jumping about 10 percent following the announcement. –COINDESK       2. The 100 largest bitcoin wallets have combined to accumulate an additional 150,000 bitcoin over the past two months, a total worth more than $500 million. These wallets now hold more than 2.29 billion coins. In other whale movement, a trader transferred 707,112 of ethereum worth $98 million from an unknown wallet to Binance on Monday. Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao retweeted a tweet from October 20, the same date of another large transaction to Binance, saying the company was moving funds between cold wallets. This raises speculation that Binance officials were simply moving coins, although that was yet to be confirmed. –BITCOINIST       Ad What's new in the entirely reimagined Jira Software? Just about everything. The next generation of Jira has arrived, featuring new roadmaps, more flexible boards, an overhauled configuration experience, and dozens of new integrations. And that's just the beginning. See what you're missing in the entirely reimagined Jira Software. Simpler and more powerful than ever before.      3. Mercedes-Benz has developed a blockchain platform that it hopes will increase transparency and sustainability in its supply chains. The carmaker, a division of Daimler AG, has partnered with software company Icertis to develop the platform. The platform allows for a sustainable mapping of sorted documents across the supply chain to ensure that each component of a car meets the company's standards. Car companies have been exploring blockchain more and more of late. Last September, Porsche AG announced plans to increase blockchain investment. –COIN TELEGRAPH       4. Wired gives a generally favorable review of the blockchain-enabled Exodus 1 smartphone from HTC but adds the phone is not quite the Web 3.0 revolution that some had hoped. The phone comes with a hardware wallet for storing cryptocurrency and allows owners to control their private keys. However, despite the phone's hype, it is still a work in progress. "The Exodus 1 is a perfectly good smartphone," the site writes. "But if you buy one, buy it for that, and enjoy your glimpse at what the decentralized internet might look like, someday, when broader adoption and more useful Dapps converge." –WIRED       Ad Engineers Build Business with GitPrime Ship faster because you know more, not because you're rushing. GitPrime aggregates historical git data into easy to understand insights and reports, to help make engineering teams more successful. Debug your development process with objective data. Get started today. 5. Bitcoin has surpassed PayPal in annual transaction volume for the second straight year (bitcoin transacted $1.3 billion in volume, while PayPal record $578 billion. –NEWS BTC 6. A 38-year-old Dutch cryptocurrency trader was attacked and tortured in his home by a group of masked thieves. While police have yet to release a motive, these types of attacks have been growing, where criminals force cryptocurrency traders to move digital coins to their own online wallets under the threat of violence. –NEWS BTC 7. Nasdaq officially added listings for Brave New Coin's Bitcoin Liquid Index (BLX) and Ethereum Liquid Index (ELX), which were announced last month. –COIN TELEGRAPH 8. A bitcoin enthusiast from London created an article on Wikipedia that outlines the privacy concerns associated with bitcoin and the Lightning Network. –AMB CRYPTO 9. Inveniam Capital Partners plans to tokenize a $66 million building in Miami, the largest piece of real estate to be financed this way to date. –COINDESK 10. Writer Greg Satell argues that blockchain's biggest opportunity is not cryptocurrency but in global supply chains. –BARRONS       Written and curated by David Stegon. He has been a reporter for 15 years, the past 10 focused on technology. Follow him @davidstegon. Editing team: Kim Lyons (managing editor at Inside, a Pittsburgh-based journalist with recent bylines in the NYTimes and Columbia Journalism Review.) and Susmita Baral (senior editor at Inside, recent bylines in NatGeo, Teen Vogue, and Quartz. Runs the biggest mac and cheese account on Instagram).       Ad A reimagined Jira Software. Simpler and more powerful than ever before. Learn more. Vettery is changing the way people hire and get hired. Learn more.

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