Articles about Bitcoin

A week ago, cryptocurrency exchange Binance was the victim of a hacking attempt. While the attempt on March 7 is described as "not successful," Binance is still eager to track down the perpetrators.

So keen is the exchange, in fact, that it is offering up a $250,000 bounty to "the first person to supply substantial information and evidence that leads to the legal arrest of the hackers."

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The self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin, Craig Wright from Australia, has been hit by a $10 billion lawsuit. The family of his former business partner is suing Wright for allegedly stealing Bitcoins and intellectual property.

The pseudonym of the inventor of Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto, but his true identity has never been confirmed -- but this is who Wright claims to be. The lawsuit accuses him of stealing Bitcoins from collaborator Dave Kleiman who died in 2013. It aims to get back these coins from the early days of mining, as well as the intellectual property of the business -- W&K Info Defense Research -- Wright and Kleiman set up together.

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Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has contacted 13,000 of its users to inform them that it is going to hand over their details to the IRS. The tax collection agency originally asked for the details of everyone buying Bitcoin between 2013 and 2015 in a bid to weed out tax evaders.

Coinbase did not give in without a fight. Since the summons in November 2016, it put up some resistance, ultimately reducing the number of affected customers from 500,000 to 13,000. The exchange will be handing over the details within three weeks.

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The head of the EU's financial services has said that the union is ready to regulate cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin if a global effort is not made to tackle their risks.

Valdis Dombrovskis said that worldwide measures were needed if European regulation was to be avoided. There has long been concern not just about the wildly fluctuating value of cryptocurrencies, but also the potential for them to be used in crime.

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The cryptocurrency market seems to have recovered after a massive correction took it below $280 billion earlier this month. That valuation brought the scene back to mid-November levels, with all the majors posting significant losses as a result. However, things have changed rather quickly, as, today, the market is getting closer to breaking $480 billion.

Bitcoin looks to be spearheading the push, as it's testing the $10,000 level, having the third-largest daily increase of the top 10 players at 8.9 percent. Litecoin is the best performer, by far, with gains of 19.5 percent, followed by IOTA with 9.1 percent. In the days following the crash, Litecoin consistently posted solid gains.

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With cryptocurrencies reaching super high valuations, it should not come as a surprise that some websites use their visitors' processing power for mining. Question is, just how many do that?

According to a new report from security firm 360Netlab, that's 0.2 percent of websites. What's interesting is that porn sites account for nearly half of them at 49 percent. Other types of websites don't even come close.

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It has been something of a rocky ride for cryptocurrencies recently, and none more so than Bitcoin. Now Lloyd's Banking Group has announced a ban on purchasing cryptocurrencies using credit cards in the UK.

The banking group controls Lloyd's Bank, Halifax, MBNA and Bank of Scotland, and the ban has been triggered by the deflation of Bitcoin. In recent months it has spiraled from a high of almost $20,000 to under $8,000.

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A budget speech given by India's finance minister led to numerous reports that India was banning the use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum within the country. While Arun Jaitley noted in a speech that the Indian government does not recognize cryptocurrencies as legal tender, his slightly ambiguous language resulted in something of a misunderstanding.

Now the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Committee of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has spoken out in an attempt to clarify the issue, and allay fears that Bitcoin et al are on the verge of being banned.

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Towards the end of last year, it wasn't unusual for the major players in the cryptocurrency market to rise by double digits on a daily basis. They were reaching absurd levels, which were incredibly hard to justify even by crypto standards. Even though I like the market and understand the merits of some technologies, I dare anyone to explain with a straight face how Dogecoin -- which hasn't been updated in years -- and its ilk skyrocketed in valuation.

The market has seen some massive pullback in 2017, right after it peaked at over $830 billion. This should not surprise anyone who's keeping an eye on the crypto scene, but it does give the so-called "traditional media," which seems clueless when it comes to reporting about this industry, reason to talk about these things like it's the end of the world. Every. Single. Day.

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A new report from risk management and threat intelligence company Digital Shadows shows that cyber criminals are looking to exploit the boom in interest and adoption of cryptocurrencies.

The study highlights the most common methods used by these criminal actors, which include crypto jacking, account takeovers, mining fraud and scams against initial coin offerings (ICOs).

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After peaking at just over $20,000, Bitcoin entered a massive correction last year which took it dangerously close to the $10,000 mark. The most-valuable cryptocurrency looked like it could recover for a while, but today it is still far, far away from the record price of last year.

The correction is moving Bitcoin back into sub-$10,000 territory today, and it is taking the market down along with it. Some of the majors are still holding well, but the top 100 is in the red almost in its entirety.

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Facebook has announced a new advertising policy which ban ads for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The ban also applies to ICOs because they are "frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices."

The social network says that the new policy is a part of a drive to improve the "integrity and security of financial product and services ads," but it explains that it is keeping its guidelines "intentionally broad" to start with.

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Bitcoin remains one of the hottest financial topics of the last several years. The digital currency grew from less than $1,000 per coin at the start of 2017, to nearly $20,000 by the end of the year.

The buzz around Bitcoin continues to grow despite high volatility -- including a 50 percent drop between December and January -- and condemnation from figures like Warren Buffet who call it a "fraud." But how is it being used? And most important, what value does it really hold as an investment?

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2017 was a wild ride for cryptocurrencies and for Bitcoin in particular, rising in price at one point above $19,000 only to drop back to a bit over half of that number now. But which number is correct? If only the market can tell for sure -- and these numbers are coming straight from the market, remember -- what the heck does it all mean? It means Bitcoin isn’t a currency at all but traders are pretending that it is. 2018 will see investors finally figure this out.

Confusion abounds, so let’s cut through the crap with an analogy. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and a ton of others operate almost exactly like a market that uses only U.S. one dollar bills and doesn’t allow exchanging those bills… ever. If you need five dollars, that will be five one dollar bill, please. If you need less than a dollar then you and your counter-party have to agree how much of a one dollar bill you each own. And they aren’t just any one dollar bills: they are specific bills, each with its own unique serial number that can be checked against a U.S. Treasury database to make sure the money is real -- that it is actually worth a dollar.

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With increasing interest in cryptocurrency it's inevitable that cyber criminals will see the potential to make money from investors and users.

Threat management company RiskIQ has found that hackers are targeting the Apple, Google Play, SameAPK, APKPlz and other app store users with malicious cryptocurrency apps aiming to steal money and personal data.

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