Bisq Attacked, BUX Crypto Launched, Bithumb Got a Black Mark + More News
Crypto Briefs is your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Exchanges news
- Bisq, an open-source, peer-to-peer crypto trading platform, said that an attacker was able to exploit a flaw in their trade protocol, targeting individual trades in order to steal trading capital. “We are aware of approximately 3 BTC and 4000 XMR stolen from 7 different victims,” they said, adding that a proposal will soon be created in the Bisq DAO, Bisq’s funding mechanism, that will aim to repay the 7 victims from future trading revenues.
- Dutch fintech company BUX that acquired Amsterdam-based crypto exchange Blockport in January this year said that it officially launched the BUX Crypto trading platform. Initially, it offers six cryptoassets (BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, and BUX) and is available in 25 European countries.
- Bitfinex has started offering staking services. Per the announcement, the Staking Rewards Program will enable customers to earn rewards up to 10% per year by depositing and holding digital tokens. Tokens available for staking rewards include EOS (EOS), cosmos (ATOM), and v.systems (VSYS), with tezos (XTZ) set to launch in May.
- Coinbase says that it’s made sending and receiving crypto easier through their newly-launched improvements. These changes include: enabling customers to begin a transaction on mobile with the action button regardless of where they are in the app, simplifying the switch between currencies, and cleaning up visual design and adding cues for better understanding of what’s happening during the sending and receiving process.
- The failed takeover of Bithumb has left a black mark against the South Korean crypto exchange, per an op-ed in the newspaper Maeil Ilbo. The newspaper’s Lee Seung-ik said that exchanges clearly need better self-regulation after involvement from the BK Medical Group, the company that last year defaulted on a Bithumb takeover, saw the exchange list and deal in BK’s own BXA Token, a coin the media outlet says has since been exposed as a “Ponzi scam.”
- Japanese exchange bitFlyer has deployed its “securities token offering (STO)-ready” miyabi blockchain mainnet with a consensus algorithm that enables the “fastest per second transaction speed in the world” (4,000 transactions per second on advanced hardware) via a cloud service. In a press release, bitFlyer gave details of a “case study” for a firm making use of the platform as part of STO operations. The Japanese government has recently passed STO-related legislation, and a number of major financial players are set to co-launch an STO trading platform.
DeFi news
- Volt Capital announced a new initiative called the Chicago DeFi Alliance (CDA) along with Jump Capital, Cumberland DRW, and CMT Digital. The purpose of the alliance is to provide entrepreneurs and start-ups in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space with support and guidance with respect to trading and applicable regulations, they said.
Mining news
- Bitfarms, a blockchain infrastructure company engaged in cypto mining in North America, stated that it has been able to optimize mining operations in real-time to maintain maximum computer capacity during the current COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis. The press release says that the company maintained an average daily hashrate of c. 630 petahash per second (PH) since the market crash on March 12 until the price recovery at USD 6,000 level, while since March 19, it has maintained an average daily hashrate of c. 750 PH.
Legal news
- Law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP has announced that the deadline for choosing the lead plaintiff in the securities class-action lawsuit against the major producer of Bitcoin mining equipment Canaan Inc. is May 4, 2020, meaning that the shareholders must decide who will represent them by that date.
Adoption news
- Japanese furniture giant Nitori Holdings has unveiled blockchain business plans, per Nikkei. The company has over 500 stores nationwide, as well as online sales businesses, and was founded in 1967. The company says that its logistics subsidiary plans to start operating a new platform that will make use of blockchain technology as of autumn this year.
- Italy’s major news agency ANSA has developed a news tracking system based on blockchain in collaboration with EY Advisory S.p.A. According to the press release, readers can use a news tracking label called ANSAcheck to trace the history and origin of news that appear on ANSA platforms, as well as those distributed to other editorial publications or third parties such as social media networks and other platforms.
- The South Korean branch of the Amber Group – a crypto startup that recently raised USD 28 million in Series A funding, has signed an MOU agreement with Monster Cube, a major South Korean blockchain investor and e-commerce platform. Per Maeil Ilbo, the companies say they want to cooperate on digital asset management platforms and “deposit and withdrawal” solutions. They will likely make use of Monster Cube’s recently succeeded in an eleventh-hour deal that saw it acquire the Bitberry crypto wallet operator RootOne Soft – just weeks after the latter pulled the plug on its wallet operations.
Investment news
- Japanese wallet provider Ginco has received an undisclosed “pre-Series A” funding boost from the Development Bank of Japan Group, reports TechCrunch Japan. Ginco last year announced it was partnering with Microsoft Japan on a cloud-based blockchain initiative – and also began offering its Ginco Enterprise Wallet product, a cryptoasset management platform for crypto exchanges.
Career news
- HDR Global Trading Limited, operator of the BitMEX cryptocurrency-products trading platform, has appointed Ben Radclyffe as its Commercial Director. Per the announcement, Radclyffe has a 20-year background in finance and trading technology, with 17 years’ experience in investment banking at Deutsche Bank and UBS. He is now responsible for Financial Products, and Business & Client Development at HDR Global Trading Limited and will report directly to CEO Arthur Hayes.
