South Korean Crypto YouTuber’s Attacker Flees to Australia + 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.
Crime news
- There have been further developments in the case of a South Korean cryptocurrency YouTuber who was left badly injured and handcuffed to a railing on an elevator by two armed men last week. Police say they have arrested one of the alleged assailants, while they believe the other has fled to Australia. Per Donga, police also say they believe the attack may be related to a crypto investment that left the attackers out of pocket.
Legal news
- U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom vacated on Friday U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart’s sanctions order that requires a controversial Australian computer scientist and supporter of Bitcoin SV (BSV), Craig Wright, to hand over billions of dollars in bitcoin (BTC). She said that the sanction was too harsh a punishment for Wright’s failure to comply with an order to produce a list of his Bitcoin holdings during a dispute with his former partner David Kleiman’s estate, reports Law360. The judge said that the discovery abuse would not have been fixed even if the order was accepted, because the court still does not know how much BTC Wright owns. The judge found that a sanction of attorney fees is appropriate. Kleiman’s estate requested USD 658,581 in attorney fees and expenses. The judge also gave Wright until February 3 to inform the court if a “mysterious bonded courier” arrives with the final key “slice” needed to access his Bitcoin holdings that are held in a blind trust.
- Soon after the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and its parent company, iFinex, operator of stablecoin Tether (USDT) had voluntarily withdrawn the lawsuit, a revised lawsuit was refiled on January 8 in New York’s Southern District, demanding a jury trial. Besides Eric Young and Adam Kurtz, a third plaintiff, David Crystal, was added. Additionally, a very similar class-action lawsuit by Bryan Faubus, who claims to be a BTC trader, was filled on January 9 to the Southern District, and it directly cites the lawsuit by Young, Kurtz and Crystal.
Exchanges news
- American crypto exchange LedgerX says its co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer Zach Dexter is to return to the company as CEO. In a press release, the exchange said that it was embarking on a “new retail-focused strategy, and added that Dexter “has rejoined the company initially as an executive officer.” Dexter worked at LedgerX from its inception until May last year, when he left to join IT fitness startup Mirror.
Blockchain news
- EOS developer Block.One has released an update for the EOS blockchain network. The update is named EOS.io 2.0, and, per a post on the official Block.one Twitter account, the company stated that it would make the EOS platform “faster, simpler and even more secure.”
- Samsung’s IT services arm Samsung SDS has struck a deal with American firm Syniverse on the fringes of CES 2020, where the former was exhibiting on its own for the first time – with a range of blockchain-powered solutions on show. Per the Digital Times, the companies will co-develop a device-agnostic, blockchain-powered payments platform for mobile phones.
- One of South Korea’s largest commercial banks, Shinhan Bank, will launch a blockchain-powered loan platform for small and medium-sized enterprises. D Daily reports that the bank says it will team up with the government-run Small Enterprise and Market Service to create the platform – and will run it on Hyperledger Fabric protocols.
- Ethereum Classic (ETC) has successfully completed its Agharta upgrade on Sunday at block number 9,573,000. Per Ethereum Classic Cooperative, the fork went smoothly with a “very high rate” of node upgrades for Parity-Ethereum and Multi-Geth, while most of the Classic Geth nodes were not upgraded and are now out of consensus. According to etcnodes.org, 59% of the clients have been ready for the upgrade.
Lightning network news
- The non-cooperative channel closures are relatively common, their number is higher than guessed, and lightning network usage is higher than expected, according to a report by cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX. More than 60,000 lightning network non-cooperative channel closures were recorded, double the 30,000 such transactions the exchange expected, while over BTC 1,000 was spent in non-cooperative channel closure transactions. The findings may indicate that experimentation with mobile lightning wallets, which often produce private channels, may be more common than many expected, and that non-cooperative closure types are more common relative to the cooperative closure type than the community thought.
Investment news
- Grayscale Investments, major digital currency asset manager and sponsor of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, today announced that the Trust will resume the private placement of its shares. The Trust’s private placement is offered on a periodic basis throughout the year and is now currently available to accredited investors for daily subscription.
- Lightnet, a Bangkok-based fintech company, has received A round funding of USD 31.2 million in fresh capital, led by UOB Venture Management, Seven Bank, Uni-President Asset Holdings, HashKey Capital, Hopeshine Ventures, Signum Capital, Du Capital, and Hanwha Investment and Securities. The press release says that, with this round completed, Lightnet is Asia’s first blockchain company to receive financial backing from six large conglomerates, while the funds will be used to strengthen Lightnet’s investment in the underlying blockchain technology on the Stellar Network and to build a financial mobility network.
