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Crypto scammers impersonate members of olympic committee
Bitcoin, Multimedia
15/05/2020
57

Crypto scammers impersonate members of olympic committee

A series of scam emails sent from Japan have been asking people to donate to the Olympic Games’ organization in Tokyo.

The ongoing pandemic forced the postponement of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. This has triggered a series of online crypto-related scams, including an email from alleged members of the International Olympic Committee. In these emails, scammers ask unsuspecting victims for donations.

crypto-scammers-impersonate-members-of-olympic-committee

As Trend Micro reported on April 30, scammers are asking for crypto donations so that Japanese organizers can recover from the economic impact produced by the postponement of the biggest Olympic sports event in the world.

In the fake mail, an alleged member of the Olympic Committee states that the organization has to deal with the loss of money invested in airline tickets, hotels, infrastructure materials, and production booking arrangements.

Victims are encouraged to avoid Olympic Games cancellation in Tokyo

Following the same line, the online scam letter ensures that the government has been forced to collect funds to compensate for losses. This is why they claim that donations are required.

The scammers add that if the funding target, which was not specified, is not achieved, the international image of the Japanese people will be “severely damaged,” running the risk to cancel the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games.

For this reason, the email extends the invitation for people to donate to a supposed Bitcoin (BTC) crypto wallet belonging to the International Olympic Committee. Donors, they claim, will be eligible to purchase a ticket for the Olympics Games at a discount of 30%.

Olympic games’ scam emails coming from Japan

An investigation by Trend Micro revealed that over 400 similar fraudulent emails sent from April 24 to 26th belong to IP addresses from internet providers in Japan.

Scams related to the Olympic Games are not new.

Cointelegraph reported on April 8 that the Chinese Olympic Committee has repeatedly received complaints about con artists posing as members of the so-called “World Olympic Sports Foundation”. These scammers invite the recipients to invest in unique products related to the Olympic Games.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-scammers-impersonate-members-of-olympic-committee

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The Bridge Between AI And Bitcoin
Altcoins, Bitcoin, Multimedia
13/05/2020
63

The Bridge Between AI And Bitcoin

There are clear comparisons that can be made between Artificial Intelligence and Bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies. Generally speaking, in itself the blockchain is a primary form of artificial intelligence, as it is able to make decisions and does include some aspects machine based learning, though in the future we expect that the blockchain will become more integrated with AI technologies, neural networks, deep learning and that sort of thing.

What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence or AI is dubbed as the next technological revolution, first we had the data revolution and now, computers are able to manage and manipulate that data themselves, hence the ‘intelligence’. According to Techopedia:

“Knowledge engineering is a core part of AI research. Machines can often act and react like humans only if they have abundant information relating to the world. Artificial intelligence must have access to objects, categories, properties and relations between all of them to implement knowledge engineering. Initiating common sense, reasoning and problem-solving power in machines is a difficult and tedious task. Machine learning is also a core part of AI.”

Cryptocurrency and blockchain firms are already exploring how AI can help improve their products and services. Indeed, the development of the blockchain does have big implications for the future of AI and Machine Learning too, especially when we consider data storage and fast access. The blockchain allows huge amounts of data to be stored securely and of course, shared across other entities on that network. These entities, could very well be computers or programmes that have been built to learn from the blockchain, and thus, we see a huge amount of information spread that these programmes can learn from, making Artificial Intelligence, better.

According to Bitcoin.com, Danil Myakin, the co-founder of Squilla Capital, a crypto analytics service, there’s a huge surge in the number of applications that blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and Artificial Intelligence share:

“Human bias is almost impossible to eliminate. People trade on their emotions, often unwittingly. Data-based decision-making eliminates the noise that can cloud people’s judgement, preventing them from acting rationally, and focuses solely on the signal.”

Furthermore:

“Provided you have a large enough sample set, computers that have been trained using machine learning will consistently derive more accurate insights than humans. In recent years, this theory has been proven in every major financial market, and it’s now being applied to the cryptoconomy with equally convincing results.”

These are two technologies that are growing and seeing expansion at an alarming rate. When the two industries fully collide, a huge number of new and exciting products will be created. This is great for the adoption of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and also has positive implications for the development of our everyday technologies too, such as the smartphone which is now seeing more AI based implementations than ever before.

Source: https://cryptodaily.co.uk/2019/03/the-bridge-between-ai-and-bitcoin

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Bitcoin (BTC) May Just Hit $20,000 in 20 Days, Be Prepared for Anything
Bitcoin, Multimedia
06/05/2020
68

Bitcoin (BTC) May Just Hit $20,000 in 20 Days, Be Prepared for Anything

Many have been expecting the Bitcoin price to go through the roof at any moment due to the recent global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak in China’s Wuhan.

Lockdowns emerged in the majority of countries in Europe, China and the US, prompting governments to take steps to stimulate the economy via quantitative easing to support businesses and ordinary citizens.

All of that led to an oil price collapse below zero on Monday. In these conditions, bullish expectations towards the approaching Bitcoin halving have increased.

‘Bitcoin may hit $20,000 any time’

Trader Carl Eric Martin, also known as the Moon Carl, has tweeted his rising bullish take on the prospects of the Bitcoin price in the current economic chaos that has been spreading around the world. The situation is unpredictable for any assets now.

As an example, he refers to the crude oil futures price suddenly dropping below zero. The trader believes that with the approaching halving, Bitcoin could easily surge to $20,000 in one week.

Bitcoin (BTC) May Just Hit $20,000 in 20 Days, Be Prepared for Anything

Trader and analyst Christopher Jaszczynski seconds his forecast, emphasizing that $20,000 is a realistic price for Bitcoin to reach in the current fundamental setup.

Source: https://u.today/bitcoin-btc-may-just-hit-20000-in-20-days-be-prepared-for-anything

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Argentinas banks set to use rsk blockchain technology for tracking payments
Altcoins, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Multimedia
04/05/2020
64

Argentinas banks set to use rsk blockchain technology for tracking payments

RSK is entering the enterprise blockchain field with a pilot program designed to improve the direct debit process among Argentinian banks and financial institutions.

An Argentinian consortium of banks and technology companies under the patronage of the Central Bank of Argentina is promoting a pilot program implementing blockchain. The system would be used to handle direct account debit claims.

Argentinas banks set to use rsk blockchain technology for tracking payments

The pilot was announced on April 21 by IOV Labs, the developer of the RSK blockchain. The company is part of the 2019 Financial Innovation Roundtable, which also includes Sabra Group, Banco de la Provincia de Córdoba, BBVA, ICBC, Banco Santander and others.

The group has worked for several months since the end of 2019 to create a system that would track bank account transactions through what IOV claims is a decentralized network.

Specifically, the blockchain system will handle direct debit transactions for customers, where the payment is initiated by the receiver of the funds and not the sender. Through the blockchain, the group is able to trace the claims between different participants like banks, clearinghouses and financial agents. In this pilot, blockchain solves the key problem of inter-entity messaging, creating a decentralized enterprise network.

While the system already exists and is usable, IOV Labs’ goal is to provide a simpler and more efficient alternative to traditional settlement.

The solution is being tested by the banks participating in this initiative. When the pilot ends, they will decide if the network should be enlarged with other participants or additional applications.

RSK is a smart contract sidechain

The RSK network is in many ways an Ethereum competitor, but instead of creating an independent network, it piggybacks on Bitcoin (BTC).

The network’s native token is a wrapped version of BTC, though it also has its own token called RIF. Bitcoin arrives to the network through a “federated” bridge overseen by specific entities. This is similar to many versions of wrapped Bitcoin on Ethereum.

RSK has recently been attempting to catch up to Ethereum in terms of decentralized finance functionality. It hosts two algorithmic stablecoin projects, Money on Chain and the recently launched RIF on Chain.

Argentinas banks set to use rsk blockchain technology for tracking payments

As Cointelegraph reported in February, RSK also launched a bridge to Ethereum, which allows swapping any token between the two networks.

The collaboration with the Argentinian financial group can be seen as an expansion into enterprise blockchain territory, currently occupied by projects like the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, Corda and Hyperledger.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/argentinas-banks-set-to-use-rsk-blockchain-technology-for-tracking-payments

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uk university develops blockchain certificate to protect consumers from covid19 risks
Blockchain, Events, Multimedia
29/04/2020
58

Uk university develops blockchain certificate to protect consumers from covid19 risks

British researchers are trialing a new blockchain-based certificate designed to manage COVID-19 risks across supply chains.

In a statement on April 21, Professor Nassim Belbaly, director of Birmingham City Business School, noted that “coronavirus represents a crisis of trust because we cannot any longer automatically trust goods or suppliers.”

New, secure and automated solutions are therefore being sought to help reassure consumers and suppliers that goods across the value chain do not pose health risks to themselves or to others.

To tackle this post-pandemic landscape, a newly-launched “4th Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies Centre” is trialing a blockchain-based Coronavirus Clearance Certificate (CCC), issued by The Transnational Transparent Procurement Foundation (TTPF) in the U.K.

The center is also known as “BCU-CCEG 4IR,” an acronym for the two collaborating founders behind it; Birmingham City University (BCU) and the non-profit Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance (CCEG).

Since its founding in 2013, the CCEG has operated as a global think tank, with 165,000 members contributing to its research and development of social value tools that use emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and 5G.

What the certificate offers

The CCC certificate can reportedly be issued to organisations, products and even people to confirm that they have followed appropriate steps to mitigate risks from COVID-19.

The challenges posed by the current public health crisis tie in to wider concerns about compliance and ethical practices in modern logistics and value chains. As Olinga Taeed, a visiting professor of blockchain at Birmingham City University, argues:

“[The certificate] confirms that a supplier adheres to highest standards of public health, sustainability, anti-bribery and even modern slavery. And in this case, we can verify the level of supply risk due to the coronavirus. It represents the future of supply chain management.”

As a vehicle for tracking the life cycle of any given product, for example hand sanitizer, the certificate will initially be trialed in the U.K. Midlands, a region that has been severely impacted by the pandemic.

uk university develops blockchain certificate to protect consumers from covid19 risks

Tailoring the blockchain to public health challenges

As reported, the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications recently announced a partnership with the European Commission and University College London to coordinate various blockchain solution providers that are tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

Blockchain specialists and IoT firms have also stepped in to adapt their solutions to COVID-19-focused data management and sharing.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/uk-university-develops-blockchain-certificate-to-protect-consumers-from-covid-19-risks

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dutch-central-bank-ready-to-play-a-leading-role-with-digital-euro
Altcoins, Bitcoin, Events, Multimedia
27/04/2020
70

Dutch central bank ready to play a leading role with digital euro

The Dutch central bank wants to be the proving ground for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in the European Union.

In a 45-page report released by the bank on April 21, the De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) said it was “ready to play a leading role” with research and development into its own digital currency as well as a Europe-wide digital currency.

A digital Euro is expected to make cross-border payments faster and cheaper for all member states who participate. The Netherlands would be a suitable testing ground, the report said.

Though not the primary target of the report, the DNB singled out cryptocurrency Libra as a possible threat to monetary stability and conceded it was “the reason why the DNB and other central banks are now considering issuing their own digital currency.”

Use of physical currency declining

According to the report, the move is partly in response to the decreasing use of paper money and coins in the Netherlands. Nearly two thirds of all payments in the nation are digital.

In developing a digital currency, the DNB report questions “whether central banks should provide a new type of money that is better attuned to the needs of citizens and firms.”

dutch-central-bank-ready-to-play-a-leading-role-with-digital-euro

Digital solutions for pandemic

With the pandemic measures shutting down many businesses worldwide, the DNB report notes that those that remain open are avoiding physical cash:

“Many stores now ask clients specifically not to pay in cash, which effectively means that only private money is accepted.”

As the money we use becomes more risky — both physically due to the risk of passing on COVID-19 and financially due to an uncertain economic future — the race for CBDCs is accelerating.

The People’s Bank of China issued a statement on April 4 saying that it will “undoubtedly continue” its CBDC development, calling a digital yuan one of its “top priorities.” Both South Korea and Sweden launched pilot programs to assess the feasibility of issuing a CBDC.

Netherlands leading the CBDC charge

EU members like France have recently begun experimenting with a digital euro, with even the European Central Bank president supporting the bank’s involvement developing a CBDC. However, as the DNB report notes, any decision on a digital Euro would require cooperation between member states.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/dutch-central-bank-ready-to-play-a-leading-role-with-digital-euro

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blockchain startup launches app to encourage people stay at home amid covid19
Blockchain, Multimedia
23/04/2020
56

Crypto- and blockchain-focused companies around the world have been making efforts to support people amid the coronavirus pandemic, with some of them donating funds to nonprofits and providing supplies to hospitals.

Israeli blockchain startup “Orbs” came up with an idea to encourage people to self-quarantine by using a newly launched app.

The app, which is dubbed “Stay at Home Challenge,” is designed to assure that the user does not leave the nearby radius once they enter their location in the app. The app tracks users’ self-quarantine time and notifies them when they abandon the designated home area, according to an announcement on April 21.

blockchain startup launches app to encourage people stay at home amid covid19

A gamified way to trace people’s movements

The app gamifies the self-quarantine concept, allowing users to share their progression with friends and family members, thus encouraging them to stay at home as well.

Although the app tracks people’s movements, “Orbs” claims that it doesn’t collect any personal data as users don’t add their name, email or any other personal information in the app. Currently, the app is available in Google Play, and soon will be available for iOS users. “Orbs” told Cointelegraph:

“We will continue to think of ways we can help out in Israel and globally to get us all through these challenging times. We discuss ideas on a regular basis in company meetings and chats.”

Tracking people is a new normal

Stay at Home Challenge is not the first app that tracks users’ activity under the umbrella of the coronavirus-related quarantine. A team of academics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa developed a blockchain-powered app geared to allow users to verify their own COVID-19 status. The application intends to improve contact tracing of infected patients.

blockchain startup launches app to encourage people stay at home amid covid19

In late March, Russian authorities rolled out their own tracking application for patients who test positive for COVID-19 in Moscow. The app reportedly requests access to users’ calls, location and camera, as well as network information.

China also released an app in February that allows users to check whether they’ve come into contact with a person who is potentially infected with COVID-19. The app shares users’ location data to a centralized server whenever their barcodes are scanned at a checkpoint either in public transport hubs or other access-point controlled areas.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-startup-launches-app-to-encourage-people-stay-at-home-amid-covid19

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zoom-data-scandal-shows-blockchain-may-be-the-future-of-communications
Blockchain, Multimedia, Τεχνική Ανάλυση
21/04/2020
81

“Zoom Scandal Data” shows that Blockchain may be the future of communications

As people around the world started following shelter-in-place orders, popular video conferencing platform Zoom quickly gained new users, noting in a recent blog post that it had reached more than 200 million daily users last month, up from 10 million in December. From virtual conferences to online birthday parties, thousands of individuals have flocked to Zoom in an attempt to remain social at a time when social gatherings are banned.

Yet, while Zoom may have seemed like the perfect alternative to in-person gatherings, a major security flaw has been lurking in the system. Following the sudden balloon in daily users, it was discovered last week that thousands of personal Zoom videos have been left viewable on the open web.

What’s the issue?

Ankit Bhatia, CEO and co-founder of the Sapien Network social platform, told Cointelegraph that signing into Zoom has never been a secure process:

“If you know the server the Zoom call is on, then you only need to run a script to generate the right sequence of numbers at a given time and you’re potentially in on a conference, be it a daily technical standup or an AA meeting. This is especially easy when Zoom users don’t password-protect their meetings.”

In addition to strangers having access to “private” Zoom videos, personally identifiable information such as email addresses and passwords have also been compromised.

Jeff Pulver, Voice Over Internet Protocol pioneer, told Cointelegraph that the main issue with all major communication services like Zoom is that it uses centralized data storage mechanisms. Due to this, Zoom poses security threats to the confidential information it gathers. He explained:

“Companies like Zoom say they cannot access user data, but they still mine the data generated by those apps, such as how often users talk to someone and whose phone numbers they have stored in their smartphone’s address book. Routing all business and personal data through a centralized server with one main point of contact poses an overwhelming number of threats for information security.”

Pulver, who authored the “Pulver Order” adopted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to ensure that users need not pay for communication apps such as FaceTime, understood early on the data issues posed by Zoom. He noted that the thousands of data breaches witnessed between 2018 and 2019 should have been a global wake-up call for people who are looking to better understand how their data was being used by third party platforms.

Blockchain can power a new era of communication

As such, Pulver believes that the best way of making high-security communications services universally available is through the use of blockchain technology. “By refraining from centralized control, we will be removing the weak link from the equation — the third parties,” he explained. Pulver has spent the past year developing a blockchain-based communications network called Debrief.

Unlike conventional video applications, Debrief is an open-source blockchain network upon which communication applications can be built. According to Pulver, leveraging blockchain creates a higher level of security when it comes to users’ personal information:

“Unlike Facebook Messenger or Google’s Hangouts, Debrief encrypts user messages by default and also retains virtually no information from users, including messages and address books, on its servers, since they are decentralized.”

Karen Sun, Debrief full-stack developer and former solution configuration manager of Ericsson, told Cointelergraph that, “Even if our servers get hacked, the perpetrators will not be able to decrypt the messages stored there.”

According to Pulver, Debrief has been primarily built for fast and private transactions. Unlike mainstream public chains like Ethereum, the Debrief infrastructure has been constructed to ensure fast and trusted connections specifically for communication. Pulver further noted that Debrief contains an open-source Middleware component, allowing for mainstream centralized applications such as Zoom to utilize Debrief’s blockchain “by wrapping their code into our code.”

While the Debrief Testnet privately launched in February 2020, Pulver mentioned that the MainNet launch is expected in the fourth quarter of this year. The Middleware public launch is also projected for the same period.

A video conferencing DApp

For use in the meantime, Pulver explained that a decentralized application has been built on the Debrief network. The DApp provides HD video conferencing, peer-to-peer audio and video calling, messaging, decentralized file storage and more. The beta version of Debrief has just been released, which has already seen over 1.2 million transactions from over 3,000 participating users.

Pulver mentioned that the challenge moving forward will be generating public awareness for blockchain-based communication networks, adding, “We need to find developers who want to use our blockchain to see what they are able to do with the APIs.”

Additionally, regulatory and data standard challenges might also hamper the adoption of a blockchain-based communication network. A recent Telecoms Tech article highlights these challenges, stating,

“The current telco industry adheres to a set of data standards, structures, and transmission infrastructure. As such, bringing blockchain applications to this existing framework presents significant challenges.”

Pulver, however, remains optimistic, saying:

“We have the ability to bring this to the communications industry and my hope is to get thousands of people to connect and innovate in a positive, secure way.”

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/zoom-data-scandal-shows-blockchain-may-be-the-future-of-communications

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Wishes for happy easter
Events
17/04/2020
59

Wishes for Happy Easter

The last 2 months have found us locked up in our house trying to face an invisible enemy named “Coronaios”

Without discriminating against who will hit whom, man or woman, rich or poor, young or old, he continues even today, sowing panic and fear both for today and for the effects of tomorrow. So we took a breath before the Holy Easter days to be home and not be able to go anywhere, not even to our loved ones.

“We Greece”, wanting to pass on its own message of love and hope, wishes you and your families good health and not to lose hope for a better tomorrow.

“Even through these difficulties that we all experience, there are positive things to see and understand that nothing can be a given. To feel the loss of care, love, freedom, joy, smile, health, company, friendship and much more to appreciate.

Now we know how important it is that today we cannot have and think about tomorrow how we will be and what we need to change. Change must be us for ourselves and so some things around us will change.

So “We Greece” wishes the Resurrection of the Lord to find us stronger and healthier, wiser and more open-minded but also more ready to face challenges, giving us the opportunity with our choices to set a better tomorrow.

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Blockchain wallets hit over 47 mln users globally
Blockchain
16/04/2020
62

Blockchain wallets hit over 47 mln users globally

The number of blockchain wallets doubled over the last two years, reaching more than 47 million users globally in 2020, according to data gathered by Finanso.se.

Blockchain wallet allows users to manage and store cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, and Stellar. Statistics show the number of people using these crypto wallets has been rapidly growing over the years.

In 2016, there were nearly 11 million blockchain wallets in the world, revealed the Statista data. By the end of 2017, the number of their users grew by 95% and reached 21.51 million globally. The noticeable rising trend continued in the last two years, with the number of blockchain wallets jumping over 44.5 million at the end of 2019. Statistics show the number of users increased by over 12 million in 2019 only.

Statistics indicate the number of Bitcoin and Ether daily transactions, as the two leading cryptocurrencies managed by the blockchain wallet, fell at the beginning of 2020 reaching 301,000 and 577,000, respectively. However, the number of Ether transactions has been on the rise for the last three months, jumping over 735,000 in April 2020.

As the most significant name in cryptocurrency in terms of both market cap and price index, Bitcoin reached 325,000 daily transactions in March 2020. Still, the recent data show Bitcoin investors became more interested in keeping their funds safe in personal wallets than on exchanges, as the number of daily transactions fell under 275,000 in the first week of April 2020.

Source: https://thepaypers.com/cryptocurrencies/blockchain-wallets-hit-over-47-mln-users-globally–1241631

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