Category: Crypto

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Crypto News

Blockchain Technology Implemented For Payments Processing by Dubai’s Department of Finance

Smart Dubai, the developer of Dubai’s Blockchain Strategy technology program, announced the upgrade of the DubaiPay mobile payment application. The new version of the app includes a real-time payment settlement system backed by a blockchain system developed by Smart Dubai.

The new payment system aims to streamline transactions and enable real-time payment processing through a network whose operations can be backed up by a blockchain. This update constitutes the inclusion of the Dubai’s Department of Finance (DoF) in a supposed decentralized system of cryptocurrency that Smart Dubai has been developing for over a year. However, the technical characteristics, such as privacy, algorithm, and developers involved, are still unknown.

Smart Dubai states that the new upgrade of DubaiPay will provide “visibility of the funds; immediate disputes and resolution of claims” in the operations of the Dubai’s Department of Finance (DoF). These features will serve to reduce the 45-day period it takes to settle payment in DoF, where currently workers must manually and physically verify the payments collected, make deductions, and reconcile the documents.

Dubai takes significant steps towards becoming a smart country based on blockchain technology

The project, developed by Smart Dubai and the Department of Finance (DoF), requires the collaboration of several government entities to operate. At present, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) and the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) have already been included, as the agencies participating in the test. And it is expected that the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), the Department of Tourism and Trade Marketing (DTCM) and other customs and municipal agencies to start working with decentralized technology, too.

“Guided by its leadership’s vision for the future, Dubai has been a pioneer in adopting cutting-edge technologies – especially those of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – and adapting them to meet the needs of our citizens, residents, and visitors, in a bid to transform Dubai into the happiest and smartest country in the world. Blockchain technology is one of the most promising technologies, attracting more investments each year. The new strategy seeks to increase government efficiency by transferring 100% of government transactions to the blockchain network,” said Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, General Manager at Smart Dubai.

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Crypto News

Tether (USDT) Stablecoin Doesn’t Affect Bitcoin (BTC) Price, But Influences BTC Trading Volumes

The stable cryptocurrency Tether (USDT) has no impact on the price of Bitcoin (BTC), but it doesn’t affect its trading volume, according to the results of the latest academic research conducted by Professor Wang Chun Wei, of the School of Business at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Tether (USDT) has nothing to do with Bitcoin (BTC) price surges

According to the results of the study, which will be presented in the October 2018 edition of Economics Letters, there is no evidence to suggest that Tether (USDT) emissions cause Bitcoin (BTC) price surges.

The new study contradicts previous research that the stablecoin was manipulating the cryptocurrencies market, leading to the significant surge of Bitcoin (BTC) in December 2017.

Wei’s findings, focused mainly on market valuation and efficiency, used the vector autoregression (VAR) model, which serves to investigate whether or not there is a causal relationship between something in the past and something in the future.

The study was thus based both on the daily information on the commercial activity of USDT and BTC and on data from Omni Explorer, which lists all the addresses of new USDT issues.

Tether (USDT) is, however, influencing Bitcoin (BTC) trading volumes

“We found a positive relationship between Tether’s concessions and the increase in trading volumes the following day. Our VAR estimates show that both Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) trade increases after Tether’s subsidies. However, these increases in trading volume do not lead directly to increases in Bitcoin (BTC). The effect is short-lived, and trading volumes return to normal in 5 days,” said Wang Chun Wei.

These findings largely coincide with a report published by Oleksandr Ivanov, a data scientist at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, who also found that there is no correlation between the growth in the volume of circulating Tether (USDT) and the price of Bitcoin (BTC).

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Crypto News

The UK Parliament Demands Cryptocurrency Regulations For The First Time

The UK Parliament demanded that the country’s financial regulatory authorities take measures to regulate the commercial activity of cryptocurrencies, as so far they claim that they function outside the law.

Members of the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons in Parliament urged the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to impose cryptocurrency regulations that can protect users from the risks associated with trading in digital assets.

The demand was made by Nicky Morgan, chairman of the Treasury Committee, who assured that “it is unsustainable” to continue issuing “weak warnings to investors and refrain from acting.”

Morgan told the BBC that the problem of poor user protection must be tackled first, while solutions are being studied to control price volatility, the risks of cyber attacks, while anti-money laundering policies are being implemented.

The UK Parliament demands stricter cryptocurrency regulations

During this quarter of the year, the FCA is expected to publish a Discussion Paper worked with the Bank of England and the Treasury Department. This publication promises to establish which is the “political thinking” regarding the cryptocurrencies. For its part, CryptoUK, created as a self-regulating entity, said it received the statements of the UK Treasury Committee in good terms.

“Regulatory oversight is essential for consumer safety, protecting consumers against malpractice and providing much more clarity to a rapidly maturing industry,” Iqbal Gandham, director of CryptoUK said.

That is the first time the UK Parliament has raised the issue of cryptocurrency regulations, after initiating an investigation into the risks and opportunities of implementing crypto and blockchain technologies in the country’s public and private sectors.

Also, in January of this year, Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, commented this year that “cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC)” should be “very seriously observed, precisely because of the way in which criminals can use them.”

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Crypto News

Zaif Cryptocurrency Exchange Lost $60 Million BTC, MONA, and BCH During a Recent Cyber Attack

Zaif, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, reported on Thursday, September 20th, that it suffered a cyber attack which resulted in the theft of $60 million in Bitcoin (BTC), Monacoin (MONA), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The startup reported that the event occurred on September 14th but was noticed on Monday and confirmed on Tuesday.

Of the total amount subtracted, about $19.6 million belong to the cryptocurrency exchange platform, while the rest of the funds were stolen from customers. The Osaka-based company, owned by Tech Bureau Corp, temporarily suspended all deposits and withdrawals until security levels were restored, according to the press release.

Although the investigations are in their initial phase, the company said the cyberattackers diverted the cryptos from the platform’s wallets to their accounts.

Zaif, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, lost $60 million in Bitcoin (BTC), Monacoin (MONA), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in a cyber attack

“The reason why the amount of damage cannot be determined at this time is that the server is not restarting until security is guaranteed to avoid secondary damage. As soon as the amount of virtual currency lost is determined, we will report it promptly, stated Zaif’s representatives.

The incident was reported by Zaif to the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA), as part of its protocol in case of such attacks, to initiate investigations and find the hackers.

In the past, cyber attacks on Japanese cryptocurrency exchange platforms have given a massive blow to the crypto ecosystem in the country. This was also the case in January when $530 million in NEM (XEM) were stolen from Coincheck. The event was considered by Lon Wong, founder of NEM (XEM), as “the biggest robbery in the history of the world.”

Another famous case was that of Mt. Gox Bitcoin (BTC) exchange house in 2014 when the hacker stole 744,000 Bitcoin (BTC) from the users and another 100,000 BTC from the startup itself. The losses summed up to $422 million.

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Crypto News

Dash (DASH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC) Updated To Tackle the DoS Vulnerability Addressed by the New Bitcoin Core

Dash (DASH) team announced the launch of the new Dash Core 0.12.3.3 to tackle the Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability addressed Tuesday by the new Bitcoin Core version. Besides Dash (DASH), the teams responsible for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) were the first to announce the updates of their software clients and are urging the respective communities of miners to install them as soon as possible.

Dash (DASH) launched Dash Core 0.12.3.3 update

In the case of Dash, the announcement of the update to Dash Core 0.12.3.3, released this Wednesday, notes that it is “correction of a critical bug in the Dash Core 0.12.3.x release series” and explains that the update is related to the Bitcoin Core vulnerability, recently discovered and resolved this Tuesday with the announcement of a new release.

“A major vulnerability was recently discovered in the Bitcoin Core code base that can cause a node that receives a specially forged block with double-spending transactions to crash,” says on the Dash Forum.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) also updated to tackle the DoS vulnerability

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) client software team, Bitcoin ABC, notified on Tuesday through its Twitter account, soon after the new Bitcoin Core update, that a new version of Bitcoin ABC will be available, correcting “an error” they did not specify.

Most probably, the mysterious “error” they were talking about was also related to the security flaw discovered by Bitcoin (BTC) community of devs and tackled with the Bitcoin Core 0.16.3 version.

Litecoin (LTC) 0.16.3 launched soon after Bitcoin Core

In the case of Litecoin (LTC), it was not necessary to clarify that the new version of its client, published shortly before midnight on Tuesday, was due to the DoS vulnerability discovered in Bitcoin Core, already corrected in the latest version of it.

Litecoin’s development team uses the same terminology in its versions as the Bitcoin Core.

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