Category: Crypto

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Crypto News

About 46% Of Mexico’s Smartphone Users Are Interested In Buying Cryptocurrencies

A study conducted among smartphone users in Mexico revealed that, although there is evidence that people either fear to invest in cryptos or don’t know much about cryptocurrencies, there is also growing Mexican interest in the subject. In this sense, 46.1% of those who do not currently own digital assets or have never used them, expressed their willingness to acquire Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptos in the next six months.

The information is derived from a survey called the MX18 Cryptometer, which was conducted between May 22nd and June 5th, 2018, at the initiative of a group of firms related to the cryptocurrencies market in Mexico. For this study, data was collected through 1,416 interviews with mobile phone users.

Although the sample seems small as 64.7 million smartphone users live in Mexico, the goal of the study was to obtain the first indicators on the knowledge and general feeling of the population in relation with blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

The study found that 26.5% of respondents had already bought or used cryptocurrencies at some point. Also, the most appreciated cryptocurrency by Mexicans is Bitcoin (BTC), the leading digital asset in the market, about which more than 61% of the Mexican heard of.

Mexicans are more and more interested in cryptocurrencies

Mexicans are using their cryptocurrencies mainly for online purchases and payments (35.2%), as well as to maintain them and wait for their value to increase (32.5%). However, there is one group (20.5%) that is dedicated to obtaining short-term profits through the purchase and sale of digital assets.

On the other hand, of those who expressed interest in acquiring cryptos, 46.2% would do so aiming to maintain a balance waiting for its value to increase.

Among the results that pose challenges to the Mexican crypto community, 47.4% of those who said they were not interested in buying cryptos indicated that the reason is the fear of fraud. Likewise, 39% say they do not know about this topic, while 30.5% consider that the cryptocurrencies have no support.

The firms that promoted the MX18 Cryptometer study, Bitso, Fiinlab, Wisum and Psyma Latina, agreed that, in order to increase the cryptocurrency adoption across Mexico, it is necessary to encourage users to “move from interest to action.”

Also noteworthy, Mexico is a leading country in the Latin America regarding new financial technologies, known as FinTech companies. In fact, it already has a regulatory framework for this sector that was enacted during the Q1 2018.

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Crypto News

Facebook Denies The Partnership With Stellar (XLM) For Implementing Joint Projects

Contradictory information about the possible partnership between Facebook and the Stellar (XLM) project team was published in the media on August 10th. Shortly after the publication, on the Business Insider portal, of unofficial information that Facebook was meeting with the Stellar project’s team to work together, a statement emerged from a Facebook spokesperson who denied the news.

The information published by Business Insider also came from an unidentified spokesperson who claimed that the Facebook team, led by David Marcus, was in discussions with the open source payment technology company, Stellar, to explore the likelihood of entering the field of finance and banking transactions, taking advantage of the new technology.

Thus, according to comments from the source, the social network would plan to register payment transactions on a platform like Stellar (XLM), to which merchants could connect.

Facebook denied the information, according to an unidentified spokesperson from the social network’s part, who also added that after the publication of the Business Insider report, the price of Stellar (XLM) token surged by approximately 10% on Binance.

Facebook denied the partnership with Stellar (XLM) team, but it manages a blockchain technology team

The news about the potential partnership between Facebook and Stellar (XLM) coincided with the announcement that the research leader of the Facebook blockchain team, David Marcus, is leaving his position on the board of directors of the Coinbase exchange house to devote himself full-time to the project of the company led by Mark Zuckerberg.

Marcus is the former director of Messenger and has been leading a small technology development team on Facebook since last May. On this point, some commented that the decision to leave Coinbase might be due to the need to avoid a conflict of interest between the two companies.

At the same time, the Facebook blockchain team has been consolidating itself in recent months, by the incorporation of personnel trained in the area, among them Evan Chang, appointed director of blockchain engineering last July.

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Crypto News Tech

The Professional Golfers’ Association of America Is The Latest Victim Of A Bitcoin (BTC) Ransomware Attack

On the eve of the start of the 100th-anniversary championship, the Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) became the latest new victim of hackers, whose methodology is to seize sensitive information and ask for ransom in return. In this practice, it is widespread for cybercriminals to demand payments in Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies, in what is called a ransomware attack.

According to the specialized media, Golf Week, the attack was perpetrated on Wednesday, August 8th, when employees were unable to access the server. Instead, they received a message announcing the encryption of all files and threatening to make them unrecoverable from any attempt at decryption.

The attackers made it clear from the beginning that their target was Bitcoin (BTC) extortion

However, although the ransomware message includes the address of a Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, the hackers did not specify the amount of Bitcoin they wanted to get for unlocking the PGA servers.

However, according to an anonymous source, the Professional Golfers Association of America, the PGA, will not pay ransom for the archives, and that they took steps to ensure that the development of the anniversary championship won’t be impaired.

At the time of writing, no information has been released on the recovery of PGA servers or payment of the Bitcoin (BTC) ransom, the start of the PGA Championship 2018 tournament took place as usual.

Ransomware attacks involving cryptocurrency decline in popularity, while cryptojacking takes the lead

According to several studies carried out by various computer security companies worldwide, ransomware attacks involving cryptocurrency are declining in popularity, as the cybercriminals have gradually migrated to a more effective and lucrative business model, such as the use of hidden crypto mining malware. This method is known as cryptojacking and uses the computational power of victims’ devices to mine cryptocurrencies for the hackers.

A report released by Kaspersky Labs about a month ago confirmed the increase in cryptojacking attacks. Cybercriminals are developing increasingly sophisticated forms of crypto mining malware programs, using techniques such as file-free contamination or placing malware directly on routers.

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Crypto News

Ohio State Legally Recognized Blockchain Technology And Smart Contracts Utility

Ohio became one of the first territories to legally recognize blockchain for the storage and transmission of information throughout the United States after the state governor signed a bill on Monday that legalizes such technology applied to a wide range of industries.

Through Bill SB300, which directly amends Ohio’s Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, a group of legislators introduced in May the possibility of distributed accounting technology being legally recognized in Ohio’s private and public industries for information management.

The law was approved in the first instance by the state Senate in June, and this week it was approved by the governor of the territory, John Kasich, according to a public statement.

The new legislation states that all documents scanned, sent and signed through the blockchain are recognized as authentic and even digital signatures and smart contracts can be used for commerce and will have legal effect.

Ohio State adopts a new regulatory framework to recognize blockchain technology and smart contracts utility

The initiative is mainly focused on the financial industry. However, the communiqué also highlights that supply chain companies, government authorities, and health platforms could also benefit from technological advances in distributed ledger networks.

Ohio State Senator Matt Dolan said blockchain technology could help the local economy by securing the technological and economic leadership.

“For Ohio to compete for new investments and jobs, we must welcome innovation, and new technology,” he said.

Valentina Isakina, executive director of financial services for the Ohio Private Development Corporation (JobsOhio), also said this kind of action could help move the most innovative projects to realize their full potential, an approach that will allow Ohio to expand economically.

“In Ohio, blockchain technology innovators can thrive in their efforts to develop new products and applications for the financial industry and beyond,” said Valentina Isakina from JobsOhio.

The Ohio State is one of the largest economies in the United States, ranking fifth among the most economically and financially developed states in the nation. As if this were not enough, the territory has also presented an essential development of blockchain technology initiatives, which will directly benefit from the recently passed legislation.

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Crypto News

Zilliqa (ZIL) Mainnet Launch Postponed For January 2019, According To Its Co-Founder, Amrit Kumar

Zilliqa (ZIL) team just stated that its mainnet roll-out would be postponed until January 2019. Keeping in mind that the platform kept up with their work plan up to now, the announcement that the Zilliqa mainnet launch is delayed took the Zilliqa community by surprise.

Blockchain technology holds a lot of promise for a variety of sectors of activity, but scalability is still the most challenging issue this technology is facing, involving anything from the Bitcoin (BTC) legacy technology to the Ethereum (ETH) standard of the industry.

Zilliqa (ZIL) is the 30th cryptocurrency in the market with a market cap of over $331 million, while it is the second-largest cryptocurrency and blockchain coming from Singapore. Its primary purpose is to tackle the blockchain technology’s scalability issues.

Zilliqa’s objective is to reduce the scaling limitations of blockchain technologies on which cryptocurrencies are running by deploying sharding, which splits blockchain networks into pieces, enabling it to handle several simultaneous transactions, not only by enhancing the scalability but also by decreasing the vast amounts of computing power needed.

Zilliqa (ZIL) mainnet roll out postponed to the disappointment of the Zilliqa community

The Zilliqa community has long-awaited the deployment of the Zilliqa (ZIL) mainnet during Q3 2018. However, the devs team stated they had to postpone the mainnet launch. This announcement came as a huge shocker for the community and some Zilliqa community’s members showed their disappointment on social networks.

However, the Zilliqa (ZIL) mainnet would launch in January 2019.

“In recent weeks, we have had extensive discussions to revise the schedule in light of these improvements. Unfortunately, we will need more time to ensure that the code is properly tested by the core team, the community and last but not least, the established audit firms,” said Amrit Kumar, Zilliqa co-founder, trying to explain the reasons behind the postponing of the Zilliqa (ZIL) mainnet launch.

At the moment of this article, Zilliqa (ZIL) trades at $0.043, appreciating by a shallow 0.17% in the last 24 hours.

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