Items tagged with cryptocurrency
Believe it or not, Bitcoin at the time of this writing is trading at $19,330.80, and will be probably be even higher by the time I finish writing this article. Why is that? Good question, and nobody seems to have a definitive answer. Perhaps there is no single explanation, and this is just how it goes with the volatile cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin is the digital currency that put cryptocurrency on the map. It also contributed to the GPU shortage that is not unlike the one we have now (just for different reasons), because everyone and their uncle was snatching them up to mine. And when mining largely switched to specialized ASIC hardware, Ethereum stepped in, which people mined and trade for...
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When cryptocurrency is stolen, it tends to vanish into thin air without no obvious means for recourse. It would typically involve moving the currency across many accounts and disbursing it, so it is slowly spread out. It seems that the hackers that stole over $1 billion in Bitcoin from Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht were not wise enough, however. The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that they had seized the cryptocurrency from the unnamed hacker. Before 2013, the Silk Road was the underground market on the dark web. Illegal drugs, weapons, and other illicit things were sold using Bitcoin as the main currency. It was optimal as it was hard to track due to its decentralized design....
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Remember when you could not find a mid-range or high-end graphics card to save your life, because the cryptocurrency miners were hogging them all? Things changed when mining in large part shifted from GPUs to specialized ASIC hardware, the cryptocurrency boom came to an end. Well, sort of. Bitcoin has held strong, and it also just got a boost from PayPay, which announced it will be accepting cryptocurrency payments in the near future. Wild times, folks. It is an interesting move, in part because cryptocurrency mining and trading has not exactly been a mainstream topic this past year. PayPal seems to be showing up late to the party, but is evidently confident that the crypto scene has legs, particularly...
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A number of supercomputers across Europe have been targeted by malware that focuses on mining for cryptocurrency (Monero). The malware has forced supercomputers in the UK, Germany, and Switzerland to be shutdown as operators investigate the security incidents. The high-performance computing center in Spain was also reportedly targeted by a malware attack. The first reported attack surfaced last Monday and came from the University of Edinburg, home of the ARCHER supercomputer. The university reported that there was a "security exploitation on the ARCHER login nodes." ARCHER operators shutdown the system for an investigation, and all SSH passwords were reset to prevent further intrusions. In Germany,...
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Atari has announced a new casino gaming system that it says has no local restrictions because of its use of cryptocurrencies. The gaming company says that its dedicated Atari Casino team has designed the service to provide users with the best online casino experience to date. The casino has a "collection of all the best Atari games" and boasts popular casino games as well. Stakes are adjustable for each player allowing users to always find a table in a game that's right for them. The casino has no local restrictions, and oddly there is no mention of age restrictions. Atari promises that payouts will arrive to players quickly because crypto transactions are faster than bank transfers. Standard...
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There might be a filthy 'RAT' (remote access trojan) lurking inside your PC, but do not bother calling pest control. We are not talking about the actual rodent, but a trojan that security researchers are calling InnfiRAT. This nasty bit of code is written in .NET and is designed to access and steal personal data from infected PCs, and specifically cryptocurrency wallet information. That includes Bitcoin and Litecoin, two of the more popular forms of cryptocurrency. According to security researchers at Zscaler, InnfiRAT also helps itself to browser cookies to steal stored usernames and passwords, along with session data. Those activities are concerning, but the malware is even more nefarious in...
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Sometimes, news reports regarding free money can sound a bit too good to be true – especially anytime cryptocurrency is involved. That was most definitely the case when we first heard about Satoshi’s Treasure, which is an online scavenger hunt that will net the winner a sweet prize worth $1 million in Bitcoin. The $1 million scavenger hunt first kicked off back in April, but along the way, there have been side quests with additional payouts in Bitcoin. Today, a fourteenth clue that will lead to the jackpot prize has been released, and it is worth an additional $70,000 in Bitcoin. The key to unlock this side quest is found in the image below: (Click to Enlarge) The clue provided...
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The cryptocurrency market is full of peaks and valleys but at the moment, it appears that Bitcoin has hit a peak. Bitcoin surged past $11,000 USD for the first time in a year. The value of Bitcoin has jumped by 13% in the last 24 hours. Although the cyrptocurrency’s value dropped slightly once the heat of the excitement wore off, it is currently sitting pretty at roughly $10,600. Other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum have also hit a ten-month high. Bitcoin reached an all-time high in December 2017 at nearly $20,000. Its value dipped by 74% at the beginning of 2018, thanks to a slew of cryptocurrency regulations. A Bitcoin was only worth roughly $3,100 at the end of December 2018, but...
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The era of cryptocurrency is not behind us, apparently. One look at Bitcoin's value—it sits at around $9,143 currently—indicates that there is room for at least one type of digital coin, even after the crypto-bubble burst last year in general. It is not just Bitcoin, though. Facebook is making a major move into the cryptocurrency space and has the backing of some major payment firms. Facebook's new and open-source digital currency is called Libra. It will be managed by Calibra, a newly formed Facebook subsidiary, with the goal of providing financial services all around the globe while leveraging blockchain technology. The first product that Calibra will introduce is a digital wallet...
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It has been a tough year for cryptocurrency mining, following what had been a banner year in which several digital currencies skyrocketed in value, before plummeting (and in some cases, disappearing altogether). Is the ride over? For some, yes. But not for everyone, and Apple is introducing a feature in iOS 13 that could give the cryptocurrency market a kick in the pants. Maybe. It's called CryptoKit, and we will know more about it later today when Apple discusses it at WWDC. In the meantime, there are some details that we already know. In the early going, Apple describes CryptoKit as a new Swift framework that is supposed to make it easier and safer to perform cryptographic operations. That...
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Authorities in the U.S. have announced that they have been successful in breaking a ring of hackers who had been running a scam to hijack SIM cards and steal cryptocurrency from the victims of the crime. Court documents in the case allege that the group, known as "The Community," had stolen about $2.4 million in cryptocurrency. Six people from the hacking ring were named in court documents in the case. The indictment came from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, and it alleges that six people living around the U.S. and Ireland were part of The Community. The SIM hijacking scheme that the group pulled off involved them using bribery or trickery to convince mobile phone...
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The cryptocurrency market has taken a beating over the past year, but if there is a Rocky Balboa among the bunch, it is undoubtedly Bitcoin, the virtual currency that just will not stay down. In fact, Bitcoin saw a sudden increase in value on Tuesday, rising 15 percent to $4,800. That is the highest value Bitcoin has seen since November. At least one cryptocurrency exchange had Bitcoin trading even higher, at $5,000. As it stands at the time of this writing, Coinbase has it going for $4,745.62, which is up 14.73 percent (+$609.06) in the past 24 hours. If nothing else, this further underscores how volatile the cryptocurrency market has always been since it swung onto the mainstream radar. So,...
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The Bitcoin boom has generally gone bust, and as a result, we just don't hear as much about cryptocurrency as a major market mover as we used to. The value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies crashed last summer, leaving many investors hurting and lots of crypto mining rigs with expensive GPUs running idle and unused. The good news for gamers is that the crash of crypto meant graphics cards were finally available at reasonable prices. Further, a new report has been published today that throws more shade on the legitimacy of Bitcoin trading as a currency itself. The analysis was published by Bitwise this week and found that unregulated currency exchanges actually fake 95% of Bitcoin...
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Hold onto your wallet. Researchers at ESET have discovered the first known instance of a relatively new strain of cryptocurrency-stealing malware, called a "clipper", on the Google Play Store. They reported their findings to the Play Store's security team on February 1st, who quickly took down the offending application. The attack uses a remarkably simple trick to part users with their digital funds. Cryptocurrency values are assigned to a long, unique string of characters known as a wallet. In order to make a transaction, a sender typically needs to enter the recipient's wallet address in their app. This is similar to how you would put a real-world address on an envelope in order for it to be...
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Facebook might be joining the blockchain party in a potentially big way, by developing its very own cryptocurrency that would enable users to transfer money over WhatsApp, the cross-platform messaging service the company acquired in early 2014 for $19 billion. On the surface, blockchain and WhatsApp seem like a natural fit. The appeal of WhatsApp is that it utilizes end-to-end encryption and is viewed as a secured messaging platform. It's also available to the public at large and boasts over 1.5 billion monthly users, who collectively send 60 billion messages every day, according to data Mark Zuckerberg provided for the fourth quarter of 2017. Those figures are undoubtedly even higher today....
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Cryptocurrency has been a hot topic in 2018, and Google claims that “What is bitcoin?” was one of its top questions this year. A lot of people (and companies) jumped on the cryptocurrency train, including Razer. The company is now offering users store credit in exchange for cryptocurrency mining. But is this program too good to be true? Many argue that the Razer SoftMiner rewards program is misleading and exploitative. How does this rather confusing program work? Users are asked to download SoftMiner, a blockchain-based app that has been integrated into Razer’s software. The software is supposed to run silently in the background and draw upon a user’s idle GPU resources....
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HTC is accepting pre-orders for a new flagship phone, though there is a caveat. Users can only purchase the Exodus 1, as it's called with cryptocurrencies—specifically either Bitcoin or Ethereum, the two most popular blockchain currencies in existence. It is, for all intents and purposes, a blockchain phone and not a typical Android handset. That would not be evident at first glance of the specs. The Exodus 1 sports a 6-inch HD+ display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor and 6GB of RAM. It also features 128GB of onboard storage, dual 8-megapixel cameras on the front with "natural Bokeh," 12-megapixel and 16-megapixel cameras on the rear, and...
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At least for the time being, it looks like the mad rush to buy graphics cards for cryptocurrency mining and leave gamers with overpriced options is in the rear view mirror. That doesn't mean cryptocurrency mining doesn't still present an annoyance in some sectors, though. Security researchers warn that cryptocurrency malware is currently hiding in a fake Adobe Flash update that is making the rounds. Adobe Flash can't disappear fast enough. In the meantime, it continues to present security issues, sometimes directly through discovered vulnerabilities, or in this case preying on the vigilance of users who aim to keep it updated to prevent the very sort of thing caused by the fake and malicious...
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Let's start with the good news. Cryptocurrency mining on GPUs has waned considerably, and the shortage of graphics cards that made it nearly impossible to score a mid-range or high-end GPU at or near MSRP is over (for the most part). Are you ready for the bad news? Be that as it may, cryptocurrency mining hacks are on the rise, and a leaked tool by the US National Security Agency (NSA) may be partially to blame. That's the takeaway from a new report by Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA), a cybersecurity association with some major names among its members, including Cisco, Juniper Networks, McAfee, Sophos, Symantec, and others. The tool in question is "EternalBlue," developed by the NSA and leaked last...
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If you've invested heavily in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum over the past year, you probably need a stiff drink right about now. The cryptocurrency "boom" is no more, and values are heading south, much to the chagrin of crypto miners that thought mining with off-the-shelf [and custom] hardware would bring them digital fortunes. Take Bitcoin, for example; the cryptocurrency fell to as little as $5,900 in the past 24 hours before rebounding to just over 6,000 as of this writing. As recently as May, Bitcoin was trading at around $10,000 and in late 2017, it was topping $19,000. In total, Bitcoin is down 68 percent from its meteoric high. Things are looking worse over in Ethereum...
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When it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges, most of the news that we hear is regards to the latest hack attempt, where poor souls lose millions of dollars (usually never to be seen again). This Wild Wild West atmosphere in the cryptocurrency market has led many to doubt the sustainability of investing in Ethereum and Bitcoin. However, Coinbase is doing its best to help legitimize its cryptocurrency exchange in the eyes of investors with the hiring of veteran finance exec Jeff Horowitz. Horowitz served as the managing director and global head of compliance for Bank of New York Mellon Corp. subsidiary Pershing LLC. In his new role, Horowitz will serve as Coinbase's chief compliance...
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The ups and downs of the cryptocurrency market have meant that it's been a wild year for PC gamers. Cryptocurrency miners rushed out to purchases hordes of NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, which drove up the prices for people that just wanted to play Doom in 4K without having to pay an arm and a leg for a graphics card. Luckily, graphics cards prices are starting to fall back to normalcy as the cryptocurrency craze wanes, and the latest deal to come as a result is on the MSI Gaming Radeon RX 580 8G V1. Amazon has the card on sale for $259.99 with free two-day shipping for Amazon Prime members. To make the deal even sweeter, there is a $30 mail-in rebate that brings the...
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