##Major Singapore Bank: Central Bank Interest in Crypto and Gold Surged Following COVID-19

 

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DBS report showed that cryptocurrencies have grown amid the COVID-19 pandemic and central banks are “troubled and intrigued” by that fact.

The Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation DBS Bank has compiled a report on cryptocurrencies and the recent developments in the sector. The paper noted that central banks are both “troubled and intrigued” by the growing role of digital assets in today’s world, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic.

DBS Bank: Cryptocurrencies Are Growing

Headquartered in Marina Bay, DBS Bank is among the largest banks in the region. In its recent paper on cryptocurrencies, DBS said that while they were once perceived by central banks as entirely speculative assets with little-to-no real-life utilization, they have outgrown that mantra and have “captured the investor zeitgeist.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken by central banks have only highlighted their merits and accelerated the developments in the field, the paper added.

“Ever since central banks around the world embarked on an unprecedented expansion of their balance sheets to combat the COVID-19 pandemic-related economic headwinds, interest in cryptocurrencies, along with gold, has resurged.”

Although the paper outlined that Bitcoin’s maximum cap of 21 million makes it an enticing investment instrument or a store of value, it also brought up a poll indicating compelling results.

Nearly 35% of participants have responded that they employ BTC and other digital assets for online payments and purchases. At the same time, less than 25% of all answers go to “general interest in it as a technology, short-term investment, and long-term investment.”

##How the Ethereum Classic hacker stole $5.6 million from OKEx

 

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OKEx explains how the person who attacked the Ethereum Classic network managed to steal millions of dollars from its exchange.

In brief

OKEx explains how the recent 51% attack on Ethereum Classic was used to steal $5.6 million in crypto.

The hacker allegedly confused the community into switching from ETC mainnet to a "shadow chain."

The alternative transaction history was modified to redirect over 800,000 ETC from OKEx to the hacker's addresses.

Crypto exchange OKEx published a new report on Saturday, detailing how the perpetrator of the recent 51% attacks on Ethereum Classic (ETC) managed to steal $5.6 million of cryptocurrency using its platform.

As Decrypt reported, Ethereum Classic’s blockchain was recently hit by two consecutive 51% attacks on August 1 and August 6. Gaining control over 51% or more of the network’s hash power, the hacker—or a group—snatched around $5.6 million worth of cryptocurrencies during the first strike. Here’s how it went down.

Preparing for the attack

According to OKEx, the hacker began preparing for the attacks as far back as June 26, creating five phony accounts on the platform. Notably, all of them also passed the second and third levels of know-your-customer (KYC) procedures and got their withdrawal limits increased

Starting on July 30, these accounts deposited around 68,230 ZEC privacy coins on OKEx combined. Simultaneously, the hacker had been building a “shadow chain” of the ETC blockchain—an alternative record of transaction history hidden from other miners.

On July 31, the attacker’s accounts traded all of their ZEC for ETC, receiving a total of 807,260 coins that were worth around $5.6 million at the time. ETC were then transferred to the hacker’s external addresses.

The hacker starts the attack

Later that day, the hacker launched a 51% attack on Ethereum Classic, initiating his shadow chain. At this point, both the legit and malicious transaction histories contained the records of 807,260 ETC being transferred from OKEx to the hacker’s external addresses.

During the attack, the hacker sent all of the previously received Ethereum Classic coins back to OKEx and traded them for around 78,900 ZEC, which he immediately withdrew.

Because over 51% of the blockchain’s hash power was under the hacker’s control at this point, he was able to mine new blocks faster than other nodes, making the shadow chain longer than the original ETC history. Combined with inefficient communication between exchanges, wallets and miners, this confused the Ethereum community and prompted nodes to start mining the malicious shadow chain from now on.

However, the hacker had manipulated his version of the transaction history—which now became the main one. In it, the 807,260 ETC were recorded as being sent not to OKEx, but to the attacker’s other addresses, making it so that the coins were never sent back to the exchange.

This way, the hacker had convinced OKEx that it had deposited funds—before making it so that the funds were never deposited in the first place. This is how OKEx lost its money.

OKEx blacklisted the addresses that were allegedly used by the hacker and suspended his five accounts. In the future, the platform also plans to increase confirmation times for ETC deposits and withdrawals. And, if the network can’t become more secure, the exchange might even delist it altogether.

#Crypto.com will sell Bitcoin at “50% off” in September, here’s why

 

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Hong Kong-based crypto exchange and card provider Crypto.com is launching an attractive competition for Bitcoin fanatics in September, ahead of its “public beta” exit.

Bitcoin at 50% off on Crypto.com

The Crypto.com Exchange will exit its public beta on September 8, 2020, almost a year after launching in private beta and opening the floodgates to the public. Millions of dollars in transactions and trades later, the exchange is rolling out its launch in all markets where the Crypto.com App is available.

Hong Kong-based crypto exchange and card provider Crypto.com is launching an attractive competition for Bitcoin fanatics in September, ahead of its “public beta” exit.

Bitcoin at 50% off on Crypto.com

The Crypto.com Exchange will exit its public beta on September 8, 2020, almost a year after launching in private beta and opening the floodgates to the public. Millions of dollars in transactions and trades later, the exchange is rolling out its launch in all markets where the Crypto.com App is available.

As a token of appreciation, Crypto.com is presenting a Bitcoin Syndicate Special, featuring BTC at 50% off with USD$2M allocation, it shared in a release with CryptoSlate. 

This event will commence on Tuesday, 8 September 2020 at 6 AM UTC on the Crypto.com Exchange. Users can stake a minimum of 5,000 CRO on the Exchange and trade at least $5,000 USD worth of volume in the past 30 days on the Exchange to subscribe.

The total sale amount & subscription price is as follows:

Total BTC Supply: $2,000,000 USD worth of BTC

Discount rate: 50%

Syndicate Allocation: Each participant’s maximum amount of CRO that can be applied towards the event will depend on the amount of CRO Staked on the Crypto.com Exchange.

As a note — the maximum allocation in CRO stated in the table above is indicative and for reference only. A final maximum allocation will be made available on Crypto.com on September 8.

Syndicate Allocation Subscription

Crypto.com Exchange users will be able to subscribe for BTC by contributing an amount of CRO  not exceeding their respective maximum allocation. Staked CRO may not be used to subscribe for BTC in this event, the firm said.

Crypto.com Exchange users will need to trade at least $5,000 USD worth of volume in the past 30 days on the Crypto.com Exchange in order to be eligible to subscribe.

The release said that “the past 30-day trading volume is calculated every day at 00:50:00 UTC; thus, the volume calculated as of 8 September 2020 00:50:00 UTC will be used to determine one’s eligibility.”

Event participants are expected to receive their finalized BTC allocation at Distribution Time. If the total contributed amount for the event is above the total discounted allocation, each individual participant’s final BTC coin allocation will be calculated as follows:

##Ethereum Fees Race Towards $10 Per Transaction

 

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The ethereum blockchain has become very expensive with network fees reaching all time high and by far, giving miners some $7 million a day, 7x more than for bitcoin miners.

Average transaction fees are now nearly double that of the very peak in January 2018, standing at $5.67 per transaction on average.

That was for yesterday, today they’ve increased further from 200 gwei to 300 gwei per simple transaction.

Ethereum fees all time high, Aug 2020

While simple transactions may still be cheap at $3 or $4, contract transactions are becoming very expensive with an etherean claiming he was asked to pay $600 in eth fees.

4Chan has a screenshot, which unfortunately we didn’t save, of being asked to pay 0.3 eth in gas fees, about $120

When we tried to testrun Yam, we were asked to pay about $9 just to give the contract permission.

We didn’t go ahead with it because by the time we got to the deposit stage, all the test-run funds would have run out, so considering what happened after with Yam, there may well be some small benefits to these high fees.

This used to be just 20 gwei but defi has now taken over with Uniswap being the top gas users.

That’s an onchain permissionless broker where all sorts of tokens are traded with its volumes skyrocketing.

Uniswap trading volumes, Aug 2020

Because of this froth, plenty are seemingly happy to pay these high fees because of all the token giveaways in the hope they make a profit anyway.

However, some claim it now costs $40 even to enter a second layer, like Loopring, with it unclear what miners plan to do.

Miners gas vote, Aug 2020

They seemingly want to increase it maybe to 15 million as uncle rates are still very low, but last time they got shouted at by the Geth maintainer.

So the pressure is primarily on dapp developers to get second layers, but that takes time, skill and effort.

Meaning miners could increase capacity a bit as ethereum is not even running at 2MB per ten minutes like bitcoin, but that would be just buying time which is just what we need as we wait for ethereum to go Proof of Stake by being merged with eth2 hopefully next summer according to Danny Ryan, the ethereum 2.0 coordinator.

##Kazakhstan wants to put 15% tax on Bitcoin miners

 

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A 15% tax on Bitcoin mining firms has been proposed to build the infrastructure needed to combat the pandemic.

Kazakhstan has proposed a new 15% tax on Bitcoin mining companies with an aim to boost the economy in the wake of COVID-19. To date, the virus has killed over 1,300 Kazakhs.

According to Bitooda, a crypto research company, Kazakhstan accounts for approximately 8% of the total Bitcoin hash rate, which measures the processing power of the Bitcoin network. The central Asian country also hosts the joint third-largest Bitcoin mining industry, alongside Iran and Russia. Given Kazakhstan’s importance to the mining community, this tax proposal has global implications for Bitcoin.

Didar Bekbaouv, co-founder of Kazakh mining company Xive, told Decrypt a tax on Bitcoin mining will “lower investment attractiveness of doing crypto mining business in Kazakhstan.”

How did the proposal come about?

In March of 2018, the National Bank of Kazakhstan’s then-chairman, Daniyar Akishev, proposed banning exchanges of cryptocurrency for the national currency, describing crypto as an “ideal instrument for money laundering and tax evasion.”

But three months later, then-President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev suggested a global approach to regulating crypto. “It is necessary to start developing common rules,” he said.

“The draft proposes not to tax cryptocurrency revenue itself, but rather the proceeds from converting crypto into fiat,” said Bekbaouv in May of this year, adding, “That is, you’d need to pay an income tax once you sell your BTC on a crypto exchange.”

Normally Bitcoin miners have to worry about the fine details of electricity prices, now it might be a whopping great tax.

##How to keep your Bitcoin safe and secure

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With over $1 billion in Bitcoin stolen to date, it's vital to keep yours secure. There are a wealth of wallet options, depending on your requirements.




In brief

With over $1 billion in Bitcoin stolen to date, the need for secure storage options has never been greater.


Options for storing your Bitcoin include hardware wallets, metal wallets, software wallets and exchange wallets.


Each Bitcoin storage solution has its own advantages and disadvantages, but there are many options depending on your needs.


Keeping your Bitcoin safe might seem like a simple task, but as a myriad of thefts, phishing attacks, and exchange hacks prove—it's easier said than done.


The majority of Bitcoin holders use one of four main types of cryptocurrency wallet: hardware, software, metal, and exchange wallets. Some are better than others for keeping your Bitcoin safe, but there are many ways to maximize your security regardless of which option you choose



When it comes to keeping your Bitcoin private keys secure, hardware wallets are widely considered to be the safest option. Hardware wallets are physical security vaults that are designed to protect your Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) from a range of possible attacks, while also ensuring you can access and spend your cryptocurrencies with relative ease.


Hardware wallets vary considerably in form, function, and price. They range from the $49 KeepKey wallet, to the $119 Bluetooth multi-asset Ledger Nano X, and $120 Bitcoin-centric Coldcard Mk3 and beyond.



This has led to some ingenious workarounds to protect and secure the recovery phrase from prying eyes, including writing it in UV-sensitive ink under a dummy phrase,  and even dividing the recovery phrase up between several safety deposit boxes.



Software wallets


Software wallets are one of the most popular ways to store Bitcoin among mobile users, since many can be used to manage a wide variety of cryptocurrencies from most mobile devices. There are also desktop versions of many software wallets, allowing users to manage their own private keys on Linux, macOS, and Windows.





Some of the most popular Bitcoin wallets are software wallets, including Electrum, Jaxx Liberty, and Exodus—all of which are available for both desktop and mobile operating systems. However, even the most secure options lack some of the security features of hardware wallets.


In order to maximize your security with a software wallet, we recommend picking one that features two-factor authentication (2FA). It's also important to ensure you're protected against viruses, keyloggers and other malware, since these can exfiltrate your private keys and seed phrases if not blocked.




Metal wallets are physical metal plates or devices that can be used to securely store recovery phrases, private keys, and potentially other sensitive information offline. Since they're constructed out of metal, they are inherently fireproof and corrosion-resistant, while some, like the Cryptosteel and Cypherwheel, are also crush-resistant.


Unlike the other options on this list, metal wallets are not designed for actually using Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. They simply act as a means to store secret information in a more robust way than an insecure paper wallet. They're more resilient than even the most robust hardware wallets, and several feature built-in anti-tamper mechanisms. They're most useful for long-term storage in a secure location, since they won't afford you instant access to your funds.


Cryptocurrency exchanges

Cryptocurrency exchanges have much to recommend them, including instant access to funds, plus the ability to quickly trade your Bitcoin for other cryptoassets. However, compared to other methods of storing your Bitcoin, they are generally considered to be a less secure option. Well over 1 million Bitcoin—currently worth almost $1 billion—has been stolen from exchanges, according to a 2019 report by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.


They are also custodial, which means they hold custody of any fund stored in their accounts, leaving users without access to their private keys. "Not your keys, not your Bitcoin" is a common refrain among those cryptocurrency advocates who reject the idea of storing their crypto on an exchange. Of course, it's worth noting that many exchanges, including the major ones such as Gemini, Coinbase and Bittrex, are insured—protecting users against a range of threats including insider theft and cyberattacks.


Despite their limitations, exchanges remain an extremely popular way to store cryptocurrencies, due to the simple fact that they're typically convenient and easy to use.



They also differ in their security stack, including their use of cold storage and account-side security features. We'd recommend sticking to exchanges that use multi-signature cold storage and offer two-factor authentication for accounts. Some exchanges, such as Binance, also let you use a hardware key for 2FA, adding an additional layer of security.