The financial institution believes that the pioneering cryptocurrency must transform its potential into results. The bank noted that the next three years should be a turning point for Bitcoin.

German bank Deutsche Bank recently released a report highlighting that Bitcoin is too important to ignore. They attribute that to the fact that the cryptocurrency has 1 trillion US dollars of capitalization. The report stated that the crypto asset is here to stay, but will maintain its volatility in the markets.

Analyst Marion Laboure conducted a research study entitled “Bitcoins: Can the Tinkerbell Effect Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?” She highlighted that the cryptocurrency must transform its potential into long-term results o maintain its value proposition.

Bitcoin’s situation is comparable to that of Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric car manufacturer, according to Laboure. The researcher thinks that Bitcoin needs to face the challenge of transforming finance. As for the car factory, she believes that it has to be disruptive in the fossil fuel-based automotive world.

According to the analyst, both Tesla and Bitcoin are changing and leading their respective segments. She predicted that the electric vehicle company and Bitcoin would continue to dominate their markets. However, she explained that both of them must maximize their potential to achieve that goal.

Laboure said that the increasing number of companies and fund managers entering the market will continue to drive the price of Bitcoin higher. She added that “the value of Bitcoin will continue to rise and fall depending on what people believe it is worth.” This is the so-called “Tinkerbell effect”, that is, something is more likely to happen if more people believe in it. That explanation is based on Peter Pan’s claim that Tinkerbell exists because children believe in her.

Global Bitcoin Adoption Would Keep Growing

Another factor why Laboure believes that no one should ignore Bitcoin is its continuous price rise. In general, banks and governments are convinced that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will not reverse.

Governments would create new regulations to apply at the end of 2021 or early 2022, seeking to exert greater control. This happens because a minimum of 30% of the transactional activity of Bitcoin is related to the payment of goods and services. The rest, that is 70%, goes to financial investment, according to the researcher.

“The next two to three years should be a turning point for Bitcoin. Consensus about its future may emerge as people follow the evolution of the digital currency,” added the bank’s report. The financial institution states that Bitcoin is a digital token “with no backing or intrinsic value.”

On other occasions, Deutsche Bank has spoken positively about cryptocurrencies. For example, the institution predicted in 2019 that crypto assets will be the alternative to national fiat currencies by 2030.

Last November, the bank even assured, regarding digital currencies, that they were ready for the next “age of money”. With this, the institution proved to be aware of the strength that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are gaining in the world market.

By Alexander Salazar

Among the new cryptocurrencies, the less popular stands out: Livepeer. Grayscale had already registered these funds with US authorities.

The investment firm Grayscale is extending its offer of funds for its clients, with the launch of new products that focus on the cryptocurrencies Chainlink (LINK), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Filecoin (FIL), Decentraland (MANA), and livepeer (LPT).

The company spoke about the launch of these new investment funds. These funds work like those of the other cryptocurrencies already existing in their offer, Grayscale explains in the text.

Now, the firm exposures to a total of 13 cryptocurrencies, adding its investment funds in bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash, ethereum classic (ETC), and other relevant criptocurrencies. Also, they have a mixed fund, called Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund, which allows investment in a package of assets with the highest market capitalization.

Regarding the new coins that appear in the list, the company explained that it responds to investors’ increasing demand for more options and features in the world of cryptocurrencies.

‘Digital currencies have reached a tipping point. Investor demand has never been higher, and we see new entrants every day,” said Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale.

Some Big Cryptocurrencies and the Arrival of LPT to Grayscale

Among the new currencies that arrived at this digital asset manager, there is LINK, the token of the Chainlink oracle network that also runs on the Ethereum blockchain. This cryptocurrency is ranking in the top 10.

 FIL is also at the top of the 20 most valuable assets on the market. Among the top 60, we also can find BAT, the Brave browser’s rewards token, and MANA from the virtual reality platform on Ethereum, Decentraland.

Also, a case that has unleashed a considerable amount of curiosity is the arrival of LPT to Grayscale. The token of the Livepeer network, a platform for videos and live broadcasts, is one of the lesser-known currencies out there. This coin does not even appear among the 200 with the largest market capitalization.

Of the 5, the cryptocurrency with the most significant reaction to the news was precisely LPT. In just 24 hours, it multiplied its price and now exceeds $ 15 per unit, a new all-time high. BAT (40% up), FIL, which is up more than 30%, and LINK (up 9%) have also quickly benefited from the market.

MANA, on the other hand, reacted negatively to its arrival at Grayscale. The Decentraland token fell 3.5% in the last 24 hours, although in a range of one week, its price rose about 80%, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The Timing of Institutional Investments in Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies

A company that decides to invest millions of dollars in the cryptocurrency market is a widespread event nowadays. This event happens mainly with bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency in the market and already recognized by many influential personalities in the financial world as a good value store option.

Grayscale’s crypto fund grew with that same wave and surpassed $ 36 billion in assets under its custody. Therefore, this expansion in their offer is not strange, something that they have constantly been evaluating, beyond having closed their fund in ripple (XRP) at the beginning of the year.

The firm had already announced some of these cryptocurrencies’ arrival, registering six new funds with US authorities. From that list, only the tezos investment fund (XTZ) would be open.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Ledger will soon be hiring and training 60 more employees to generate a new business unit. The core of ‘Enterprise Solutions’ will be the already existing Ledger Vault custody service.

The Ledger Company, a manufacturer of hardware wallets for Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies, will create from scratch a new business unit specialized in institutional clients. Ledger Enterprise Solutions will provide training, as well as consulting and auditing services.

As a company, this new area’s goal is “to help institutional clients address the implementation of technology, security, and governance in their crypto-asset wallets.”

The core of Enterprise Solutions will be Ledger Vault, a cryptocurrency custody service launched in 2018. Among the vault features, users can find “the use of hardware security modules and personal security devices.”

“We recognize the drastic need for enterprise-grade solutions to maintain and secure digital assets,” said The Vice President of Business Solutions at Ledger.

For this new business unit’s development, Ledger, which already counts on at least 50 professionals in its ranks, will hire another 60 qualified workers during 2021. As reported in a press release, it is to “enable for the crypto industry to become a multi-billion dollar industry globally. ‘

Ledger Seizes Corporate Interest in Bitcoin

Since 2020, many institutional investors began to incorporate bitcoin as a reserve asset in their treasuries.

Gigantic corporations such as MicroStrategy, Tesla, and Square join the list of companies that consider the cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto to be a good store of value. As a result, Ledger’s new business unit seeks to leverage corporate interest by offering specially tailored services for these types of customers.

Among the companies, Ledger currently competes with firms specializing in custody technology, such as Anchorage, BitGo, Fireblocks, and Curv. The latter is now the acquisition of the online payments giant PayPal.

Ledger Keeps Working on its Hardware Wallets

The creation of the Enterprise Solutions unit will not play down the products that Ledger creates for its private users. The best known are the Ledger Nano S and Nano X wallets. These physical devices (hardware wallets) seek greater security than wallets for computers or mobile devices. Like these, they allow the self-custody of the coins without the need for a trusted third party.

Thanks to regular software updates, Ledger wallets constantly add new cryptocurrencies and features. One of the most recent is the possibility of storing and staking Polkadot directly from the device.

Ledger’s hardware wallets are multicurrency tools that serve as storage and private keys for cryptocurrencies. These tools also help to lead transactions using cryptocurrencies and with the use of cryptographic private keys.

Cryptocurrency users have developed alternative systems to store their values. These include hot wallets (which are online), mobile wallets (wallets in smartphones), and even paper wallets (stored on paper).

Hardware wallets are another way to store values offline. A hardware wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet that saves the user’s private keys (a critical piece of information used to authorize outgoing transactions on the blockchain network) in a secure hardware device.

By: Jenson Nuñez

A man claims that he lost his early retirement fund as a victim of a scam. Blockchain analytics company Whale Alert warns that scams will be bigger in 2021 than in 2020.

In the world of cryptocurrencies, the increase in the number of cases of scams does not seem to stop. For that reason, Bitcoin (BTC) users must be very careful about promises of so-called quick profits.

A man from Germany recently fell into the hands of cybercriminals who used a Twitter account in the name of Elon Musk. They promised that they would give away a large amount of Bitcoin to whoever sent a small sum of that cryptocurrency.

The victim sent a total of 10 BTC to a wallet that supposedly belonged to the businessman. He wanted to enter sweepstakes that the Tesla founder was allegedly promoting, according to the BBC news channel.

This man, who did not reveal his identity, said that he received a message from a fake Twitter account bearing the name of Musk. The criminals wrote “Dojo 4 Doge?” together with a link, which awoke his curiosity leading him to click on it.

Upon entering the website, he read that they were giving away Bitcoin and inviting to send between 0.1 BTC and 20 BTC. According to the text in question, the team that the CEO of Tesla leads would send double the amount delivered.

The website displayed a countdown timer, indicating how long the “lucky ones” had to wait to receive “the gift”. The clock reached zero, but the victim received nothing, which made him realize that he had fallen into a scam.

“I just thought that I had thrown away my early retirement fund and all the future vacations with my children. I went up the stairs, woke up my wife, and told her that I had made a big mistake,” the victim said.

On the Trail of The Victim’s 10 BTC

An investigation by the Dutch blockchain analytics company Whale Alert indicates what happened to the victim’s 10 BTC. The cybercriminals transferred that amount and then exchanged it for fiat money anonymously several days later, the BBC news channel said.

According to the company’s investigators, scammers have stolen more money so far in 2021 than in previous years. “Sweepstakes gangs have made more than USD 18 million this year, compared to USD 16 million for all of 2020.”

Whale Alert co-founder Frank van Weert considers that scams are becoming increasingly successful. He says that there is no data to explain why, but he argues that the growth of the cryptocurrency market may have caused it.

The executive said that “when the price of Bitcoin goes up, people go crazy” about making a profit. He adds that “many of them are new to the market and believe that they will get money fast.”

Elon Musk Is Not Giving Away Bitcoin

The “gift” promises that appear on social media are often a scam similar to phishing. This consists of taking the place of an authority, company or person, to make the victim reveal his or her confidential information.

Real “gifts” generally come from so-called faucets, that is, those webpages that offer a minimum amount of cryptocurrencies in exchange for small tasks. The developers of some new tokens also send a small percentage to the holders of another but without asking them for anything in return.

By Alexander Salazar

The cybercriminal received a sentence as a “juvenile delinquent” to have a reduced sentence. The attorney stated that the teenager returned all the Bitcoin that he obtained from the scam.

The criminal who hacked Twitter in July 2020 to promote a Bitcoin (BTC) scam received a three-year prison sentence. Teenager Graham Ivan Clark admitted that he is guilty of the act to have a reduced sentence.

Prosecutors agreed to treat the 18-year-old American as a “juvenile delinquent” rather than as an adult. The “brain” behind the hack of the social network was 17 years old when it occurred. If he had faced prosecution as an adult, the minimum sentence would have been 10 years.

When Clark has served his sentence, he will remain on probation for three years. However, he may only use computers with the permission of the authorities. Besides, he must allow the authorities to search his property and he must surrender the keys to any account that he manages.

Other Crimes that Clark Has Committed

Among more than 30 charges the hacker is facing are wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and unauthorized access to computers. Clark’s arrest occurred just days after the incident, so he has already spent more than 200 days in prison.

“Graham Clark must pay for that crime and other potential scammers must see the consequences,” said Hillsborough (Florida) prosecutor Andrew Warren.

David Weisbrod, the hacker’s attorney, said that his client returned all the Bitcoin that he acquired from the scam. Clark obtained a total of 28 BTC, which was then equivalent to around USD 250,000 and currently exceeds USD 1,600,000.

Two others implicated in the case are Mason Sheppard (also known as “Chaewon”), a 19-year-old resident of the UK, and Nima Fazeli (also known as “Rolex”), a 22-year-old resident of Orlando, Florida. However, there were no details about the legal cases for which the authorities are prosecuting these two young men.

Hacking Twitter for Bitcoin

Last year’s Twitter is a major security breach in the history of the social network. The cybercriminals took control of the accounts of well-known figures from the world of entertainment, politics, and the Bitcoin ecosystem.

They breached the accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama, Wiz Khalifa, Joe Biden, Uber, Apple, and the Binance exchange, among others. They varied the messages slightly, depending on the accounts from which they posted them, but the purpose was to scam on behalf of Bitcoin.

For example, they shared the following message from Musk’s account: “Today I feel generous due to COVID-19. For that reason, I will double all the Bitcoin payments that I receive in my wallet within the next hour. Good luck to all and stay safe out there.”

More recently, a man from Germany said that he was the victim of cybercriminals using a Twitter account with the name of Musk. They promised in the message that they would deliver a large amount of Bitcoin to whoever sent a small amount of the cryptocurrency.

The victim lost a total of 10 BTC, which he sent to a wallet that supposedly belonged to the businessman. He claimed that he lost all of his early retirement fund and the future vacations with his children.

By Alexander Salazar

Buterin’s upgrade proposal would only apply to private keys to wallet addresses. The main objective of the upgrade is to increase the resistance to collisions.

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin recently published a proposal to improve the security of Ethereum wallet addresses. To do this, he proposes to increase their size from 20 to 32 bytes.

The purpose is to increase “the resistance to collisions that the hashes of public addresses have.” In other words, it seeks to prevent two different private keys from accessing the same public address.

The proposal that Buterin published would only apply to EOA private keys, which correspond to wallet addresses. This suggestion would not involve smart contracts, which would continue to use 20-byte addresses. However, it establishes the creation of a “translation table” (or algorithm) to compress and decompress new 32-byte addresses. That way, they will be able to work seamlessly with smart contracts.

Collision Resistance or “the Possible of the Impossible”

It is important to remember that a hash is a basic algorithm that has an input and an output in a single format. If the input has a minimal change, the output will be totally different.

Collision resistance refers to the impossibility of two different inputs generating the same output. Although it seems impossible, it is mathematically possible that it exists, that is, two different private keys could access the same public address.

Currently, the collision resistance of Ethereum addresses is 2^80. This indicates a low probability of creating two different inputs for the same output. In more visual terms, the value of 2^80 is a 1 plus another 32 digits.

The new update will increase the impossibility of having two different keys for the same address up to 2^160. The Bitcoin network currently has a collision resistance of 2^90, which makes it very resistant to collisions.

Although it is a present dilemma, vulnerability to such an attack requires the attacker to have very advanced cryptographic knowledge. Besides, he or she must have a supercomputer that allows executing a large number of iterations, until finding the corresponding hash entries.

Protection against Quantum Computing

A user inquired that Vitalik’s upgrade proposal should go hand in hand with protection against quantum computing. A potential surprise from quantum computing would involve an exponential growth in current computing power. That would break the private keys of cryptocurrencies, in addition to the cryptography of the Internet as people know it.

Responding to the user, Vitalik asserted that addresses of even 26 bytes are enough for the post-quantum era. If they do not accept 32-byte addresses, the Ethereum co-founder leaves open the alternative of using a 20-byte scheme.

Their use would have a divided format: 15 bytes for the address scheme and the remaining 5 to set identification. That would allow validating that the owner of the address is a single private key. The identifier would be the same set in the proposed 32-byte addresses.

By Alexander Salazar