A hacker who breached the security of Silk Road had the funds under his control. Another wallet, which the US government controls, received the transaction.

On November 5^th, it became public knowledge that the US criminal authorities seized 69,370 BTC related to the Silk Road case.

The Attorney General’s Office for the Northern District of California released a document on November 3^rd. The record indicates that the defendant – identified as “Individual X” – signed an agreement approving the seizure of the funds.

On the same date, the US government made the transaction from address 1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbh to a wallet that it controls.

The assets seized include about 69,370 BTC and equal amounts of Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Bitcoin SV (BSV), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The distribution method of these forks allowed the Bitcoin holders to claim equivalent amounts of cryptocurrencies on each network.

The authorities presumed that this address was under the control of Ross Ulbricht, so the story takes on new dimensions. However, the investigation revealed that Individual X managed to breach the security of Silk Road and take control of the wallet of his own free will.

Ulbricht became aware of the attack, which occurred at an unspecified time between 2011 and 2013. The now convict failed in his attempt to threaten Individual X to return cryptocurrencies. Although the hacker managed to rob Silk Road, he has not spent the bitcoins for at least eight years. It is now that the authorities have removed them from this wallet and seized them.

The judicial authorities seized the funds as these BTCs are involved in the trade of illegal chemicals. Furthermore, they say that Individual X obtained them under a hacking method, which is also illegal.

Blockchain Surveillance Tools Bear Fruit

Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics company, said that agents from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) criminal investigation division used the company’s services to track Silk Road transactions. In this way, they were able to identify 54 previously undetected fraudulent transactions.

The company highlights that the confirmation of this transfer for almost USD 1 billion came in minutes, thus demonstrating that cryptocurrencies are a unique and efficient technology.

They said that the confiscated bitcoins will become part of the Treasury Seizure Fund (TFF). There, the authorities will use them to improve blockchain surveillance tools.

Strong Position on Case of Ross Ulbricht

According to the US Department of Justice, Silk Road generated about 9.5 million BTC and collected fees of more than 600,000 BTC. Besides, it was responsible for 20% of Bitcoin transactions at the time.

Ross Ulbricht used a Bitcoin transaction mixer to obfuscate the identities of the website’s traders. Also, the authorities maintain their position on the charges of conspiracy, drug trafficking, and money laundering, among others. For these reasons, he received a sentence of two life sentences and 40 years in prison in 2013.

Some organizations advocate for Ulbright’s release, making public requests for the authorities to pardon his sentence, of which he has already served seven years.

Although it is still necessary to recover 400,000 BTC related to the Silk Road case, this new seizure has become a milestone in the history of Bitcoin. US judicial authorities now control the funds from the fourth address with the most bitcoins of the entire network.

By Alexander Salazar

KPMG’s Chain Fusion suite is combined with Coin Metrics risk management. The resulting services attempt to drive the institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies.

The consulting firm KPMG and Coin Metrics announced last Thursday, October 29, an alliance to offer analytical tools and cryptocurrency services that support the institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies, according to a joint press release.

The alliance combines Coin Metrics’ infrastructure data products with KPMG’s Chain Fusion platform, the statement said. Through this alliance, the possibility is offered for financial institutions to “take on the challenge of adopting crypto-assets in public blockchains,” the companies say in a downloadable technical document that explains the alliance.

Data from public blockchains must be collected and integrated into conventional information technology systems. On behalf of KPMG, the Chain Fusion software suite automates and simplifies that connection.

Coin Metrics integrates its risk analysis proposal, Farum, with KPMG software, which allows organizations to monitor and manage network attack attempts, commission volatility, and other risk events, according to the whitepaper.

Also, through the alliance, the services of the Atlas search tool from Coin Metrics are integrated, which provides access to on-chain data through a block explorer. The Atlas API component provides a uniform way to collect full node data from various blockchains, Claims Coin Metrics.

“The integration of Coin Metrics’ Atlas and Farum products with KPMG’s Chain Fusion provides a reliable foundation for digital asset adoption,” said Sal Ternulio, co-leader of KPMG’s Crypto Asset Services. The executive noted that Farum is a tool for custodians and exchanges that are exposed to unmonitored network risks that could impact their operations.

For his part, Tim Rice, CEO of Coin Metrics, stated that this alliance allows KPMG to go to the market together and “solve real problems of cryptocurrency users.”

This agreement appears at a moment on which the institutional adoption of bitcoin is accelerating, through the use of bitcoin as a strategic treasury reserve and with options for investment institutions in bitcoin funds.

At least a score of corporations already acquired more than 600,000 BTC, in institutional investment plans in bitcoin as a reserve asset, which represents a capital of more than 8,000 million dollars. Coin Metrics was founded in 2017 as an open-source project, created with the main purpose to determine the economic significance of public blockchains.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The computer has a total cost of $ 2,400 with a monitor included. It is equipped with an AMD Asus TUF Gaming X3 Radeon RX 5700 XT video card.

Fans of video games and bitcoin (BTC) mining already have a PC set up to take advantage of both worlds. The US Company M&A Technology announced on Thursday the marketing of the Manda Miner, a $ 2,400 computer ready to play and mine cryptocurrencies.

The equipment is configurable, but it is based on an Intel Core i7 (10th generation) processor, an Asus TUF Gaming Z490-PLUS motherboard, Windows 10 Home Edition, and NiceHash OS. Users can choose between 16GB or 32GB of RAM and 1TB or 2TB of disk storage.

As for the video card (GPU), the alternatives are the AMD Asus TUF Gaming X3 Radeon RX 5700 XT and the Nvidia Asus TUF RTX 3080-10G-GAMING. However, the latter is out of stock, as reported on the company’s website. Other options also include a 27-inch Asus monitor and a wireless gaming keyboard and mouse combo. About bitcoin mining, the report stated this:

«To earn bitcoin, each system comes pre-installed with NiceHash Miner (…) When connected to the NiceHash platform, the Manda Miner PC will provide computing power to the NiceHash market and in return, the user will receive a payment in bitcoin. With the push of a button, you can turn your gaming PC into a mining rig ”, the statement highlighted.

Other miners

The Manda Miner is not the only M&A Technology team related to cryptocurrency mining. The company also makes the Manda Miner Pro available to miners, a rack with seven graphics cards to mine ethers (ETH) or Zcash (ZEC), for example, which sells for $ 3,500.

The computer has a price of 2,500 dollars with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse included. In this case, the processing power with the seven ASUS AMD Radeon RX 570 cards installed is around 2,000 H / s. The rack goes without the GPUs for a price of $ 850.

It is important to remember that bitcoin mining with graphics cards gave way, in recent years, to more specialized miners. ASICs are dedicated equipment to mine the SHA-256 algorithm, which translates into greater processing power to adapt to the level of difficulty presented on the network.

Other cryptocurrency projects do not allow mining with this type of specialized equipment. The promoters of these initiatives intend is to keep a high level of decentralization for the verification of transactions and the issuance of new currencies.

The M&A Technology announcement occurs at a very particular time for the bitcoiner ecosystem. During 2020, the third bitcoin halving happened, and a strong adjustments in the mining of BTC, and the manufacturers of the miners presented difficulties in the shipments due to the expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

Investors have bought almost all of their BTC at a price lower than the one that it currently has. In March 2020, the number of Bitcoin addresses in profit was around only 40%.

Due to the bullish rally that the price of Bitcoin has experienced over the last month, 97% of BTC addresses are in profit. The main cryptocurrency in the market is currently trading above USD 15,000. This means that it is pairing almost all active addresses or leading them into positive territory.

The price of Bitcoin during the bullish run of 2017 touched USD 20,000 per unit. From there, it is possible to deduce that investors have acquired most of their BTC at a price lower than what the markets currently reflect, according to metrics from blockchain analytics firm Glassnode.

The record indicates that 90% of BTC addresses had already started to make a profit since Bitcoin exceeded USD 10,000 in late July 2020. The trend continued until September when the percentage dropped to around 80%. However, between the end of October and the beginning of November, the figure has remained above 95%.

During the first week of the year, the percentage of addresses in profit was about 57%, which currently shows an increase of 40%. For this, it is necessary to take into account that Bitcoin started in 2020 with a price of about USD 7,200.

If the first cryptocurrency trades above its all-time high, all Bitcoin addresses will have regained the ground that they lost due to the market collapse in 2018. That does not necessarily imply that traders still hold their positions in BTC. It would rather mean that the addresses used for these operations would reflect an amount similar to the one that they acquired at that time.

Another Year of Volatility for Bitcoin

In this year of large fluctuations, the lowest percentage of addresses in profit was on March 12^th at 41%. Members of the Bitcoin ecosystem know it as “Black Thursday”, the date on which Bitcoin lost around 50% of its price.

The announcement of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring COVID-19 a pandemic was the reason for the drop. This led to massive declines in traditional equity, commodity, derivatives, and cryptocurrency markets.

It is important to know that the pioneering cryptocurrency has recorded its current prices in the past. There were only 20 days on which Bitcoin broke the USD 15,000 barrier. This represents 0.46% of the cryptocurrency’s life.

According to Bitcoin’s price history, it has only been one day above USD 19,000, three days above USD 18,000, six days above USD 17,000, and 14 days above the cap of USD 16,000.

The number of days on which the price of Bitcoin has remained above USD 10,000 is also striking. According to figures from the cryptocurrency ranking website CoinGecko, it has been more than 264 days since the first cryptocurrency reached that threshold.

By Alexander Salazar

The price of BTC has reached 75% of its all-time high. For more than 100 days, bitcoin has hovered above $ 10,000.

The price of bitcoin surpassed the $ 15,000 mark on Thursday, November 5, less than a day after having overcome the resistance of $ 14,000. The last few weeks were favorable for the first cryptocurrency, since a month ago; it registered a price of USD 10,800, which represents an appreciation of 40% in the last 30 days.

The uncertainty about the outcome of the US presidential elections has been associated with the current bitcoin price boom. In the last 24 hours, BTC has risen more than $ 1,000, and this week, the price showed an increase of 8.5%.

Another factor favorable to bitcoin is the growing trend of institutional adoption, which highlights its role as a haven asset against inflation.

Priced at $ 15,176, at the time of writing, bitcoin’s market capitalization stands at $ 281,295 million. Meanwhile, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market reaches $ 430,380 million.

In the order books of the major exchanges, purchases of BTC are preponderant over sales. Such a scenario allows us to assume upward pressure on the price, as seen in the following graph, coming from Binance.

The price of bitcoin broke a record this Wednesday, November 4, reaching 100 days above $ 10,000. The bullish breakout began on July 27, when that resistance level was broken. Upon surpassing the milestone of $ 15,000, the price of BTC is above 75% of its all-time high of December 2017.

Election predictions

When Trump came to power on January 20, 2017, the markets showed a bullish outlook, both for stocks and BTC. Even at the end of that year, the world’s leading cryptocurrency reached $ 20,000, an all-time high. If he retains the presidency for another period, it is estimated that the markets will behave in the same way.

What do analysts and experts expect if Biden is the one to win? Changes in corporate tax law are one of the great business concerns that would have a full impact on economic behavior. The recoveries after the Covid-19 would be without effect. The reorganization achieved in these months would once again be considered as full uncertainty.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The regulator believes that private cryptocurrencies pose a high risk of money laundering. The body amended the law to include FATF guidelines.

The South Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced on Tuesday its decision to ban privacy-focused cryptocurrencies as they pose a high risk of money laundering. Consequently, Zcash, Monero, and Dash would be affected by the restrictions.

In its official document, the FSC reports that it amended its already existing Special Payment Law, including rules that legalize digital assets in the country. In this way, new provisions will come into effect in March of next year, and since then the exchanges that operate in the country will not be able to offer services with cryptocurrencies with privacy.

The South Korean regulator included the Financial Action Task Force’s guidelines to combat money laundering in the law, including the controversial travel rule. Therefore, virtual asset service providers or VASPs, including cryptocurrency exchanges, are a requirement to disclose customer information when facilitating an exchange of $ 1,000 or more.

The requested information requires the sender’s name as well as the recipient’s name, geographic address, and account details. For this reason, cryptocurrencies focused on privacy are excluded.

The South Korean Financial Intelligence Unit has even called private cryptocurrencies “dark currencies”, considering that their transactions are difficult to track, as The Daily Chain points out.

However, South Korea is not the only country that shows signs of intolerance with cryptocurrencies that guarantee the privacy of users. The United States government also signed a controversial contract with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to track down Monero, and this started a silent war against the most private cryptocurrencies in the ecosystem.

Monero enthusiasts are evaluating what alternatives they would have if a government, such as the United States, restricts privacy in cryptocurrencies or simply prohibits the use of privacy-oriented currencies.

The FATF move, which groups countries from the United States to China and bodies such as the European Commission, reflects the growing concern of international law enforcement bodies that cryptocurrencies as a tool to launder the proceeds of crime.

Countries will receive a forced registration and monitoring of cryptocurrency-related firms, such as exchanges and custodians, who will have to perform detailed checks on clients and report suspicious transactions, the FATF said in a statement.

By: Jenson Nuñez.