The specialists believe that young people are currently unaware of how much they expose their privacy. They pointed out that KYC data held by Bitcoin custodians could be more valuable than Bitcoin itself.

Janine Römer and Matt Odell, specialists in Bitcoin (BTC) and privacy, recently talked about know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) policies. They consider that those action plans, which regulated Bitcoin companies apply, are ineffective.

The experts agreed that most users are unaware of the value of the information shared with regulated custodial companies and exchanges. Matt Odell, who has participated in many projects on Bitcoin, privacy, and open source, said KYC data might be more valuable than the cryptocurrency.

Regulated brokers and exchanges that offer Bitcoin services request private data, creating a list that they never delete and is not anonymous. If users do not follow the best privacy practices, the history of future transactions will also be at risk. Even after removing them, criminals can track real-time balances, Odell explained.

The researcher stated that the handling of KYC by exchanges is ineffective in stopping criminals. He highlighted that they could buy or steal that information to make users more vulnerable.

Young People Are Unaware They Share Private Data through the Internet

Janine Römer, a Bitcoin, privacy, and surveillance investigative journalist, believes that the issue is complicated regarding younger generations. Those people growing up now share private data by default, she explained.

People between 15 and 20 years old have not yet realized the degree to which they expose their privacy. They feel safe at home surrounded by four walls and do not know they project onto the world when using the Internet. In addition, they allow the projections of other people into their space, and Römer thinks they have not understood how that affects individuals and society.

She stated that those entering Bitcoin and using an exchange to buy it are unaware of ways to obtain it without risking their privacy. For that reason, those platforms know who their users are, and many of them connect to chain analytics or blockchain analytics services.

The specialists referred to cases in which exchanges close or freeze the accounts of users that use coinjoin services after withdrawing funds. The operators of those platforms can notice that by using blockchain analytics.

Individuals Should Understand that KYC Policies Are Ineffective Against Criminals

Both researchers said that privacy in the digital age consists of individuals understanding they can make their decisions. Odell argued it is about giving consent to provide information and knowing what they are sharing.

Some people can find it overwhelming to try to buy or mine Bitcoin and earn profits on it without using KYC providers. For that reason, Odell recommended limiting the use of those services to just one broker. He warned not to sign up for different services that require taking selfies, scanning driver’s licenses, or putting in all personal information.

Leaks and hacks will be the factors leading to awareness of digital privacy, Matt Odell believes. He said that he hoped users would realize how much information they share and look for tools, resources, and education to improve that situation.

By Alexander Salazar

Experts will meet to study and discuss the next Bitcoin update in the next few days. The community knows little about BIP-119, but its developer believes that may change.

Developers and experts will meet virtually to study and discuss the next Bitcoin upgrade. They will hold those debates every two weeks starting January 11^th.

The objective of Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 119 (BIP-119) is to implement commands that facilitate the automation of transactions. The developers of that update took into account parameters such as time, similarly to the concept of smart contracts.

On December 24^th, Jeremy Rubin, developer of BIP-119, explained the activation path of the upgrade. In addition, he noted that it is a soft fork, so it will not cause breaks in the Bitcoin consensus.

Implementing the OP_CheckTemplateVerify (OP_CTV) command would allow a higher number of transactions with less effort and cost. Besides, it would help create vaults of bitcoins available when a specified requirement is complete for settlements, contracts, and family inheritances.

Rubin said that the doubts and suggestions coming from the community would serve as inputs for the discussion. He explained that the experts would review, test, and reinforce any doubts about the timing and procedures of the proposed roadmap.

Likewise, he clarified that those meetings do not imply the automatic approval of BIP-119 or the proposed roadmap. He stated that the idea is to reach consensus gradually, interactively, and in the most productive way possible.

The Community Participates in the Improvement and Development of Bitcoin

Not only developers and experts but also the community are crucial to improving the Bitcoin network. Jeremy Rubin pointed out that the latter can contribute their ideas and doubts through Libera, channel ## ctv-bip-review.

The developer of BIP-119 said that the entire community could freely participate in the activation processes for Bitcoin updates. However, he pointed out that they do not need to have an active node or be frequent users of the protocol and its cryptocurrency.

In recent days, participants from the ecosystem offered 3.6 BTC to those who found flaws in BIP-119. It is important to note that the developers have worked on that proposal for several years.

Rubin clarified that there would also be a challenge and award structure different from the winner takes it all. With that, they would avoid encouraging the community to find minor adjustments necessary to solve rather than a single big bug.

There is an increasing number of users on the Bitcoin network, so there must be adjustments in BIP-119. On certain occasions, users have complained that the blockchain is congested and the fees are too high. Discussion by experts and developers along with the community will make that possible.

Bitcoin is currently trading at around USD 42,201 and has accumulated a 0.8% loss in the last 24 hours. Its daily trading volume is above USD 23.69 billion, and its market capitalization is about USD 798.61 billion, according to CoinGecko.

By Alexander Salazar

They promised to reward their users with a 500% profitable staking program. Many of those affected have come together to track down suspected scammers.

A new decentralized finance project named Tedefi vanished from sight on Monday, leaving no trace other than hundreds of victims who believed in its offerings. The team, whose identities remain unknown to the date, promoted a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange via Telegram, but their bot also disappeared, along with all of their social media accounts.

Everything seems to highlight that there has been another carpet pull, as the type of theft gets known in which the owners of a cryptocurrency project disappear after taking money from users.

Tedefi had revealed that it was in its first stage of development and it was only possible to purchase and sell TEFI, the native token of its supposed blockchain. It promised to add new features and the possibility of making cryptocurrency withdrawals through Telegram.

The Telegram account, where they based their activities, reached almost 30,000 users and suddenly vanished from the network, on Monday, January 3. A few minutes later, a user went to Twitter to warn about the new rug pull.

 False Promises

The project also highlighted promises about giving its users a very generous staking program in the order of 500% annual profitability. The team did not desire to raise any suspicion, as many decentralized exchanges in their early stages offer considerable returns, 10,000% in some cases.

The Binance Smart Chain (BSC) TEFI asset got negotiated via PancakeSwap, and its value oscillated from $ 0.20 to 0.009 in a few hours last Monday, according to data revealed by poocoin.

In the website archive, there were many questionable items, such as incomplete names of the alleged development team, as well as no location addresses or any business forms. On the other hand, Google research showed what appear to be promotional items. Their social media and YouTube accounts also got deleted.

 Intuitions Failed, and Now There are Many Victims of Scam

Marcelo Haase appears to be one of the TeDefi victims who have joined to form a group on Telegram to share thoughts and actions about the situation. One of these groups counts on more than 300 people from all over the world, while another has at least 200 people or more. Users who acquired the token remain unknown, but there are currently 626 addresses that currently own TEFI.

Those affected will track down the suspected scammers. They have tracked down the project addresses and found that the funds were brought into Binance and got already sold. The issue is that the exchange does not give data about the owner, so they are trying to file a complaint so that with that specific order, there is access to the data

By: Jenson Nuñez

Bitcoin’s hash rate also crumbled down to 170.8 EH / s, something not seen since December. Tailings of the Kazakh conflict and papers from the FED keep affecting the price of BTC.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) keeps its downtrend this January, and it now trades above USD 42,200, expanding the losses that it has dragged since the end of December.

According to information reported by CoinMarketCap, the first cryptocurrency on the market has an average price of USD 42,255, which represents a decrease of 1.29% compared to the previous day, when it was trading at USD 42,800.

This amount appeared on September 29, 2021, the date when BTC was initiating a series of rises that, a few days later, made it mark a new all-time high of $ 68,000.

After subsequent declines, bitcoin traded between $ 49,000 and $ 50,000, a trend that lasted until January 2, when it fell to $ 47,000 and then lost resistance at $ 45,000.

External Influences on BTC

The correction of BTC responds to the drop in the hash rate due to the protests in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is a country that concentrates a considerable amount of processing power of the Bitcoin network.

Political conflicts led to the cutting off of Internet service, essential for miners to work. According to various reports, the government of the Asian country faces intense street protests. For this reason, they limited broadband access, in addition to mobile telephony. This limitation, of course, disconnected the mining nodes located in that country from the Bitcoin network.

And not only that. The release of documents from the December meeting of the United States Federal Reserve System (FED), which confirmed an anticipated rise in bond yields, coupled with the growth of omicron cases in the United States, also affected bitcoin. The news did hit Wall Street.

Hash Rate Also Down

As a sign that the blows of the node disconnection in Kazakhstan continue to have an impact, the hash rate of Bitcoin remains on the low side. As of January 6, the hash rate was at 170.8 EH / s and is still at those values.

This level got seen just a week ago when the indicator was on track to mark a new all-time high, making BTC open the year on the right foot.

Prediction Fulfilled

A few days ago, various media outlets highlighted the estimates of a bitcoin trader and analyst from the Netherlands named Michael van de Poppe. The analyst predicted corrections for BTC, detecting supports at $ 41,000 and $ 42,000 before reaching a high peak again.

As the representative said, falling to around $ 40,000 could be an opportunity for growth since liquidity will be affected, and room for a rebound will appear.

 Likely, bitcoin will not enter a bear market or bear market. This situation gives opportunities for these estimates and suggests that the pioneer cryptocurrency will have a positive cycle in 2022.

By: Jenson Nuñez

At least nine countries have placed absolute restrictions on the use of bitcoin. Various countries have chosen to apply stricter measures on money laundering with bitcoin.

Adopt Bitcoin (BTC) or restrict its use? This current situation appears to be the dilemma faced by many regulators globally. A study highlighted that countries that have totally or partially prohibited BTC has doubled in the last three years.

On the other hand, during the same period, actions favoring bitcoin were also seen, among them, the adoption as legal tender in El Salvador. The study listed countries worldwide that have regulatory policies regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

The research separates these countries from those nations that applied regulatory policies to allow its use and those that have prohibited it. The prohibitions got divided, in turn, into two categories: absolute and implicit.

The regulations get defined as the total ban on the use of cryptocurrencies. These prohibitions occur when some policies classify cryptocurrency use as a criminal act. On the other hand, various regulations prevent businesses and financial entities from using cryptocurrencies, but not their possession by citizens.

According to the study, at least nine countries in total, by November 2021, have decided to veto or prohibit all economic activity around the use of cryptocurrencies. China is the most notorious case in 2021.

Illegal Activities and Restrictions

By September of last year, the Central Bank of that nation classified as “illegal” any activity or trade-in in which bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are involved. Other countries with absolute restrictions on bitcoin are Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Nepal, Qatar, and Oman.

Since 2018, when the first report was published, only one country has added bitcoin to its list, in this case, China, from eight to nine countries that prohibit the use of cryptocurrencies. However, the states that applied prohibition policies have increased from 15 to 45.

In this same period, proposals got applied favoring bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, as in El Salvador. In that Central American country, in September 2021, the law to convert bitcoin as legal tender got approved.

Another example of this position is the advances in regulatory measures in Latin American countries, such as Paraguay, a nation developing policies favoring cryptocurrencies. This position is also the case of Costa Rica, a country that, according to some experts, has an optimal regulatory ecosystem for the adoption of bitcoin.

Anti-money Laundering Taxes and Regulations

The study in question also includes countries that, although they did not establish prohibitive policies on the use of cryptocurrencies, have placed regulations on the spectrum of taxes and bills against money laundering.

According to the study, at least 103 countries currently already have AML policies. These countries are often a target of criticism by advocates of cryptocurrencies as they can go against the privacy that some users seek when using bitcoin. Back in 2018, only 33 states applied this type of measure, meaning a growth of 300% in just three years.

In Europe, a tool named CipherTrace has been implemented to report the movements of cryptocurrencies between exchanges to identify who is the user who carries out the transaction.

By Jenson Rivas