America is the land of opportunity, so long as you don't happen to be a cryptocurrency exchange. For several years now, a number of prominent exchanges have opted not to serve U.S. citizens; in fact, the list of trading platforms avoiding the U.S. is still growing, with Bancor recently announcing that it would block U.S. citizens from using its website to convert tokens. As can be guessed, regulation — or rather, the lack of clear regulation — is the main reason why crypto exchanges are increasingly shying away from the U.S. Exchanges complain about the uncertainty of U.S. securities legislation, …

Decentralized exchange platform Bancor plans to restrict United States residents from trading tokens on July 8, the company confirmed in a blog post on June 18. Citing a lack of clarity from regulators, executives said they took the decision to ban all users with a U.S. IP address from exchanging cryptocurrency. “This decision has been made in light of increased regulatory uncertainty; at this time, we believe this is the most judicious decision for all the members of our ecosystem,” the blog post reads. It continues: “This will enable the Bancor community and ecosystem to innovate faster and with greater …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Elon Musk Impersonators Flood Twitter With Fake Crypto Giveaways Although impersonators on Twitter pretending to be famous celebrities offering crypto giveaways are many, this week saw an influx of these crypto pretenders posing as Tesla CEO Elon Musk. After compromising verified accounts with the blue check mark, scammers would change the name and …

Decentralized liquidity network Bancor announced it had completed its partnership with EOS to provide cross-blockchain token swaps in a press release shared with Cointelegraph Nov. 5. Originally announced in September, Bancor has now expanded to the EOS blockchain, using its decentralized application (DApp) BancorX to allow users to convert between Ethereum and EOS-based tokens, without exchanges. The move is the first of its kind, Bancor says in its press release, and paves the way for “vastly more blockchains” to be included in such cross-blockchain trading. “The ability to easily convert assets cross-chain points to a future in which token projects …

Self-styled “decentralized” exchange platform Bancor pledged to tackle cybercrime threats to cryptocurrency entities in a blog post July 12 as it resumed operations following a $12 mln hack this week. Summarizing the platform’s future plans in the post, co-founder Guy Benartzi also announced that Bancor’s internal tools that helped tracked its hacked funds would be made available to a wider audience. This move will form a precursor to a major crime-fighting initiative which Benartzi hopes will result in contribution of “resources and capabilities to fight criminals together.” The initiative, described as a “coalition of crypto defenders,” will involve the platform …

On July 9, the decentralized crypto platform Bancor was compromised. The hackers managed to drain over $23 million worth of crypto, part of which has allegedly already been converted into fiat via the instant exchange service Changelly. While the Bancor team is collaborating with other industry players to track the stolen funds, the recent security breach shows how decentralized platforms deal with security breaches, even though some community members have started to question whether Bancor can be considered a decentralized service at all. What is Bancor? Bancor was launched in June 2017 after one of the most successful Initial Coin …

Decentralized cryptocurrency platform Bancor halted operations Monday, July 9, as it investigates what it calls a “security breach,” reportedly involving over $12 mln. A Twitter post confirmed the breach and Bancor’s halted operations, which the platform says is specifically to allow investigative work prior to a full statement being released “shortly.” “This morning (CEST) Bancor experienced a security breach. No user wallets were compromised,” the tweet reads, continuing: “To complete the investigation, we have moved to maintenance and will be releasing a more detailed report shortly. We look forward to being back online as soon as possible.” As of press …

Bancor is launching a network of blockchain-based community currencies in Kenya aimed at combating poverty, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph June 18. Bancor, self-described as a “decentralized liquidity network,” secured a then-unprecedented $153 million in under three hours in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) June 2017. The company’s new project seeks to stimulate local and regional commerce and peer-to-peer activity by enabling Kenyan communities to create and manage their own digital tokens. To oversee the launch, Bancor has partnered with a non-profit foundation, Grassroots Economics, which currently runs community currency programs in six locations across Kenya, and …

The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Cointelegraph.com. For an economy that emphasizes decentralization, cryptocurrency has ironically relied primarily on centralized platforms of exchange. This is problematic as they often hold funds in giant “honeypot” addresses that attract sophisticated attackers. This has resulted in several cases where exchange funds have been drained. In fact, there were two in the past 3 months alone! Bitgrail reported on Feb.12 that over $170 mln in XRB was stolen from their wallets. Coincheck suffered one of the largest losses ever with over $400 mln in …

In the financial industry, you know you’re becoming increasingly popular when the US Security Exchange Commission, or SEC, is looking to regulate what you do. That’s the current state of the Initial Coin Offering, or ICO, market. The SEC ruled in July that some of the “coins” being sold are securities, making them subject to regulations. The attention of the SEC prompts the question: just how big is the ICO market? Let’s take a look at the biggest ICOs so far — and how they happened. Filecoin: $250 mln and still counting Blockchain data storage network Filecoin began its initial …