Dutch bank ABN AMRO abandoned its plans to launch a custodial bitcoin (BTC) wallet dubbed “Wallie” because of risk concerns, according to a report published on May 20 by tech news outlet The Next Web. Per the report, the bank’s senior press officer, Jarco de Swart, said in an email to the outlet that the bank decided not to continue its plans after it “concluded that cryptocurrencies because of their unregulated nature are at the moment too risky assets for our clients to invest in.” The rumors concerning alleged tests of the wallet first started spreading in January. Still, according …

Consumer electronics giant High Tech Computer (HTC) announced the Exodus 1S smartphone with bitcoin (BTC) full node capability in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 11. In the press release, the company claims that the value-oriented version of the smartphone will be released at the end of the third quarter of 2019. Building on the first generation of the company’s blockchain smartphone, Exodus 1, HTC claims that it will be the first smartphone to provide full node capability. The release states that the phone will contain the full Bitcoin blockchain and allow for a trustless user experience since …

The official wallet of leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Trust Wallet, has added support for credit card purchases and Ripple’s XRP token. The company announced the new features in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on March 12. Trust Wallet was acquired by Binance in July of last year in the exchange’s first public acquisition. According to the press release, users can now send, receive, store and exchange XRP via Trust Wallet. According to the wallet’s official website, Trust Wallet also supports Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), among others, and as well as any ERC20, ERC223 …

Bitcoin celebrated its 10th birthday on Jan. 3, and in commemoration of this milestone, the very first Proof of Keys event was held. Organized by crypto investor and podcast host Trace Mayer, it urged cryptocurrency traders to withdraw their holdings from crypto exchanges, in order to promote the decentralization and monetary independence on which Satoshi Nakamoto's vision for Bitcoin was founded. However, as ostensibly positive as its message was, it was claimed on social media in the days leading up to the event that several exchanges — most notably HitBTC — had apparently been freezing accounts and preventing users from …

Crypto payment processor BitPay issued advice on its official blog yesterday, Nov. 26, for users of its open-source Bitcoin (BTC) wallet Copay, which has reportedly been compromised by malicious code. The vulnerability pertains to a third-party Node.js module, also known as an “event stream,” which is used in versions 5.0.2 through 5.1.0 of BitPay’s Copay and BitPay apps. According to a GitHub issue report, this module was modified to load malware that is capable of stealing users’ private keys. BitPay’s post states that the BitPay app was not vulnerable to the malicious code, but that its team is investigating whether …

Opera is launching today a “Labs” special edition of its desktop web browser with built-in crypto wallet functionality, according to an exclusive blog post shared with Cointelegraph Monday, September 24. Opera first announced it would be integrating a built-in crypto wallet for its desktop browser in early August, and “Labs” is today open for private beta testers of Opera for Android. According to the blog post, the new edition will enable users to authenticate Web 3.0 and decentralized application (DApp) transactions made on their computer using their Android phone. “Labs” is therefore fully interoperable with the mobile crypto wallet that …

A study on issues of competition in fintech, commissioned by the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON), was published July 20. It found that central bank-issued digital currencies could be a “remedy” for a lack of competition policy in the crypto sector: “The arrival of permissioned cryptocurrencies promoted by banks, even by central banks, will reshape the current competition level in the cryptocurrency market, broadening the number of competitors.” The study mentions cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as “technological and operational paradigms that are a source of disruption for the entire sector, including monetary policy and financial stability.” …

According to research from Google Trends, web searches for the word “Bitcoin” dropped 75% since the beginning of 2018, halving in just the last three months, CNBC reports June 4. Co-founder of Datatrek Research and Wall Street Bitcoin analyst Nicholas Colas, cited by CNBC, links the decline in web searches to the coin’s price rates that have similarly dropped by approximately 50 percent this year. In an email to his clients, Colas adds that “[Bitcoin] needs a new narrative in order to reestablish global attention”. Google Trends analyzes different periods of popularity of certain web searches. A value of 100 …

Cointelegraph speaks to Canadian Bitcoiner Kyle Kemper about The Social Wallet, a nonprofit that hopes to digitize every aspect of a physical wallet, money, services, and identity. This is the first part in a series of three articles on the Social Wallet. Social Wallet is a tremendous undertaking by its creator, Kyle Kemper, to bring Bitcoin to the masses and create a revolution in both the developing and developed worlds in terms of finance, identity, and information. The project launched on the 4th April and is seeking $21,000,000 in donations to complete the project. The project is only 10 weeks …

Content theft has persisted as one of the worst ills of the internet generation. Data breaches and identity thefts have always left victims with a sour taste. Bitcoin wallets have been hacked and owners’ wealth stolen on several cases. Are there ways to ultimately prevent one’s wallet from being hacked? Is there any way of recovering stolen funds from a hacked wallet? Are exchanges obliged to refund Bitcoins stolen from a virtual wallet? Every hoster of virtual wallets and exchanges will always inform wallet owners of the importance of employing sometimes very basic, and at other times a bit more …

Ethereum took its first steps towards simplifying its user experience this week with the release of an EthereumWallet beta, a RushWallet version for the Bitcoin 2.0 platform. Cointelegraph decided to take a look at the 3 wallets that are aiming to end the era of command line and complex usability for Ethereum users. Cointelegraph has previoualy covered the disruptive potential of Bitcoin 2.0 platforms like Ethereum. However, before we can create the decentralized applications and organizations, we must first make these tools easy to use. And while Ethereum holds a lot of promise, most would admit that it’s not quite …

Of all Bitcoin web-wallet providers as listed on bitcoin.org, Blockchain.info, Coinbase and Xapo are in favor of raising Bitcoin's block size limit from 1 to 20 megabytes as advised by Bitcoin Core developer Gavin Andresen, while Coinkite and GreenAddress have come out against the proposal. This means that Bitcoin's major wallet providers based on venture capital investments as well as the total amount of users – Blockchain.info, Coinbase and Xapo - all agree on Andresen's proposal to raise the maximum size of Bitcoin blocks to 20 megabytes. But with Coinkite and GreenAddress opposing the idea, an industry consensus remains out …