Ethereum’s co-founder Mihai Alisie is extremely concerned that Facebook is attempting to hoodwink regulators into approving a centralized “cryptocurrency,” according to a report by Bloomberg on July 11. In an interview with Bloomberg, Alisie stressed that Facebook is attempting to get regulator approval for its yet-to-be-released virtual currency Libra by claiming that it will not be centrally controlled by Facebook, or other business giants, five years down the line. Alisie reportedly said that Facebook intends "to mislead the regulators who have learned in the last few years that blockchain is not something that can easily be regulated [...] It should …

Facebook’s Libra payment protocol could make central and commercial banks irrelevant, but PayPal has no future anyway, the CEO of derivatives giant BitMEX thinks. Arthur Hayes made the comments in a new interview with Taiwanese news network BlockTempo TV on July 9. Speaking during this year’s Asia Blockchain Summit (ABS), Hayes made grim forecasts for both banks and fiat-based payment networks. Libra, which saw its white paper release last month but has yet to launch, has drawn both praise and criticism from across the international economy. For Hayes, participants who should be most worried are banks themselves. Even if Libra …

A peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace that offers more than 300 ways to buy Bitcoin has announced it is being integrated into BitMart, a global digital asset trading platform. Paxful enables its users to purchase Bitcoin using bank transfers, debit cards, online wallets like PayPal and an array of gift cards — including well-known brands such as Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and Steam Wallet. Many of these payment methods enable consumers to access the cryptocurrency instantly. The platform has now entered into a joint venture with BitMart, a digital asset trading platform with a global user base of more than 700,000 people, …

The increased penetration of cryptocurrency in the digital payment arena appears to be affecting the landscape of cross-border remittances. Financial institutions and other mainstream establishments are now jostling with blockchain startups for control over an industry that could possibly experience massive growth over the next few years. With more participants comes greater competition and an emphasis on creating the most robust operating technology. To achieve this aim, some players are leveraging their status as giants of their respective mainstream fields while others are pursuing partnerships and collaborations. For historically unbanked and underbanked areas of the world, the emerging landscape is …

Facebook’s Calibra digital wallet will not be available in some of the social network’s largest markets, including India, according to a TechCrunch report on June 19. A spokesperson told the website: “The libra blockchain will be global, but it will be up to custodial wallet providers to determine where they will and will not operate. Calibra won’t be available in U.S.-sanctioned countries or countries that ban cryptocurrencies.” Estimates by Statista suggest there were 260 million Facebook users in India as of April this year — far ahead of the tech giant’s second-largest market, the United States. Earlier this month, Indian …

On June 10, one of the top cryptocurrency media sites, CCN, initially announced that it would shut down, citing a June 3 Google Core Update for stifling its traffic. Writing on the website, the director and founder of CCN Markets and Hawkfish AS, Jonas Borchgrevink, blamed the update for an overnight fall of 71% of the site’s mobile traffic. While Borchgrevink noted that ups and downs are part of the business, such a vertiginous fall is unprecedented in its history. At the time of the post, the founder said that it could not support new additions to its team or …

Facebook has allegedly sealed backing from over a dozen firms that include Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber for its soon-to-be-unveiled cryptocurrency project. The news was reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on June 13. Source ostensibly familiar with the matter told the WSJ that the firms — extending across the finance, e-commerce, venture capital and telecoms industries — have each invested around $10 million in a consortium that will govern Facebook’s forthcoming digital token, dubbed Libra. The WSJ’s sources reiterated details that had previously surfaced in regard to the highly secretive project, notably that the social media giant’s forthcoming …

Over the past few months, it appeared that Telegram has been comfortably leading the clandestine race between major social platforms that have been quietly working on their native crypto tokens, with its Telegram Open Network (TON) making strides toward its October 2019 launch deadline. The latest avalanche of news from Facebook, however, makes this lead look less convincing, as it becomes apparent that the social media giant’s blockchain project is also well underway. After a series of indirect cues suggesting that Facebook’s long-rumored fintech initiative is in motion, a massive breakthrough came with a detailed report from The Information, which …

Top Stories This Week Hackers Withdraw 7,000 Bitcoins in Binance Crypto Exchange Security Breach Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trade volume, experienced a security breach this week, losing a little over 7,000 bitcoins (BTC). CEO Changpeng Zhao stated at the time that the bitcoins were withdrawn from its hot wallets, which contain only 2% of the exchange’s total bitcoin holdings. In the interim, proceeds from the hack have been moved to seven addresses. CZ devoted a live AMA on Twitter to address community concerns in the wake of the hack, also discussing the idea of a …

The chief financial officer (CFO) of major payment system PayPal said that the firm is hesitant about getting involved in the cryptocurrency sector in an interview with Yahoo Finance on May 7. Speaking about the company’s future cryptocurrency plans, PayPal CFO John Rainey pointed out that the firm previously allowed its merchants to accept bitcoin (BTC) as a form of payment, but subsequently saw the instability and volatility of the currency. “If a merchant accepted that they would quickly convert it to a more stable currency like the euro or dollar,” Rainey stated, adding: “We have teams clearly working on …

Social networking giant Facebook is hiring PayPal staff ahead of its alleged cryptocurrency launch, Bloomberg reported on May 8. Facebook, which has courted rumors over its planned entry into blockchain and payments for around a year, could launch its own token as soon as Q3 2019, anonymous sources told the publication. The company began hiring for a dedicated blockchain team last year, under the auspices of David Marcus, himself a former president of PayPal. Now, around 20% of the team’s 50 members come from the payments platform, a situation reminiscent of the so-called “PayPal Mafia” executive group of the early …

Digital payments giant PayPal has won a cybersecurity patent to protect users from crypto ransomware, according to a document from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published on April 16. The system described in the patent, entitled “Techniques for ransomware detection and mitigation,” intends to improve the detection of ransomware and prevent it from locking up users’ access to their files. PayPal’s patent describes ransomware as a malware that may encrypt original data and delete the non-encrypted original version, with the malicious party usually demanding users to pay them in anonymous cryptocurrency in order to decrypt the files. …