A study by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis finds that cryptocurrency-related crime has fallen significantly. The criminal share of all crypto activity fell to just 0.34% in 2020. This contradicts recent statements by U.S. Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen and ECB President Christine Lagarde that cryptocurrencies are mostly used for illicit financing.

Chainalysis shared some findings from its 2021 Crypto Crime Report this week. While acknowledging that cryptocurrency remains appealing for criminals as well due primarily to its pseudonymous nature and the ease with which it allows users to send funds anywhere in the world instantly, the blockchain analytics firm detailed:

The good news is that cryptocurrency-related crime fell significantly in 2020 In 2020, the criminal share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%, or $10.0 billion in transaction volume.

In comparison, the firm explained that in 2019, criminal activity represented 2.1% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume, or roughly $21.4 billion worth of transfers. Last year, One reason the percentage of criminal activity fell is because overall economic activity nearly tripled between 2019 and 2020, the company noted.

Chainalysis noted that darknet markets were the second-largest crime category. It accounted for $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency activity, which was an increase from $1.3 billion in the previous year. Ransomware accounted for just 7% of all funds received by criminal addresses, which was just under $350 million worth of cryptocurrency. While small, ransomware saw a 311% jump over 2019.

The findings by Chainalysis contradict the recent statements made by Joe Bidens pick for the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, and ECB President Christine Lagarde. Yellen said Tuesday that many cryptocurrencies are used mainly for illicit financing. Meanwhile, Lagarde said last week that bitcoin has conducted some funny business and some totally reprehensible money laundering activity.

Several people in the crypto industry have pointed out the error of their statements, including a well-known economist who called Lagardes statement outrageous. He emphasized, we all know that the vast majority of money laundering globally is conducted in fiat currencies, particularly in U.S. dollars and euros.

What do you think about the falling rate of crypto crime? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Crypto Crime Fell Sharply to Only 0.3% of All Cryptocurrency Activity in 2020 Featured Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

Upfront, I should disclose I personally started to dabble in this asset class for the first time in the autumn of 2020, having sat out the first iteration of bitcoin mania in 2017. But this time, growing institutional acceptance seems to have brought back an even stronger wave of enthusiasm and euphoria, buoyed in part over the frustration of minuscule interest rates and inflationary forces unleashed by endless money printing by central banks in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

For me, the impetus this time around was the Profits Unlimited newsletter, edited by Paul Mampilly. I have found Mampilly so insightful with his recommendationsit was he who first twigged me to the actively managedARK ETFsthat focus on the innovation economythat I decided to take a flyer on two of his suggestions for how investors could buy trusts that track the price of bitcoin and ethereum, which trade over-the-counter.

Rather than suggest pure native exposure, which involves setting up complicated wallets that hold pure crypto and other minutiae, he felt it was easier for casual investors accustomed to buying stocks online to use trusts like Grayscale, which trade over-the-counter on U.S. stock exchanges, but are available to most Canadian investors. These trusts roughly track the price of the crypto they target, but often trade at a discount or a premium to the actual price of the native currency.

Mampilly suggests taking an equal-weight approach to more speculative investments, so my first try was to put several thousand dollars into each of theGrayscale Bitcoin Trust(GBTC/OTC) andGrayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE/OTC). I hold these in non-registered TD Direct Investing accounts.

I soon experienced just how volatile these can be. ETHE quickly doubled butpreferring not to trigger taxable gainsI stood pat, only to watch it plunge below my original cost. Still, I kept holding and continued researching the field, and it eventually reached the level it is right now, well above cost.

I next realized I wanted to hold these experimental positions in registered portfolios (RRSPs and TFSAs) so that the next time I got a double or tripleif indeed they materialized rather than comparable lossesI could book the gains with no immediate tax consequences. I soon discovered the closed-end funds of Toronto-based3iQ Digital Asset Management. First, I tried The Bitcoin Fund [QBTC/TSX], just before the new year, in time to experience a quick triple. This time, I was quick to take partial profits, seeing as there were no tax consequences. Many advisors suggest getting back your cost base, which I did; then you can sit back and watch it run, playing with the houses money.

My third experiment was inspired when Mampilly started to recommend his readers move from the ethereum-tracking ETHE trust to actual native ethereum, or ETH. He suggested buying actual native crypto from places like Coinbase and Robinhoodconvenient for his mostly American subscribers, but less so for Canadians.

I discovered that Canadian company Wealthsimple had launched a way to buy native bitcoin and ethereum:Wealthsimple Crypto. Since I now had some bitcoin through the registered 3iQ funds, I put a few thousand into Wealthsimple Cryptos ETH. This is conveniently accessed as a mobile app and is easy to fund from Canadian financial institutions. However, I soon learned there was not yet a way to hold these two Wealthsimple cryptos in registered accounts, so I was back to the taxable dilemma. Soon enough, I learned that 3iQ not only had a bitcoin fund but also an ethereum fundThe Ether Fund [QETH.U/TSX], which was a way to again hold ethereum, like the Bitcoin Fund, in registered accounts.

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How to invest in cryptocurrency (without losing your shirt) - MoneySense

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Ether is closing in on an all-time high. The cryptocurrency, one of many alternatives to bitcoin, rallied as much as 17% on Tuesday to an intraday high of $1,439, according to data from industry site CoinDesk.

That's just shy of the $1,448 record ether hit in early 2018, when major cryptocurrencies led by bitcoin climbed to new heights before slumping sharply later in the year. Ether, the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency by market value, has almost doubled year to date.

Bitcoin has been in the spotlight for several months now, thanks to a blistering rally that saw it notch fresh highs. The cryptocurrency shot up close to $42,000 a couple weeks ago, but has declined since and was last trading at $36,980.

It's still up almost 30% so far this year, and has surged more than 800% from its 2020 low in March. Bitcoin bulls say its rise has been helped by increased institutional buying and the perception that it is an uncorrelated safe haven asset akin to gold.

On the other hand, skeptics in the traditional financial world like economist Nouriel Roubini and strategist David Rosenberg view it as a speculative bubble.

Bitcoin was the original cryptocurrency, created in 2009 as a peer-to-peer payment system that doesn't require a central authority to maintain. Alternative digital coins that were created after bitcoin, like ether and XRP, are known as "altcoins."

Ethereum, the network that underpins ether, is touted by its proponents as potential infrastructure for a decentralized internet. That's because developers can build applications on Ethereum, known as "decentralized apps."

The Ethereum blockchain a digital ledger of transactions in the cryptocurrency began a major upgrade late last year called Ethereum 2.0. Ether investors say it will make the network faster and more secure.

"The Ethereum technology has undergone a tremendous amount of development since reaching it's 2017 high," Nicholas Pelecanos, head of trading at crypto firm NEM, told CNBC. "At that time, the new capital investment in the space was largely speculative and for functionalities that were still in development."

"Now, a lot of these functionalities exist and more cutting edge functionalities are to be released, yet the speculative interest in Ethereum is still quite low. This raises the question that now Ethereum is crossing its all time high, what price will it reach in this current bull cycle? I believe that number is a lot higher than the current price."

Detractors have complained of sky-high transaction fees on Ethereum. The average transaction cost for ether surged to a record high of $16.53 on Jan. 11, according to data from BitInfoCharts, triple the peak average transaction fee in 2018.

By comparison, bitcoin transaction fees are rising but are nowhere near a late-2017 peak. They climbed as high as $17.09 on Jan. 12, which is still down 69% from an all-time high of $55.16 on Dec. 22, 2017.

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Ether, the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency, is closing in on an all-time high - CNBC

Bitcoin is on everyones mind again, rising over fourfold in the last year by the time it reached its peak of $40,000. Its primary use has been a popular topic of discussion since it burst onto the scene. As the most well know cryptocurrency, bitcoin is often viewed as a medium of exchange, however, there is a strong argument that it is primarily a store of value. At the moment, investors are using it in the same way as they do with gold, namely, to hedge against inflation. This is likely to remain as it is fundamentally ill-equipped to function as a medium of exchange. Despite this, the speed and flexibility of transactions has driven a lot of innovation in the payments space. Read more about the underlying technology behind bitcoin in GlobalDatas upcoming Blockchain report.

Bitcoin was designed to mimic the natural scarcity of gold. The number of bitcoins generated per one block halves every 210,000 blocks or roughly every four years. By 2140, when we will hit 21 million bitcoins, the supply will be exhausted. More than 16 million bitcoins have been mined to date, meaning we have more than 75% of the entire supply of bitcoin already.

For bitcoin to succeed and to have the necessary network effects to become a viable alternative to fiat currencies, demand will have to increase significantly. It is likely that, provided bitcoin remains popular, its demand will consistently outgrow its supply. This is a massive hinderance as it means that bitcoin will be deflationary by nature. Demand would have to grow at a slow pace to match the growth of supply, and this slow uptake may destroy the very network effects that are necessary to foster a fiat currency.

The value of a fiat currency decreases over time as more is printed and it becomes less rare. A deflationary currency is inviable. It will mean that a bitcoin spent today would actually be worth more tomorrow. Therefore, users will be reluctant to spend bitcoin and would rather use a fiat currency to transact and keep bitcoin as a store of value. If the price never stopped rising, no one would ever want to get rid of their bitcoin unless they were pushed for liquidity. In this sense it shares similarities with gold, as Nakatomo intended, however gold is not a currency and rarely a medium of exchange. Also, a key difference is that gold retains some underlying physical value.

With no central bank to minimize systematic risk and to stabilise the exchange rate, it is unlikely that bitcoin will ever reach the volatility levels of fiat currencies. However, many of the key exchange-related advantages of bitcoins such as secured and instant payments, at low cost, are being adopted by other services. Bitcoin has helped to drive the surge in P2P transfer services, such as Venmo and Remitly, that offer lower fees and more convenience than older services such as WesternUnion.

Bitcoins deflationary nature means that its future will be as a store of value rather than as an alternative to fiat currencies. Despite this, it has inspired innovation in blockchain, the payments space, and even spurred countries to look into creating their own digital currencies such as Swedens E-Krona or Chinas Digital Yuan.

Latest report from Visit GlobalData Store

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Bitcoin: a cryptocurrency that isn't - Verdict

Banking and KYC information of lakhs of users of BuyUcoin, which trades bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, has allegedly been leaked on the dark web. The details included the names, email addresses, mobile numbers, order information, and deposit history of users, according to a security researcher. The data dump available on the dark Web also appears to have bank details including bank names and account numbers, as well as know-your-customer (KYC) information that includes PAN and passport numbers of the people using BuyUcoin platform. The company has however denied the leak and said the surfaced data dump was of some dummy accounts.

Cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia told Gadgets 360 that he found the data dump on the dark Web earlier this week. It included the details of more than three lakh BuyUcoin users, he said. The Delhi-NCR-based company claims to have over 3.5 lakh users in total.

The researcher said BuyUcoin appeared to have faced a data breach in September last year that resulted in the latest leak on the dark Web. Alongside user details, the data dump included a folder with admin credentials that could be used to access the server, he noted.

Rajaharia stated that the dump was posted on the dark Web by Shiny Hunters, the hacker group that allegedly leaked the data of BigBasket and JusPay in the recent past.

The leaked data could be used by bad actors to run fraudulent attacks against individuals, the researcher said. He also added that the data could also enable hackers to understand the credit score of the victims using transaction details.

BuyUcoin CEO and Co-founder Shivam Thakral denied the leak. We would like to reiterate the fact that only dummy data of 200 entries was impacted which was immediately recovered and secured by our automated security systems, he told Gadgets 360 over email.

However this might not be correct, as a person whose data was revealed in the data dump came forward to Gadgets 360 and said that their bank and KYC details were revealed.

What if a bad actor would use any of the leaked user accounts in any illegal crypto activity? asked Rajaharia while countering the company's rejection of the data leak. Who will be responsible in such a case? Crypto data leak may become a very serious issue as the data could be used in illegal activities in many ways in such cases. It's the company's responsibility to inform affected users and protect data instead of making any false claims.

Thakral however denied the leak again, and responded by saying that it was just a hoax to defame the company.

These people who reached out to journalists are friends of hackers, they are just showing our email IDs are there, he said. This doesn't make sense to me. But a part of the data dump, as seen by Gadgets 360, contained these details for a huge number of users, so it appears to be a real dump, and hopefully the company is investigating the matter.

Update, 5PM, Jan 22: In a mailed statementBuyUcoin noted: This incident remains an ongoing investigation. We will keep all the stakeholders updated about the proceedings and conduct a major cybersecurity overhaul throughout 2021 to upgrade platform security. You can see the full statement below.

No bitcoins or any other cryptocurrencies appear to have been stolen in the leak. However, in the past, there have been instances of cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets getting hacked and bitcoins being stolen.

In April 2020, a hacker exploited a security flaw in Bisq bitcoin exchange and stole more than $250,000 (roughly Rs. 1.82 crores) worth of cryptocurrency from users. Binance, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange platforms, also saw a data breach in May 2019 in which hackers were able to steal over $40 million (roughly Rs. 290 crores).

Regarding the recent media reports, we are thoroughly investigating each and every aspect of the report about the malicious and unlawful cybercrime activities by foreign entities in mid-2020. Every BuyUcoin user with active portfolio has 3 factor authentication enabled trading accounts. All our user's portfolio assets are safe within a secure and encrypted environment. 95% of user's funds are kept in cold storage which are inaccessible to any server breach.

BuyUcoin platform has following features to ensure that customer account remains safe and secure from any kind of cyberattack:

1. Strong password and account OTP verification.

2. Google 2 Factor Authentication (enabled from security section under customer's profile)

3. Trading Pin (Under the security section, customers can enable trading pin a six-digit code for transaction verification)

4. Also, as an extra security step, every transaction requires an OTP from customer's email.

However, this incident remains an ongoing investigation. We will keep all the stakeholders updated about the proceedings and conduct a major cybersecurity overhaul throughout 2021 to upgrade platform security. BuyUcoin stands in solidarity with other companies who have faced such unlawful cyber-attacks recently. There is an urgent need to revise the current cybersecurity policy to counter such attacks. BuyUcoin is more than willing to work with industry peers and other relevant stakeholders to protect the financial technology ecosystem.

What will be the most exciting tech launch of 2021? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

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BuyUcoin Cryptocurrency User Data Allegedly Affecting Lakhs of People Leaked on the Dark Web - Gadgets 360