Early in January, One Click Miner 1.0 Beta 6 was released with fixes for all the issues to Beta 5. Users were then advised to try it. And, they can were further requested to report anything wrong on Github in a way facilitating improved final release.

Recently, Vertcoin tweeted about the release of One Click Miner 1.0 RC1 Improved and added more extensive reporting to the output of the GPU detection step so its easier to see what went wrong. If no more bugs are found this code will be recompiled into the v1.0 final release.

Sydney Ifergan, Crypto Expert tweeted: Since Poloniex disabled Vertcoin, the withdrawals have been disabled from February 27, 2020. Further, Vertcoin have requested investors to move $VTC to the wallet of their choice. Vertcoin-Core is the wallet recommended by the parent site.

The Vertcoin is 6 years old and they are beginning to rock the cryptocurrency world already. We just recollect that Vertcoin was created as a graphics card mined version of Bitcoin in Jan 2014 as response to Litecoin succumbing to ASIC control. It is important that everyday people with desktop computers can mine the network so that network hashrate is as decentralized as possible. Something nice about them is that there is no premine, no ICO and No Airdrop.

Vertcoin believes in that cryptocurrencies are supposed to belong to people. When anything less than this happens it is a failure to the goal for which cryptocurrency was treated in the first place. Vertcoin focuses on keeping the cryptocurrency ecosystem as decentralized as possible.

Alex Turek, MTS Systems Debug Engineer at AMD during his spare-time fights for Asic Resistance in the cryptocurrency space as a Dev Team Member at Vertcoin. He has contributed in terms of Own end-to-end validation of ARMv8 SMMUs for Datacenter Products, testplans, multi-core / multi-IO exercisers, execution, and debug / triage, when he was working for Qualcomm.

Bienvenido Rodriguez, Instructor at The Grace Hopper Program at Fullstack is a volunteer developer at Vertcoin. Currently, he is working on creating a mobile and desktop wallet to interface our second layer solution Lit. Lit is our version of the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Valentin Anghel is in to the process of mining at Vertcoin. It is evident that the user base at Vertcoin is not only diverse, but it is filled with rich technical expertise. People with commitment make it happen and there are lot of them at Vertcoin.

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VertCoin (VTC) One Click Miner Beginning To Rock the Cryptocurrency World Already - The Cryptocurrency Analytics

On December 2, 2019, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unsealed a criminal complaint against Virgil Griffith for conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions authorized by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by providing services to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea). The indictment of Griffith, one of the developers of the Ethereum blockchain, is the first instance where the Department of Justice has publicly announced chargesagainst a US citizen for conspiring to use cryptocurrency in an attempt to evade sanctions. Its an interesting case of a developing technology being applied to laws dating back to 1977 (not long in years but generations in technological breakthroughs).

PARIS, FRANCE - FEBRUARY 12: In this photo illustration, a visual representation of the digital ... [+] Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is displayed in front of the Bitcoin course's graph on February 12, 2020 in Paris, France. The price of Bitcoin is rising and has once again passed above the very symbolic bar of 10,000 US dollars. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)

The complaint against Griffith alleges that he visited North Korea in April 2019 to give a presentation at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference, where the main topic of discussion was how blockchain and cryptocurrency technology could be used to launder money and evade international sanctions that keep it from becoming a developed nation.

The United States efforts to combat such sanctions evasion began in September 2018, when the DOJ and the Department of Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) simultaneously announced criminal charges and civil sanctions against Park Jin Hyok, a North Korean citizen, someone the FBI had been tracking for years and subsequently put on its most wanted list.OFAC also sanctioned Hyoks employer, Chosun Expo Joint Venture, an agency, instrumentality, or controlled entity of the North Korean government. The DOJs complaint alleges that Hyok used a ransomware attack named WannaCry 2.0, which encrypts files on the computers of its victims (mostly in the US) demanding Bitcoin ransom payments. North Koreas Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement claiming that Hyok is a non-existent entity, and furthermore, the act of cyber crime mentioned by the Justice Department has nothing to do with us.

In September 2019, OFAC announced sanctions against Lazarus Group and two of its sub-groups, Bluenoroff and Anaderiel, asserting they were directly involved in WannaCry 2.0 and the 2014 cyberattacks of Sony Pictures Entertainment.Joel Androphy, partner at Berg & Androphy said, For a rogue nation like North Korea, its not just about evading sanctions, its a revenue stream.

North Korea appears to have been relatively successful in generating revenue through this type of indirect sanctions evasion.Citing an unreleased confidential United Nations report, Reuters reported in August 2019 that North Korea is estimated to have raised up to $2 billion by using cyberspace to launch sophisticated attacks on financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges to generate income.It has become a burgeoning business model.

Although that revenue was earned prior to OFACs announcement of sanctions against Lazarus Group, the sanctions do not appear to have deterred North Korea from continuing to explore ways to use cryptocurrency to generate illicit revenue.Days after the sanctions were announced, the Korean Friendship Association posted information about the second Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference, which was scheduled for February 24 and 25, 2020.The FAQ page of the conference website expressly states that individuals with United States passports are welcome and that for your convenience we will provide a paper visa separated from your passport, so there will be no evidence of your entry to the country. Nothing like trusting North Korea to keep a secret.

Shortly after Reuters report came out, United Nations sanctions experts were warning people not to attend the Pyongyang Cryptocurrency Conference, noting that attendance at the conference could be a sanctions violation. The timing of the websites removal strongly suggests that the threat of international penalties from the United Nations had a deterrent effect much stronger than the threat of penalties from the United States alone.

Countries other than North Korea that are not subject to international sanctions also appear undeterred by United States penalties.For example, in March 2018, President Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting United States persons and entities from engaging in transactions involving the Petro, Venezuelas cryptocurrency. Around the same time, OFAC announced sanctions against Evrofinance Mosnarbank, a bank that was involved in facilitating the Petros launch. Despite the sanctions and the Petros apparent lack of popularity among Venezuelans many of whom still do not know how or where to buy Petros Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro announced efforts designed to strengthen the Petro in 2020, including exploratory sales of Venezuelan oil for Petros and the payment of taxes and utility bills in Petros.

OFACs announcement of sanctions against two Iranian men who allegedly converted the proceeds of a ransomware scheme from Bitcoin into Iranian rial appears to have been similarly ineffective. One of the two men sanctioned told theNew York Timesthat he had resumed exchanging Bitcoin within a week using a new anonymous Bitcoin address. The Iranian government has also reportedly shown interest in developing a cryptocurrency. At the Kuala Lumpur Summit in December 2019, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani suggested that leaders from Turkey, Qatar, Iran, and Malaysia create a Muslim cryptocurrency to save themselves from the domination of the United States dollar and the American financial regime.

The apparent effectiveness of the threat of international sanctions, and the collaborative efforts of other nations to develop cryptocurrencies that could be used to harm United States interests, underscore the need for the United States to work with its allies to combat cryptocurrency-based sanction evasions.Although many countries believed to be involved in sanctions evasion (such as Venezuela) are not subject to international sanctions, there are other ways in which the United States can seek support from its allies.

With cooperation from its allies, US prosecutors can use various statutes to indict and extradite those who commit offenses involving cryptocurrency abroad as well as in the United States.The world can be a small place when it comes to the reach of US government agencies, Androphy said, and many people who get caught up in this stuff simply dont know the laws that can get them in big trouble.

While each allys existing statutes and needs will be different, the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recently issued standards designed to provide an international framework for the regulation of virtual currencies and other virtual assets. As the FATF noted in a statement following its January 9, 2020 Supervisors Forum, the challenge is now to effectively implement these standards. The United States should be leading efforts to do so, because international cooperation will be an invaluable tool in amassing the economic power necessary to prevent cryptocurrency-based sanctions evasion by actors within and outside the US.

Make no mistake about it, people using cryptocurrencies to commit offenses are taking a significant risks. While some who drift on the wrong side of the law do so with intent, they may not know the extent of the trouble that they can get into with the criminal justice system in the US. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, something many people have no familiarity with, can put offenders in prison for decades. Just to be extradited from a foreign country can take months or years ... imagine that sitting in a Venezuelan prison. Sealed indictments and cross-border cooperation with authorities makes traveling that much more precarious. One minute you can be headed to some part of the world on vacation and the next you could be sitting in a prison on what you thought was supposed to be a layover of two hours.

Emily Burgess, an attorney who works with Androphy, told me, Cryptocurrency transactions are only pseudonymous, not anonymous, and a user whose identity is uncovered faces significant penalties.

For those who think crypto will hide them detection and, eventually punishment, you better think twice.

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Crime And Punishment In The Cryptocurrency World - Forbes

Berkshire Hathaway chairman and billionaire investor Warren Buffett has reiterated his aversion to cryptocurrencies.

"Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don't produce anything," Buffett told CNBC in an interview on Monday. "I don't have any cryptocurrency and I never will," Buffett added.

Last month, Tron founder Justin Sun, along with his four guests, dined with Buffett - but that didn't change the billionaire investor's stance on crypto.

"When Justin and four friends came, they behaved perfectly and we had a very friendly 3-hour dinner and the whole thing was a very friendly exchange of ideas," Buffett said, adding that neither he nor Sun changed their stance on bitcoin.

89-year old Buffett has been a long-time critic of cryptocurrencies. He has called bitcoin as a "real bubble" and "rat poison squared," among other descriptors.

Interestingly, Buffett today said he may create a "Warren currency" that would be available after he passes away.

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Warren Buffett says he will never own any cryptocurrency - Yahoo Finance

Guest post by Cal Evans from Gresham International

Cal is the Managing Consultant of Gresham International.

Cryptocurrency exchanges represent one of the most diverse service offerings within the crypto industry.

You only have to stack a handful of exchanges up, side by side, to see the differences between them. These differences can be found in a multitude of areas. Some differences relate to the actual user interface (UX) experience of the platform and how users interact with the services. Other differences can be found in the technical side of the trading offered by the exchange. This list is almost endless.

In a market that is now so big, this diversity allows crypto users to move to whichever exchange best suits their needs a real win for those who are trading in the community.

To date, crypto exchanges have had a fairly easy life with respect to regulation and the amount of paperwork they have to do. Considering the amount of cash that flows through some exchanges, it is quite astonishing that so far they have had minimal regulation. In hindsight, this might not be such a great thing.

Regardless of your thoughts on the balance between privacy/freedom and control/monitoring, the simple fact is that most countries do not allow free flow of assets of any kind. Monitoring them kills factors such as financing terrorism and money laundering from crime. Two things which, in the early days of Bitcoin, gave the whole industry a bad name. One which we are still trying to recover from.

In order to counter this, 2019 saw a raft of new laws passed in various international jurisdictions. Most of which, aimed at exchanges. Essentially, there has been no headway into actually legislating cryptocurrencies themselves. However, moving forward, the trading will be much more regulated.

To help you understand the major changes, lets take a brief look at the new major laws coming into play over 2020.

Hong Kong has finally set its mind on the trading of cryptocurrency. As of now, companies that are looking to offer trading services of cryptocurrencies will have to register for a Money Service License within Hong Kong. This is the same license that Foreign Exchange companies will use. It carries reporting requirements that are slightly easier than being a usual financial services firm.

Singapore was the original birthplace of the exchange. Consequently, many many exchanges decided to set up there and conduct business. Singapore now requires all exchanges to register with The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). MAS is a full financial oversight body that will inspect every element of the company including business operations and transactions.

The EU has now placed registration requirements on all exchanges operating within the Union. Although countries such as Malta and Estonia already had these in place, all member states are now required to have cryptocurrency exchanges register within their respective country. One registration will work for all member states (as is common with all financial services). The obligation is only on the collection of data of users of the exchanges. Not information on trades. This registration process will vary from state to state.

The United Kingdom was in the EU long enough to be caught by the new law but will be out in time to decide how they set it up. Consequently, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has now created a special type of Crypto License. This license places a requirement on companies that operate in the crypto space and facilitate trades to register with the organization. This includes companies outside of exchanges.

All of these new laws are designed to ensure that companies who operate from onshore locations are taking the necessary steps to protect the flow of money in and out of the country. For those exchanges that are looking to promote a more decentralized or fluid approach to trading will more than likely have to move to an offshore location in order to continue doing business.

Since 2016 Gresham International assisted entrepreneurs, companies, governments, and groups launch their currency or token offering to market.

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Why 2020 is an important year for cryptocurrency exchange regulation - CryptoSlate

Thesuicide note cited personal reasons. But Ashraf Nusubuga, a radiology studentat Kampalas Makerere University Ugandas leading higher educationinstitution didnt hang himself over a love affair gone wrong or because ofacademic pressure. The 22-year-old killed himself after losing money he hadinvested in a bogus cryptocurrency firm.

He had put all of his money and some he had borrowed into what turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, lured by the promise of high returns, according to Luke Oweyesigire, deputy spokesperson for Kampala Metropolitan Police. But Nusubuga isnt the only one to have fallen victim.

A series of large cryptocurrency scams is rocking Uganda, turning the East African nation into an unlikely hub for fraudulent firms claiming to offer digital currencies, while preying on weak governance and low financial literacy. Other major cryptocurrency scams in 2019 involved developed economies Japans BITPoint exchange lost $28 million, and con men in the U.K. and the Netherlands stole $27 million from Bitcoin users. Globally, cybercriminals stole $4.3 billion from users and exchanges last year. But Uganda is the worst hit by far.

At least five cryptocurrency firms have closed shop and walked away with a total of more than $26 million of their clients money in the past six months. From students and churchgoers to army officers and government officials, the victims span Ugandan society. Robert Bakalikwira, a criminal investigations officer probing these cases, estimates that in all, 200,000 Ugandans have lost about $1 billion, or almost 4 percent of the countrys GDP of $28 billion, over the past two years.

Ugandans are better off investing their money in cows than plunging into the unknown world of cryptocurrencies.

Patrick Mweheire, chairman, Uganda Bankers Association

These scams are different from those in the West, where hackers have stolen from exchanges or robbed from people. In Uganda, fake firms claiming to offer cryptocurrencies are luring people to buy in, before walking away with their money. The countrys growing crisis holds lessons for other poor nations with weak regulations unable to keep up with the sometimes misleading promise of technology.

We have receivedvery many cases of cryptocurrencyscams,says Fred Enanga, Ugandas national police spokesperson. We advise Ugandans toavoid being fleeced off their money in such deals.

But the role of President Yoweri Musevenis government is coming under scrutiny. It has set up a 10-member commission of inquiry, and is issuing public statements to alert Ugandans that the government and central bank dont recognize any cryptocurrency. Yet even though the country has no regulations for the sector, the government hasnt made it illegal to operate a cryptocurrency firm in Uganda. In parliament earlier this month, an MP pointed out that Kwame Rugunda, the son of Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, is CEO of CryptoSavannah, a cryptocurrency advisory firm.

Museveni himself appeared to be an early proponent of cryptocurrencies. At an event in Kampala in January 2017, where Bank of Uganda Governor Emmanuel Mutebile said he wasnt confident about the credibility of cryptocurrency, the president rebuffed him. Museveni said Mutebile wasbeing dogmatic, and emphasized the need to embrace technology.

Many ordinary people in the country which has the lowest literacy rate in the region took it as a government endorsement of digital currencies. A flood of firms some legitimate and several fraudulent entered the country.

Museveni is partly responsible for our suffering, says 50-year-old Ken Wamala from the southern Uganda town of Masaka who says scams have cost him around $41,000.

The fraud firms include Dumanis Coins, whose management disappeared on Dec. 3, 2019, after collecting $2.7 million in Ugandan shillings. More than 10,000 people had invested in the company. Police have arrested one of the firms directors but are still searching for four others, says Kampala police spokesman Patrick Onyango. John Kalevu, whose shop is next to Dumanis Coins former office, says he came to work one day to find the cryptocurrency firms doors open, but the office empty.

Global Cryptocurrencies closed overnight in November. Andrew Kagwa, its chief executive, was arrested after two weeks on the run. More than 10,000 people had invested $8.2 million in the firm. Lion Cryptocurrency closed down in October 2019, taking with it $5.4 million in investments made by 17,000 people, says Henry Musagala, the investigating officer. One Coin, another of the fraud firms, duped 12,000 people out of $6.8 million. The D9 cryptocurrency company shut shop with $3.2 million in investments from 9,000 people.

Other cryptocurrency companies that have closed since early 2018 leaving thousands of people confused and stranded include Team, Dutch International, Finetegry and Fital-Science.

Employees of these firms havent escaped unscathed either. Sheila Nassali, a nurse by training, recalls how a Global Cryptocurrency director convinced her to join the company as a secretary and a customer. She was shocked when the director disappeared, leaving me to face angry customers who wanted to get their money.

Patrick Mweheire, chairman of the Uganda Bankers Association, says, Ugandans are better off investing their money in cows than plunging into the unknown world of cryptocurrencies.

But experts and former employees of these firms say ignorance isnt the only problem. Muzamiru Kigundu, who used to work with Lion Cryptocurrency before it shut down, alleges that many government officials are among the owners of cryptocurrency companies mushrooming in Uganda. That lends the industry legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary people. The directors of these firms rent fancy offices and drive expensive cars to create the impression that theyre wealth creators, he says.

Ugandas corruption it ranks 160 in Transparency Internationals index is also to blame. Some of the fake firms were registered as companies even though they didnt meet statutory requirements. The major cause of the cryptocurrency scams is corruption, says Joseph Bogere, professor of economics at Makerere University.

Ultimately, though, its the responsibility of the countrys leaders and security organizations to protect citizens against such crooks, says Solomon Male, a pastor. That isnt happening yet. An already poor nation is bleeding further, while gaining an unwanted reputation.

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The Billion-Dollar Cryptocurrency Scams You've Never Heard About - OZY