Ethereum released their report for the second quarter of 2017. The report details research and steering meetings, and the development of Metropolis, Mist, Web3.js, and other software the Ethereum Foundation is working on.
Slack channels, widely used for communications among teams working on cryptocurrency projects, were hit by massive phishing attacks throughout last week. Slack users were warned of security risks, and told to remove their funds from compromised wallets. The links to withdraw the funds led to fake versions of cryptocurrency sites, which sent the user’s passphrases to attackers, allowing them to withdraw the funds.
Version 0.4.12 of Solidity, the Ethereum programming language, was released on July 3.
The city of Zug in Switzerland will become the first municipality to accept digital identities for its citizens. They are using Consensys’s acclaimed uPort system, which stores keys on the blockchain.
Alphabay, probably the biggest and most popular darkweb market, went down on July 5, leading to fears that the operators had shut the market down and vanished with the Bitcoin in users’ wallets on the site. (As operators of the popular Evolution Market did in 2015.) An Alphabay admin assured users that the site was only offline for maintenance.
In the United States,a man plead guilty to a phishing scam to steal Bitcoin from users of darkweb forums. The scam successfully netted him $365,000.
Ransomware attacks continued throughout last week, affecting emergency services in the Unites States, and a condom factory.
Waves, a platform commonly used to create new cryptocurrencies, announced on July 4 that they are partnering with Deloitte, the professional services giant, to provide blockchain services to clients.
An advisor to the People’s Bank of China expressed concerns last week over people investing in junk ICOs. He said, “Moderate regulation should be applied, but it should not stifle innovation”.
The Guardian reported on July 4 that someone is selling the Medicare details of any Australian citizen on the darkweb for just 0.0089 BTC. The hacker claims to have found a zero-day exploit in the Australian healthcare database. Investigation by The Guardian confirmed that he supplies real details.
The fourth-biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, the Korean-based Bithumb, was hacked last week. The attack was a phishing phonecall on a Bithumb employee’s personal computer. More information here.
A report by Deloitte has confirmed that Japan has eliminated consumption tax on Bitcoin, essentially recognizing it as money, rather than as a product being consumed, which would be taxable.
The Tezos ICO continued through last week, and had raised 54,939 BTC and 315,710 ETH at the time of writing, worth around $212 million.
A whitehat hacker accidentally helped solve a murder case in a bizarre story. The hacker breached a the website of a darkweb scam claiming to offer murder-for-hire.
Bitnovo announced 4,000 new outlets to buy Bitcoin for cash across Spain.
Picture from Pixabay.
