MORE LIKE COINFACE, RIGHT? Coinbase is among more than 2,000 entities from around the world working with Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition technology provider. The company had previously claimed its software was "strictly for law enforcement." Coinbase confirmed it had tested Clearview's software, but said customer data had not been used. Face the story
CORONAVIRUS HITS MARKETS: The spreading coronavirus sowed new fear among investors, triggering a stock market sell-off and flight to safe-haven assets like gold and U.S. Treasury bonds. Goldman Sachs warned the impact could wipe out all growth in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index this year. Bitcoin fell earlier this week too, leading some analysts to question the thesis it might serve as a safe haven from financial panic. Full story
EXCHANGE FATE: Two top cryptocurrency exchanges reported distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on their systems in the last 24 hours. OKEx CEO Jay Hao said the first attack was of a 200 gigabyte severity, but the second had doubled to 400 GB. More severely affected is Bitfinex, whose trading services were offline for under an hour on Friday. Full story
EDGE CUTS CRYPTOJACKERS: With malicious cryptocurrency miners having proliferated in the last two years, Microsoft has moved to protect users of its Edge web browser from the effects. A newly enabled feature will prevent the download of "potentially unwanted applications" such as cryptojackers or adware. It's available in Edge versions 80.0.338.0 and later and is off by default, but it can be turned on in the Privacy and Services settings. Browse the story
CRYPTO ON ICE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) recently disclosed “Cryptocurrency Intelligence Program” (CIP) is deployed in every Homeland Security Investigations case that involved crpyto. Al Giangregorio, unit chief at the HSI's National Bulk Cash Smuggling Center, said the intel program, first mentioned in ICE’s 2021 budget proposal, helps HSI agents whenever cryptocurrency is involved, although its nature remains a mystery. Full story
FRAUD WARNING: Scammers have been sending fake versions of CoinDesk's daily newsletter to try to trick recipients into visiting a suspicious "XRP giveaway" site. If you received this message, which copied our logo and design and even used our executive editor's name in the "from" field, know that it did not come from us. (Note that the actual sender's address is not a CoinDesk.com domain.) Please forward to [email protected] and [email protected], and block the sender if received. |
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CRYPTO LENDING REPORT: The growth of crypto lending could attract new users and help the entire ecosystem grow. The introduction of lending, however, can also add systemic risk, and could change the very nature of the underlying assets. Will the benefits outweigh the potential vulnerabilities? This report also looks at what the near future could hold for the service, and the impact this could have on the sector as a whole. Download it for free here.
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| FORGET FEBRUARY: Bitcoin is close to ending February on a negative note for the first time in six years. The biggest cryptocurrency by market value is currently trading below $8,600, representing about a 7.5 percent drop from the price of $9,339 seen on Feb. 1. The price drop has invalidated the short-term bullish case and pours cold water over the safe-haven argument. Even so, there is some consensus in the market the bullish trend of 2020 is not over yet, with glassnode insights saying in a note, that BTC is still undervalued. Full story
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| MAKING SENSE OF A TERRIBLE WEEK: This was one of the worst weeks for all markets — including crypto — in recent history. Crypto trader Scott Melker guests on The Breakdown, distributed by CoinDesk, where NLW asks him the tough questions. Can we expect more of the same in March? Listen now on Apple Podcasts |
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