Austrian regulators are calling for stricter crypto laws amid a spate of elaborate investment scams involving cryptocurrency and digital assets. According to a Bloomberg report of Friday, Austria’s Financial Market Authority has revealed that more than 60% of all reported financial fraud in the country involve crypto trading products. The FMA says these crypto scammers are using social media platforms like Telegram and TikTok to advertise their fraudulent offerings to would-be victims. Commenting on the need for stricter crypto regulations to curb the menace of these fraudulent investment activities, Klaus Grubelnik, a spokesperson for the FMA remarked: “We see a …

The Iota Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind Iota, Iota Tangle and Miota, announced it will be joining Austria’s newest Christian Doppler Laboratory, or CDL, as an industrial partner. The first of its kind, the laboratory is housed at the Vienna University of Technology and named the CDL Blockchain Technologies for the Internet of Things, or CDL-BOT. The laboratory was officially opened in a digital ceremony on Nov. 26 by Austrian Federal Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs Margarethe Schramböck. It will focus on research and development in public and private partnerships between institutions and businesses seeking to expand the implementation …

The Vienna Stock Exchange, or Wiener Börse, has become just the third “official regulated market” worldwide to list a Bitcoin (BTC) product. The exchange listed 21 Shares AG’s Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded products (ETPs), ‘ABTC’ and ‘AETH’, on September 1. Exciting news today, our #Bitcoin and #Ethereum ETPs — ABTC and AETH are the first crypto-centric ETPs admitted on @wiener_boerse, the Vienna Stock Exchange, one of the most established exchanges in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe! https://t.co/jX3UOnsytA — 21Shares (@21Shares_) September 1, 2020 Thomas Rainer, Wiener Börse’s head of development, emphasized that the listing allows “experienced, local investors” to …

Crypto holders in Austria will soon be able to spend their coins at more than 2,500 points of acceptance using A1 Payment — one of the largest mobile network operators in the country. According to an announcement made by Austrian fintech firm Salamantex, its Crypto Payment Service Software is now integrated into the A1 Payment platform. Merchants will start accepting Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) or Dash, instead of cash or credit cards, in summer 2020. Austria’s current stance towards crypto Salamantex also praised the country’s recent stance towards switching to cashless payment transactions “as far as possible.” Markus Pejacsevich, the …

The Austrian government has backed a new blockchain-based research project, aiming to provide secure communication channels between authorities, institutions and citizens in times of crisis. As announced June 18, the QualiSig project, launched by Austrian comms specialist A-Trust, will utilize the Ignis child chain, part of the Ardor blockchain from Swiss company Jelurida. Answering the call QualiSig recently received a grant of 60,000 euros ($67,300) from the Austrian government following an emergency call for companies needing funding for COVID-19 research. The project uses transparent, encrypted communications and secure and decentralized data storage. Citizens will have sole responsibility for control over …

The chief executive of crypto-friendly $13 billion custodian Kingdom Trust, Ryan Radloff, sees Bitcoin (BTC) as a manifestation of Austrian economics. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Radloff said that he first encountered Bitcoin toward the end of 2011, adding that he began “hodling and accumulating shortly after.” Bitcoin as Austrian Economics Unlike many early adopters, Radloff stated that it wasn’t the technology underpinning Bitcoin that attracted him to crypto, rather the economic principles that the nascent cryptocurrency embodied. “For me, what drove to Bitcoin wasn’t the technology at all. [...] I had been a student of monetary policy, specifically the …

Malware team, NetWalker, launched a ransomware attack against the Austrian village of Weiz. This attack affected the public service system and leaked some of the stolen data from building applications and inspections. According to the cybersecurity firm, Panda Security, hackers managed to penetrate the village's public network through phishing emails related to the COVID-19 crisis. COVID-19 as bait to deploy the ransomware The subject of the emails — "information about the coronavirus," — was used to bait employees of Weiz's public infrastructure into clicking on malicious links, thus triggering the ransomware. Panda Security claims that the attack belongs to a …

While global jurisdictions are progressing with central bank digital currencies, private institutions also work on digitizing national currencies. Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), a major Austrian bank, is working on a new form of national currency tokenization using blockchain technology. RBI is extending its collaboration with Polish-British fintech firm, Billon, following a successful test of end-to-end digitized national currency transfers. RBI Coin is designed to speed up cross-border transactions As announced on May 18, RBI and Billon are working on initial stages of an RBI tokenization platform, currently dubbed RBI Coin. The pilot is planned to be conducted until late 2020 …

An Austrian project is set to use blockchain to help find waste heat hotspots in the cities of Vienna and Graz. Announced by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) on May 12, HotCity’s proof-of-concept involves creating a gamification system to crowdsource hotspots around the city and channel them to provide public heating. The platform will use the Ignis blockchain, part of the Ardor ecosystem developed by Swiss company Jelurida. Sustainability in Austrian cities Vienna hosts one of Europe’s largest district heating networks, which provides hot water through centralized heating lines in the city. One of the benefits of such a …

Germany’s Black Manta Capital Partners has launched a security token offering (STO) for Berlin real estate worth more than $12 million. The project is a collaboration with the German real estate firm Tigris Immobilien and includes around 2000 square metres of real estate in total, mostly comprising individual apartments from 40 to 60 square meters in size. Construction is expected to be complete by 2022 and units will be sold to investors and owner-occupiers. Token holders will share 20% of the sale profits through securitized participation rights. The company said the tokens will enable ordinary investors “to participate in a …

The French cybersecurity company Nigma Conseil and the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) have revealed to have collaborated on developing a new blockchain forensics tool. The agreement was signed on Feb. 25 to work on e-Nigma, a proposed compliance tool. E-Nigma provides its users with a way of conducting due diligence investigations in response to Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulation. Like other similar tools, it monitors and organizes blockchain transactions. The platform provides several advanced features such as risk scoring and wallet clustering. It is able to identify addresses with real-life identities by scraping through both …

The past week has seen a range of crypto- and blockchain-related developments in the German-speaking world. The German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection is planning to sponsor a research project of the University of Marburg on legal issues surrounding blockchain technology, the Swiss online bank Swissquote began offering its customers the trading of a real estate portfolio-covering security token, and an Austrian research project provided proof of profitability for blockchain technology-based decentralized marketplaces. Below is the past week of crypto and blockchain news in review, as originally reported by Cointelegraph auf Deutsch. The German Ministry of Justice donates …