Over the last 14 years, investors got attracted to Bitcoin (BTC) for many reasons— from fixing a flawed fiat economy and reaching the unbanked to diversifying portfolios. However, a large portion of the general public sees Bitcoin as a gateway to financial freedom amid growing fiat inflation and geopolitical uncertainties. Traditional banking systems have, time and again, served as a tool for centralized governments to dictate financial access, especially during dire situations. Most recently, the Ukraine-Russian war served as a case study for how cryptocurrencies helped the displaced and the unbanked access funds for basic necessities. As intended by the …

Amid the crisis of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEX), crypto exchange Binance is moving to improve its institutional trading services with cold custody opportunities. Binance announced on Jan. 16 the official launch of Binance Mirror, an off-exchange settlement solution that enables institutional investors to invest and trade using cold custody. The newly launched Mirror service is based on Binance Custody, a regulated institutional digital asset custodian, by mirroring cold storage assets through a 1:1 collateral on Binance account. Binance emphasized that the new solution enables more security, allowing traders to access the exchange ecosystem without having to post collateral directly on …

While self-custody is considered the ultimate way to secure one’s funds, many fail to acknowledge the risks associated with physically storing seed phrases. A search conducted by the State Police agency for Nevada ended up making a suspect’s seed phrase public after being picked up by the body cam. A viral video making rounds on Twitter showed two police officers searching a suspect’s car and coming across pieces of paper. It turns out, the suspect was a strong believer in self-custody as unfolding the pieces of paper revealed the suspect’s seed phrase, which was hand-written — a popular method to …

The fall of the FTX crypto exchange forced many to reconsider their overall approach to investments — starting from self-custody to verifying the on-chain existence of funds. This shift in approach was driven primarily by the lack of trust crypto investors have in the entrepreneurs after being duped by FTX CEO and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). FTX crashed after SBF and his accomplices were caught secretly reinvesting users' funds, resulting in the misplacement of at least $1 billion of client funds. Efforts to regain investor trust saw competing crypto exchanges proactively flaunting their proof-of-reserves to confirm users' funds' existence. However, …

The bear market has inspired the little guy to accumulate vast amounts of Bitcoin (BTC). The number of wallets holding 1 BTC or more recently hit new highs while those with 10 BTC or less are setting accumulation records. However, to what extent are these newly minted “wholecoiners” taking custody of their private keys? Has the recent spate of insolvency among centralized exchanges (CEX) encouraged Bitcoin enthusiasts to move their Bitcoin into cold storage, removed from third party risk? For Checkmate, lead analyst at Glassnode, the data would point to this result. Checkmate told Cointelegraph, “Overall looks like, at least …

Smaller wallet addresses in the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem continue accumulating BTC despite market turmoil. The number of known addresses on the Bitcoin blockchain that hold 1 BTC or more has hit a new all-time high. According to blockchain analytics company Glassnode, the number of wallets holding at least 1 BTC or more reached 950,000. Bitcoin podcast host Jake Woodhouse told Cointelegraph that “To the untrained eye, the price of something reflects the value. However, price action should not be confused with value, as the most recent data in the Bitcoin market represents.” He added: “Plebs around the world are hoovering …

The fall of FTX highlighted the importance of proof of reserves in averting risks and improving investor confidence, urging leading crypto exchanges to publicly list down their cold and hot wallet addresses. When trying to confirm the availability of funds on Crypto.com, cold store information revealed a suspicious transfer of 320,000 Ether (ETH) to a wallet address linked to Gate.io on Oct. 21, 2022. Community member @jconorgrogan raised concerns about the transfer of 320,000 ETH from Crypto.com’s cold wallet to Gate.io, considering that the former claims that 100% of user-owned cryptocurrencies are held offline in cold storage in partnership with …

There has been a spate of “crypto muggings” in London recently, with thieves threatening crypto holders with violence unless they transfer over their digital currencies held in mobile phone wallets or on crypto exchanges. As detailed by The Guardian UK, crime reports from the City of London police detail how thousands of dollars worth of crypto has been stolen by thugs in person. One victim said their phone had been pick-pocketed while out drinking and later realized over $12,000 worth of Ether (ETH) had been siphoned from their Crypto.com account. The victims believe the thieves witnessed them type in their …

ConsenSys-owned crypto wallet provider MetaMask has sent out a warning to the community regarding Apple iCloud phishing attacks. The security issue for iPhone, Mac and iPad users is related to default device settings which see a user’s seed phrase or “password-encrypted MetaMask vault” stored on the iCloud if the user has enabled automatic backups for their application data. In a Twitter thread posted on Monday, MetaMask noted that users run the risk of losing their funds if their Apple password “isn’t strong enough” and an attacker is able to phish their account credentials. To fix the issue, users can disable …

A cold wallet belonging to the infamous Bitcoin (BTC) exchange Mt. Gox transferred 6,800 BTC to an unknown wallet just days after the former CEO Mark Karpeles revealed plans to redistribute BTC worth $6 billion to its creditors. Mt. Gox was a Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange that shut down in Feb. 2014 after a hack that compromised 850,000 BTC. In a recent interview, Karpeles disclosed that the exchange had roughly 200,000 BTC in possession during the company’s closure, out of which the trustee sold roughly 50,000 BTC for $600 million in the past. According to Karpeles, the remaining 150,000 BTC currently …

Keenon Dequan Ray Jackson, the rapper who goes by the name YG appears to show off a fat $30 million stack of Bitcoin (BTC) in his latest music video. The reveal appears to either be an eye-watering — but possibly fake — flex, or a crafty bit of product placement, as a cold storage device from crypto wallet provider Ledger is featured prominently in the video. The social team from Ledger was on it immediately too: We see you! @YG knows how to secure those bags of #bitcoin … not your keys, no your coins. — Ledger (@Ledger) February 11, …

Bluzelle, a decentralized storage network, has announced the release of its mainnet R2 file storage system designed to enhance the decentralization of nonfungible tokens (NFT) and their corresponding data. The solution was created amid the rise in concerns around the lack of immutability on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol, a relatively undiscussed model of storage that currently serves as the gold standard for the majority of NFT assets including Cryptopunks and Beeple. Twitter user Jonty Wareing shared a popular assessment on the fundamental flaws of IPFS for NFT projects. Short version: The NFT token you bought either points to …