Bitcoin (BTC) has made global headlines again because of the recent Twitter hack, but this time, we need to work harder to protect Bitcoin’s integrity and the progress the industry has made. The coordinated social engineering attack compromised the Twitter accounts of high-profile figures and organizations like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, former United States President Barack Obama and 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, among many others, to ask for Bitcoin in fake “giveaway” posts. When the story broke, the New York Times, BBC and other mainstream media outlets were quick to …

Half a dozen emerging markets have established new records for weekly peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin (BTC) trading, including India, Ghana, the Philippines, Argentina, Mexico and Egypt, according to data published by Useful Tulips. India comprised the strongest market to post a new record for trade activity, with $3.4 million worth of BTC trading hands over the past seven days. India’s P2P markets began gaining significant momentum from the second quarter onwards, with Indian volume beating out its December 2017 all-time high of $2.95 million last month before consistently rallying above $3 million this month. African P2P markets continue to show strength …

Blockchain forensics firm Ciphertrace has traced funds obtained by the Twitter hackers in the ‘giveaway’ scam to peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges and crypto gambling sites. On July 21, Ciphertrace reported that 0.2 Bitcoin (BTC) had been transferred to a P2P exchange via a ‘peel chain’ also used by the hackers to move funds to a crypto casino. Peel chains comprise chains of wallets that funds incrementally pass through to obfuscate the movement of illicitly obtained crypto. The tactic is believed to be favored by North Korean hackers — with Ciphertrace estimating that Chinese nationals linked to North Korea have laundered more …

The world is eagerly waiting for a next-generation, high-performance, permissionless blockchain, and this blockchain should be able to industrially scale all decentralized applications. So far, the crypto community has witnessed: Peer-to-peer blockchain networks that use all the peers to validate transactions and provide computation and storage — or traditional blockchains — such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. P2P blockchain networks that shard transactions, computation and storage — or sharding blockchains — such as Ethereum 2.0 and Zilliqa. Sharding mechanisms give hope for unlimited, sustainable scalability of blockchains, but many people in the blockchain space strongly believe that the scalability or sharding …

Peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) marketplace Paxful announced on July 14 that its platform has witnessed another surge in trade volume, hitting the $4.6 billion mark and reaching over 4.5 million wallet registrations. Paxful is also forecasting an additional two million users by the end of 2020, as the company is entering its 5th anniversary. Emerging markets play a large role Ray Youseff, the CEO of Paxful, noted that emerging markets in developing nations are a major factor in the platform's recent growth. He said, "When you look at our data, in Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya lead in terms of volume …

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing is clear: The video games industry is thriving. As people around the world find themselves with more time on their hands thanks to government-mandated lockdowns and a partial economic shutdown, video game sales have skyrocketed. Despite being overshadowed by some of the more glamorous uses for blockchain technology, the gaming industry may be poised for a generational leap forward with the advent of asset tokenization — a practice that could expose the gaming industry to a whole new wave of investors while simultaneously unlocking myriad benefits for the world’s 2.5 billion gamers. Related: Beyond …

Are there decentralized file sharing use cases already in operation? Two examples where IPFS has been used are with Wikipedia and the Android version of the Opera browser. The Turkish government previously attempted to ban Wikipedia, citing it as a national security threat. Hacktivists uploaded a version of Turkish Wikipedia and posted it using IPFS as a way of circumventing the ban. IPFS has also been integrated into the Android version of the Opera web browser as part of its bid to introduce Web 3.0 capabilities. BTFS is integrated into decentralized video streaming network DLive, enabling fast and censorship-resistant livestreaming. …

Unstoppable Domains, a Tim Draper-backed startup focused on blockchain-based uncensorable websites, has launched a decentralized chat protocol. The so-called “Unstoppable Chat”, or simply “dChat” aims to promote confidentiality through a peer-to-peer network and end-to-end encryption. Opposed to mainstream messengers like Facebook, dChat enables users to own, encrypt, and store their messages themselves on their own servers. Users need an Ethereum wallet private key to sign in In order to allow users to fully control their messages, dChat integrates with a user’s cryptocurrency wallet and P2P networks. In order to sign in to the chat, users need to have an Ethereum …

The news that PayPal, the payments giant with 325 million active user accounts worldwide, was considering the direct sale of crypto assets — along with custodial services — had the crypto community buzzing last week, even if the reports couldn’t be verified. On July 1, a PayPal representative told Cointelegraph: “PayPal does not comment on rumors or speculation.” Guy Hirsch, the United States managing director of eToro, told Cointelegraph: “The importance of a global company like PayPal and Venmo getting into crypto is profound.” It will change the nature of cross-border transactions, which are now expensive and slow. Moreover, Hirsch …

Veteran peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto marketplace LocalBitcoins has reported annual revenue of nearly $29.5 million for 2019. The revenue comprises a roughly 10% increase over 2018’s $26.9 million, however, the firm also noted a 6% drop in annual operating income to $19.8 million. LocalBitcoins’ staff also expanded significantly last year as the platform strengthened its know-your-customer (KYC) requirements in the third and fourth quarters of last year, with the firm’s headcount increasing from 26 to 43. LocalBitcoins stifles illicit activity “2019 was an invaluable learning experience for us, as we implemented anti-money laundering and know-your-customer (KYC) regulations," said LocalBitcoins chief executive …

Yesterday, Cointelegraph hosted another episode of “CT Talks,” dedicated to Pride Month and addressing important questions on diversity, inclusion, stigmatization, acceptance, challenges and opportunities for the LGBTQ+ community in the crypto and blockchain space. For many people — mostly heterosexuals — the terms “blockchain” and “LGBTQ+” used so close together might seem irrelevant. For those who are a part of the community, as I am, it is perfectly natural to raise this topic within the space, combining these discourses. Emerging technologies such as crypto, blockchain, AI and big data have already made an enormous impact on people all over the …

Peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) trading has seen rapid growth in recent months, with the African continent now the second-strongest region in the world for P2P volume behind the U.S. Africa was the sole region to produce an increase in seven-day P2P trade this past week — with sub-saharan African trade posting its seventh all-time high for weekly trade in nine weeks. Since early January, the sub-saharan African has overtaken the Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, and Latin American regions to emerge as the second-strongest P2P market by a volume margin of more than 50%. African P2P trade surges Data posted to Twitter by …