The Security and Exchange Commission's Division of Examinations published on Friday a blueprint for investment managers and institutions on how the division will inspect the handling of crypto assets, or “digital asset securities,” moving forward. The division (formerly the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations) is the second-largest wing of the SEC and is tasked with overseeing securities industry players to ensure regulatory compliance. Targeted toward investment advisors, broker-dealers, exchanges and transfer agents, this Risk Alert provided a broad list of specific procedural, bookkeeping and advisory steps the division will be expecting from securities companies in future examinations. “As more …

Freewallet, a hosted crypto wallet service known for offering standalone storage services for cryptocurrencies has seen its marketing attempt rebuffed by Elon Musk. Responding to Freewallet’s self-promotional message, Musk retorted: Any crypto wallet that won’t give you your private keys should be avoided at all costs — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2021 Hosted crypto wallet platforms like Freewallet are often targets for criticism over the storage of their user’s private keys. This policy flies in the face of the “not your keys, not your coins” ethos propounded by cryptocurrency purists. By storing private keys on third-party platforms, crypto owners …

David Schwartz, current chief technology officer at Ripple, is responding to reports his predecessor had lost access to hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin. In a Quora post on Thursday, Schwartz said recent reports about former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas forgetting the password to an encrypted hard drive containing thousands of Bitcoin (BTC) were true, but added Thomas had also lost access to hundreds of coins when the crypto asset was young. The Ripple CTO said his predecessor used to test the development of a Javascript library for Bitcoin by using real coins when the price was well under …

A German-born programmer in San Francisco has now used up eight of 10 password attempts he has to unlock the hard drive containing the private keys to his Bitcoin wallet, which contains 7,002 Bitcoin (BTC). As of press time, those holdings would be worth $268 million — that is, if only they were accessible. As a New York Times profile on Jan. 12 outlined, Stefan Thomas uses a hard drive called an IronKey, but lost the paper on which he wrote down the password for the device "years ago." If Thomas fails to remember it, 10 failed guesses will result …

A student has claimed to have found private keys accidentally HODLed starting as early as 2011 which will unlock more than $4 million in Bitcoin. According to a throwaway account from BitcoinHolderThankU, the Reddit user was able to cash out roughly $4.2 million in Bitcoin (BTC) after finding the lost keys to 127 BTC on Dec. 22, when the price of the crypto asset was in the $23,000s. They later liquidated the coins in the middle of the bull run. “I spent the next week figuring out how to safely and securely liquidate such a large amount of Bitcoin for …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note Last week’s Law Decoded sounded the alarm on threats to self-custodial wallets in the U.S. in particular. While such concerns have continued to take shape, nothing concrete has emerged from the U.S. Treasury, which was at the heart of last week’s conversation. Though I don’t like to recycle themes, it seems a reasonable time to ask the question: What is a crypto wallet as far as a regulator is concerned? While many people access their crypto through custodial solutions …

As cryptocurrency investment becomes more and more popular, long-term investors are increasingly concerned with the uncomfortable question: What happens to your Bitcoin (BTC) when you die? According to a 2020 study by the Cremation Institute, nearly 90% of crypto owners are worried about what will happen to their crypto after they pass away. Furthermore, despite a high level of concern, crypto holders are reportedly four times less likely to use wills for inheritances than non-crypto investors. As explained in its white paper, Bitcoin is a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash, allowing online payments to be sent directly from one …

As the cryptocurrency market is in the midst of a major bull run with Bitcoin (BTC) approaching its all-time highs, the security concerns of cryptocurrency self-storage are becoming more relevant than ever. On Nov. 12, Bitcoin — the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap — surpassed a $16,000 threshold for the first time since the 2017 rally landing BTC price at an ATH of $20,000. After hitting $16,300, Bitcoin has only ever been above this price for 12 days in its entire history. As Bitcoin is now sitting at its highest historical levels and the crypto community is anticipating more …

IoTeX, a privacy-focused platform for the Internet of Things, has partnered with camera manufacturer Tenvis Technology to offer Ucam, an indoor security camera powered by blockchain technology. Head of business development at IoTeX Larry Pang told Cointelegraph that Ucam users can access their camera data through a decentralized system and log in with an “uncrackable” password. The camera or a user’s mobile phone handles all the computing, meaning decryption occurs on the devices, letting users control their own data. “A private key is used to end-to-end encrypt all the data,” said Pang. “We need to have technology that guarantees our …

The latest upgrade to the Algorand network shows that the project is eyeing the burgeoning DeFi space. In a Cointelegraph interview, Algorand’s head of product Paul Riegle emphasized the three key features of this upgrade: the addition of stateful smart contract functionality to the base layer, “fast catchup” and “rekeying”. The Algorand team believes the new features make it a viable competitor in the DeFi space. He pointed out what makes Algorand’s stateful smart contracts different from its brethren on other platforms is their integration into the base layer, which allows them to run extremely fast: “They do it at …

Torus, a Singaporean crypto key management platform, now allows users to send cryptocurrencies through social media platforms such as Twitter. With Torus’ latest update, v1.7.2, users can now send tokens to any Twitter or GitHub account, even if that account has never used Torus’ crypto wallet, the firm said. Torus publicly sends ETH to Buterin, Musk, and CZ on Twitter Announcing the news on Monday, Torus showcased a couple of Twitter transactions, featuring 0.01 Ether (ETH) transfers to major crypto figures such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao as well as Elon Musk. As of press time, …

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 …