Bakkt, a Bitcoin (BTC) futures platform still in development, is purportedly closing in on a Q3 launch date. An anonymous source close to the company reportedly shared this information with blockchain and crypto news publication The Block, according to a report on July 26. However, The Block says it has received a copy of a slide-deck indicating that Bakkt still needs the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to approve its warehousing service — the company’s proposed cold storage solution for safely storing private keys. According to the report, gaining approval from the NYDFS would give Bakkt permission to …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) outlined regulatory compliance issues for cryptocurrency custodians in an announcement on July 8. According to the joint statement, the organizations have yet to discover a set of circumstances in which a crypto custodian could comply with the SEC’s Customer Protection Rule, which is described as follows: “Put simply, the Customer Protection Rule requires broker-dealers to safeguard customer assets and to keep customer assets separate from the firm’s assets, thus increasing the likelihood that customers’ securities and cash can be returned to them in the event …

Binance Labs, the blockchain incubation initiative run by Binance, has provided the blockchain-based customer relationship management (CRM) Cere Network with strategic funding, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on July 3. Binance Labs announced that Cere Network would be graduating from the Season II cohort of its incubation program on June 5. On July 3, Cere Network announced that it is receiving funding from Binance Labs, Arrington XRP Capital, and NEO Global Capital. The Cere Network purportedly uses a “decentralized system” integrated with a blockchain to store customer data. Businesses and vendors are then granted permissioned proxy keys …

The non-custodial crypto wallet solution ZenGo has created an open source project that purportedly provides proof-of-concept (PoC) for its ability to support social media giant Facebook’s virtual currency Libra, according to an official announcement by ZenGo on July 2. According to the announcement, this proof-of-concept project shows that it is possible to perform Libra transactions on the Libra testnet blockchain. However, the findings are limited, as the report cautions: “Obviously, this experiment is only based on a testnet and we will have to explore further once Libra makes its mainnet available. Additionally, there is no user interface in this PoC …

tZero, United States retail giant Overstock’s crypto subsidiary, has launched a digital wallet and exchange app for crypto, the company officially announced in a tweet on June 27. The firm calls its new mobile crypto app a hack-resistant solution for trading and storing cryptocurrencies, tZero CEO Saum Noursalehi said in a press release to Reuters. Noursalehi explained that the application will store private keys directly on users’ smartphones, which is expected to provide maximum security, in contrast to “more vulnerable, third-party exchanges for custody.” Moreover, tZero’s private key recovery system will allow users to restore their funds in case if …

Ripple (XRP) wallet and gateway-as-a-service provider GateHub has warned that there is a phishing scam campaign targeting its cryptocurrency wallet users, as per an announcement on June 13. According to the announcement, GateHub’s wallet users are being sent malicious emails from addresses that look like they are from GateHub: “@gatehub.com” and “@gatehub.net.” The emails instruct the users to transfer their funds to a “secure” wallet, which is owned by the attacker, because their private keys are allegedly compromised due to insufficient security precautions. GateHub notes that, in addition to the attack being an unaffiliated phishing attempt, the service provider never …

Online cryptocurrency paper wallet creator WalletGenerator.net previously ran on code that caused private key/public key pairs to be issued to multiple users. The vulnerability was described in an official blog post by security research Harry Denley of MyCrypto on May 24. According to the post, the bad code was in effect by August 2018, and was only recently patched out as of May 23. The live code on the website is reportedly supposed to be open source and audited on GitHub, but there were differences detected between the two. After researching the live code, Denley concluded that the keys were …

High-end Swiss watchmaker Franck Muller has partnered with alternative assets investing firm Regal Assets to release the bitcoin (BTC) storage watch “Encrypto,” according to a report by Cointelegraph Brasil on May 23. In addition to being a high-end fashion accessory, with a price ranging from $9,800 to $50,600, the watch reportedly also functions as a cold wallet for BTC. The watch is reported to be engraved with a public address on its dial and comes paired with a private key on a USB drive. According to the firm, the “deep cold storage wallet” is unhackable and uses “offline generated, non-deterministic …

Earlier this week, United States-based security consulting firm Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) published a report on private keys for the Ethereum blockchain. Despite establishing around 700 weak private keys that are being regularly used by multiple people, the researchers found a “blockchain bandit” who has managed to collect almost 45,000 ether (ETH) by successfully guessing those frail private keys. Cointelegraph interviewed Adrian Bednarek, a senior security analyst at ISE, to find out more about what they describe as “ethercombing.” Research background and chief findings Bednarek says he discovered the hacker by accident. At the time, he was doing research for …

A “blockchain bandit” has managed to amass almost 45,000 ether (ETH) by successfully guessing weak private keys, according to a report released by Independent Security Evaluators on April 23. Adrian Bednarek, a senior security analyst, said he discovered the sophisticated hacker by accident. While guessing a private key is meant to be a statistical improbability, he managed to uncover 732 private keys through his research — giving him the ability to complete transactions as if he was the account holder. The report notes that rather than using a brute force search for random private keys, it used a combination of …

Israeli cryptocurrency developer KZen has raised $4 million from backers including South Korean electronics giant Samsung, industry news outlet The Block reported on April 17. The company’s product, smartphone wallet app ZenGo — currently in beta phase testing — aims to simplify custodial wallet usage for entry-level cryptocurrency users. Using a combination of split key storage and biometric security features, the company hopes users will be able to benefit from a simple wallet user interface while not relying on a third party or themselves to hold their private keys and other sensitive information. A smartphone and cloud storage form the …

Prague-based crypto wallet manufacturer Trezor has responded to а report about hardware vulnerabilities from its competitor Ledger on Tuesday, March 12. Trezor claims that none of the weaknesses revealed by Ledger in a detailed report on March 10, are critical for hardware wallets. As per Trezor, none of them can be exploited remotely, as the attacks described require “physical access to the device, specialized equipment, time, and technical expertise.” Trezor further cites the results of a recent security survey performed in partnership with major cryptocurrency exchange Binance. According to the survey, only around 6 percent of respondents believe that physical …