New Report Reveals Centralized Exchanges Still Dominates

A crypto and blockchain research organization has recently revealed that despite increasing number of decentralized exchanges last year, centralized exchanges still dominate the crypto market with a lion’s share of global industry trade volumes.

This was recently been reported by TokenInsight who share the information to an online news site.

According to the report the research firms studied over 400 exchanges from around the globe and found that only around 19% of all those exchanges are decentralized exchanges (DEX).

This means a whopping 81% are centralized exchanges.

It also adds that only 1% of trading volume came from DEX the other 99% come from centralized exchanges.

This is despite the fact that centralized exchanges have been the target of high profile hacks during most part of the year 2018.

These hacks underscores that benefits of DEX over centralized (CEX) ones as well as the challenges of CEX such as opaque trading rules, transparent fund storage and security.

DEX on the other hand does not have the same weaknesses as digital assets never leaves the custody of the token owner.

Mysterious Virus Targeting China Bitcoin Miners

According to a news report, there is a mysterious virus that is spreading in China that has cost miners tens of thousands of dollars lost.

The virus apparently targets BItmain’s antminers by which the hacker hijacks the mining machine demanding 10btc or the mining gear would be overheated.

The virus can easily be removed by reformatting the SD card of the infected miner, however this solution could mean several days of downtime for a crypto mining farm with several thousands of mining equipment.

If the miner does not pay and did not remove the malware the hacker can initiate an overclocking command that will effectively fry the chips of the mining equipment.

The Antminers have integrated linux-based control panel which allows the system to be infected by the virus.

Until now it remains unclear who or what group controls the virus.

Losses due to the virus is averaging $8,000 per day.

University Researchers Discovers A Way To Track Stolen Bitcoin

It has been recently reported that researchers from the University of Cambridge have found a way to track Bitcoins that have been used for illicit activities.

This was made possible through the efforts of researchers of the University lead by security engineering professor Ross Anderson.

According to the research team it was able to create an algorithm that will reliably track criminal activity involving blockchain-based cryptocurrencies.

The algorithm is inspired by an old UK finance law that determines how banks should distribute the money they have left when they collapse.

If the Bitcoin enters a thief’s wallet from the victim’s address, the destination address in any payout if the same amount, regardless of the number of transactions involved is considered associate with the thief.

The team claims that they have found many addresses linked to money laundering using this process.

However there are two problems that arise from this approach.

First Bitcoin must be considered as a form of currency to be able to prosecute.

Second criminals are moving away from Bitcoin and move to privacy coins such as Monero with superior privacy options.

Despite these loopholes it is nice to know that we are moving forward to criminal traceability in crypto space.

Banking Association Pushing For Blockchain Digital ID System

It has been recently reported that the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) has recommended the creation of digital identification system to the Federal government of Canada.

This is in line with the effort of introducing open banking in the North American country.

The new ID system will be built using blockchain technology to ensure security.

According to Neil Parmenter, The CBA President and CEO the digitization of ID processes would speed up business activities by eliminating the need for physical and paper-based data checking.

He has also stated that the Canadian government cannot waste time since the technology development makes the need of digitization all the more urgent.

The initiative comes at a time when changes in the Canadian Banking Act allow banks to invest in Fintech.

A federated and trusted digital ID would be crucial for these initiatives.

The open banking consultation will continue until February 11, 2019, hopefully by then the new ID system would have been approved.

Regulated ICOs Can Be An Effective Crowdfunding Model Says OECD

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has recently stated that ICOs can be an effective crowdfunding mechanism if it were to be regulated.

It calls for an international and well-measured approach in regulating Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

With a proper legal framework that protects all participants could unlock significant capital-raising potential for small and medium blockchain enterprises (SME).

According to OECD the relatively new crowdfunding mechanism has several advantages over traditional public equity financing.

These advantages includes: cost-effectiveness, democratizastion of crowdfunding mechanism, a greater and more diversified investor participants, capital-raising without conferring ownership rights.

Aside from the above mentioned advantages the ICO model also create liquidity, flexibility, and network values.

However these advantages are hampered by regulatory uncertainty and various risk to some participants especially unsophisticated investors that might not fully understand what they are getting into.

If a proper regulatory framework would be implemented ICOs could be a viable and sustainable way of raising funds for SME as well as an effective tool to protect both the SME and the investors from risk.

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