Adoption: You Can Now Pay For Parking Tickets In Bitcoin Across Europe

The Belgian digital parking start-up – Seety – allowed customers of the application to pay for parking sessions in Antwerp and Brussels with Bitcoin (BTC). Apart from the primary cryptocurrency, the option includes six other digital assets such as Ethereum (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE).

Separately, the e-commerce giant ShopCom has allowed its customers to make purchases with various cryptocurrencies as well.

Park Your Car – Pay in Crypto

According to a report by the local media DataNews, the Belgian application – Seety – enabled clients to purchase parking tickets with cryptocurrencies. As of the moment, the offer applies only to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp.

Customers who want to take advantage of the new crypto option should purchase Seety credits via the app. Currently, they can employ seven different cryptocurrencies. Namely, those are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Dai (DAI), and USD Coin (USDC).

Founded by Hadrien Crespin and Nicolas Cognaux, Seety is a digital parking application that operates not only in Belgium but also in France, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands. It has more than 350,000 active members and expects a revenue of 400,000 euros in 2021.

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BitcoinParking
Bitcoin parking

Seety, part of the start-up accelerator Start it @ KBC, is a keen cryptocurrency supporter. It anticipates digital assets to become more environmentally friendly in the future. With that said, Seety raised hopes that the global adoption of Bitcoin and the altcoins would significantly increase.

SHOP and BitPay

The e-commerce portal SHOP(dot)com partnered with the bitcoin service provider – BitPay – to allow customers to execute purchases in cryptocurrencies.

Upon checkout, users will have the option to pay with Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Litecoin (LTC), and 5 USD-pegged stablecoins (GUSD, USDC, PAX, DAI, and BUSD).

The multinational payment services company – Worldline – also jumped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. WL Crypto Payments – the integrated service offered by Worldline and Bitcoin Suisse – enabled 85,000 Swiss merchants to accept Bitcoin and Ether as a payment option at the point-of-sale (POS) and in e-commerce.

To join the offer, traders need to download the WL Crypto Payments mobile application, while customers paying with digital assets may do so via their usual mobile crypto wallet app. Marc Schluep – CEO of Worldline Switzerland – commented:

“The launch of cryptocurrencies acceptance at the POS in Switzerland is a great proof of our ambition: Worldline wants to bring tangible value to merchants across the globe and to facilitate smooth and modern payments in all the markets we operate in.”

In addition, a Louisville coffee shop plans to accept Dogecoin as a payment method. The store even vowed to change its name to “Dogebean.” As of the moment, though, customers can only order online as the shop is closed for rebranding.

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Data Shows Crypto Hacks And Fraud In 2021 Are On Track For A New Record

Crypto hacks and scams are nothing new in the crypto space, but every time they happen, they still come as a shock to investors. Most especially the victims of these attacks.  Bull markets always seem to come with an increased number of attacks. So with a bull market that has raged on for the better part of a year, 2021 has definitely had its fair share of attacks, despite just entering its ninth month of the year.

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These attacks have accelerated with the recent crypto surge. Prices have been up across the board and it seems like this has been a cue for the attackers to ramp up their operations. This could be due in part to the high prices of the cryptocurrencies bringing much higher returns on their attacks. Whatever the case may be, attacks in 2021 have increased and data shows that the number this year will most likely surpass the record for last year.

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Accelerated Crypto Attacks In 2021

Crypto hacks and scams had previously reached a record number in 2020. At a total of 32 identified cases in 2020, it was the year with the highest number of hacking and fraud incidents in the crypto market. In just eight months, there have been 32 identified cases of hacking and fraud in 2021. With six months to go and the bull rally raging on, more of these attacks can be expected to happen before the year runs out.

Related Reading | Data Shows Nearly 90% of Bitcoin Has Been Mined, Here’s How Long It Will Take To Mine The Rest

Since 2017, the number of breaches has consistently increased each year, according to an analysis from Crypto Head. 2017 marks the beginning of one of the most memorable bull runs in the crypto space. So it is no surprise that there was a jump in the number of attacks from the previous year. In 2016, there were only 5 identified cases of crypto hacking and fraud. But this number jumped to 21 the following year in 2017.

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With four months left to go and DeFi exploits still on the rise, the number of attacks in 2021 may very well beat 38. These hacks and breaches are becoming even more sophisticated. Attackers are now developing tools that make their attacks harder to catch and trace.

2017 Attacks Carted Away The Biggest Loots

On average, just in 2017, attackers made away with $223.5 million on average. The total number of 21 attacks for the year came out to a balance of $4.7 billion stolen in crypto hacks and fraud. Setting the record for the highest amount stolen in a single year.

Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course

Despite having a higher number of attacks, 2020’s 38 identified cases came out to about $1.8 billion total. This amount already surpassed in 2021 by at least a billion. So far, the 32 combined attacks of 2021 have come out to a value of $2.9. The Poly Network attack that took place this year amounted to $610 million. Making it the biggest DeFi heist in history.

These attacks have mostly focused on the top coins in the crypto market, which, incidentally, also provide the most liquidity. About a third of these breaches have been targeted at the leading cryptocurrency, bitcoin. Ethereum comes in as second most targeted with 12.8%. Unknown coins make up about 9.2%, while ERC-20 tokens were targeted 7.4% of the time.

Crypto total market cap chart from TradingView.com

Crypto total market cap chart from TradingView.com


Total crypto market cap now trading at $2.29 trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com
Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView.com

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Singapore Central Bank Selects 15 Firms For Retailing CBDC

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) finally shortlisted 15 companies that will assist in developing retail CBDC. These firms will participate in the Global CBDC challenge and help build the in-house retail central bank digital currency.

MAS announcement indicates that the participants include four companies from the United States and six from Singapore. There’s also one firm each from Barbados, France, Switzerland, Australia, and Germany. Of all the participants, only three winners will emerge and work to build Singapore’s retail CBDC.

On June 28, there was an announcement of the cash prizes for the digital currency ideas by the Singaporean central bank. This resulted in a challenge that has more than 300 fintech firms from over 50 countries in participation.

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Related Reading | Ethereum Software Client Geth Issues Hotfix To Tighten Security

Some of the global finalists are Criteo (France), Bitt (Barbados), and Soramitsu (Switzerland). Also, there are ANZ Banking Group Limited (Australia) and Giesecke+Devrient advance52 GmbH (Germany).

Singapore Central Bank Selects 15 Firms For Retailing CBDC

Singapore Central Bank Selects 15 Firms For Retailing CBDC


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The shortlisted United States-based firms include Consensys, cLabs Inc., IBM, and Extolabs LLC.

The local Singaporean shortlisted consortiums are IOG Singapore Pte Ltd, Citibank N.A., Standard Chartered Bank, and IDEMIA. Others are HSBC Bank Limited and HSBC Holdings Plc, and Xfers Pte Ltd

Finalists Will Be Rewarded For Developing CBDC Retail

A cash prize of 50,000 Singapore dollars (about $37,000) complements the Singaporean initiative of building its retail CBDC. An earlier announcement disclosed the MAS mentoring of the 15 finalists.

Also, the finalists can gain access to the APIX Digital Currency Sandbox that will promote quick prototyping of digital currency solutions.

The Sandbox ecosystem should contain over 100 APIs that are linked to payments and core banking.

Furthermore, it will contain Mastercard’s digital fund APIs. The finalists now have an opportunity to promote their CBDC solutions during the Singapore Fintech Festival from November 8th to November 12th, 2021.

There have been pro-crypto moves from the country’s authorities through the entire 2021. For example, the MAS recently released an ‘in-principle approval to Independent Reserve, an Australian crypto exchange. The company stands as the first crypto exchange to receive such approval in Singapore.

The approval will enable the company to run as a regulated Digital Payment Token (DPT) Service provider. Through the approval, Independent Reserve is expected to avail its users the maximum consumer protection. It will also ensure compliance with Anti-Money Laundering rules.

Related Reading | Bittrex Global CEO Declares Dubai Will Gain Benefit From Cryptocurrency Market Expansion

Also, there’s a report that Singapore hosts 170 crypto exchanges, including Germini and Binance. These companies seek approval to kick off businesses in the country.

Featured Image From Pixabay

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Top Crypto Strategist Predicts Breakouts for Three Lagging Altcoins, Says Chainlink Presenting ‘High Probability’ Setup

A prominent crypto strategist and trader is eyeing breakouts for three lagging altcoins while waiting for Chainlink (LINK) to catch fire.

The analyst known in the industry as Inmortal tells his 63,200 Twitter followers that peer-to-peer payments network Litecoin (LTC) has broken out of consolidation and is poised to rally to his target at $260.

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“Perfect timing. Now teleport this to $260.”

Image
Source: Inmortal/Twitter

Inmortal is also looking at Bitcoin fork Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and smart contract platform EOS, which he says are likely to follow Litecoin’s bullish ascent.

“BCH/USD. Time to play the laggards. LTC is leading the way (old coins). I think BCH and EOS could follow.”

TradingView Chart
Source: Inmortal/TradingView

Next up is decentralized oracle network Chainlink. According to Inmortal, he’s waiting for Chainlink to breach its immediate resistance against Bitcoin (LINK/BTC) at 0.00065 BTC, worth $32.51 at time of writing.

“One of my favorite ALT/BTC charts.

The plan is simple,

Wait for a clear break above KEY level + 200MA (moving average) to confirm that deviation, then buy/long on a retest, targeting those equal highs at 0.001 BTC ($50).

High probability 3R setup.”

TradingView Chart
Source: Inmortal/TradingView

As for Bitcoin, the crypto analyst says he believes BTC will eventually break above key resistance at $50,000 and reach his target at $60,000.

“BTC/USD

BTC will follow ETH.

Vertical accumulations lead to expansion.”

TradingView Chart
Source: Inmortal/TradingView

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/GrandeDuc

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Ethereum Software Client Geth Issues Hotfix To Tighten Security

Geth, the most renowned software client of Ethereum, has provided a hotfix to the threatening security challenges in its code. The news was posted on Tuesday at 07:08 UTC to GitHub. However, the details of the terms were not disclosed immediately.

The release is titled Hades Gamma (V1.10.8); it was posted to Ethereum GitHub on Tuesday at about 07:08 UTC.

According to one of the posts on the release page, it didn’t disclose the details of the vectors, including their fixes. This would have allowed the dependent downstream projects and node operators to update their software and nodes.

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Related Reading | Bittrex Global CEO Declares Dubai Will Gain Benefit From Cryptocurrency Market Expansion

A report from Ethernodes.org states that close to 75% of all the nodes on the Ethereum blockchain run Geth. Therefore, these users are advised to upgrade to Geth V.1.10.8, the updated version, immediately.

Guido Vraken Discovering The Bug In Ethereum

A software developer Guido Vraken announced on August 18th that he had discovered the bug. Guido Vraken is a scientist who specializes in discovering open-source software code vulnerabilities.

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He is also interested in scientific works, product development and validation, regulatory matters, and teaching. Guido Vraken is a graduate of the  University of Ghent and a volunteer at Natuurpunt.

As stated earlier in the GitHub security advisory post, Geth’s vulnerability can make a node unable to execute Ethereum blocks.

The Ethereum experienced a temporary split on its chain during the last Geth code’s fix for a software bug. The split resulted from communication lapses from Geth developers regarding the bug, which was a deliberate act.

However, several computers known as ‘nodes’ don’t bother to customize their Geth users to the normal implementation. This led to a consensus failure in the blockchain, as recorded in November 2020.

Geth Developers Take On The Latest Version

In a blog post, the Geth developer team mentioned that not exposing the security vulnerability is backed by some reasons. First, the act delays all potential attacks on intending node operators that require more time to migrate to the newest version.

Now, Geth developers emphasize how urgent it is for all their software users to migrate to the latest version. However, their formal August 18th announcement didn’t explicitly describe the vulnerability nature and form.

Related Reading | Former DigitalX Executive Appointed As The New Binance Australia CEO

One of the Geth developers, Péter Szilágyi, stated his opinion while tweeting about the code release on Tuesday. He said that “People were not happy with our hotfix last time; they noted that we didn’t make the announcement. So we have decided to do it differently this time; let’s know the one that works better,” – he added.

Infura and other major Etherum-based wallets and services have pledged their support for this latest Geth release. They publicly made this announcement on Twitter.

Featured Image From Pixabay

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NFL Bans Teams From Selling NFTs, Entering Crypto Sponsorships: Report

The National Football League (NFL) is reportedly banning teams from selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and entering sponsorship deals with crypto trading firms for now. 

According to The Athletic, the league is imposing the temporary policy as it comes up with a strategy to enter the market for sports digital cards and arts. 

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The league is also barring NFL teams from selling sponsorship agreements with crypto exchanges like FTX. However, The Athletic reports that NFL teams can work with asset management firms selling funds that track the performance of crypto assets. 

An unnamed team official reveals the NFL’s new guidelines involving the digital asset industry.

“Clubs are prohibited from selling, or otherwise allowing within club controlled media, advertisements for specific cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, other cryptocurrency sales or any other media category as it relates to blockchain, digital asset or as blockchain company, except as outlined in this policy.”

Although the NFL is slow to jump into the booming NFT space, the National Basketball Association (NBA) is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from sales of digital collectibles. NFT resource CryptoSlam shows that the NBA Top Shot, which sells short clips of NBA highlights as digital collectibles, has generated over $704 million in all-time sales. 

Earlier this year, the NBA’s Miami Heat inked a $135 million agreement granting crypto exchange FTX the naming rights to its home arena in Florida. The Chicago Bulls also launched their own NFT collection in partnership with online shopping platform Shopify.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/LEOVIN/Sashkin

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Financial Administration In Slovenia Proposes Special 10% Tax On Crypto Income

Slovenia, though small, is one of the fastest-growing nations in Europe, especially in the business and economic contexts. After its successful economic succession from Yugoslavia, it was the first to join the European Union in 2004 and is the wealthiest Slavic nation, as measured by per capita GDP. Crypto adoption in Slovenia has rapidly grown over the years. The awareness of cryptocurrencies among its citizens is relatively high.

The Proposed Crypto Tax Bill

According to reports by local media, the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia (FURS) has put forward a proposal to change the crypto taxation rules in the country. This proposal aims to introduce a 10% taxable income bill on cryptocurrency asset activity in the near future. The country’s tax authority claims that this change would significantly simplify the way crypto-related income is taxed.

crypto total market cap on TradingView.com

crypto total market cap on TradingView.com


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Total crypto market rises to $2.28 Trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap from TradingView.com

Currently, the authority has to analyze an individual’s crypto activity on a case-by-case basis. It examines numerous transactions made by a taxpayer between the purchase and sale of the digital currency as well as the various cryptos they have bought and sold or converted. If the amendments are introduced, the financial administration elaborated that it would no longer have to go through this stagnant and tedious crypto administrative process.

Related Reading | Making Money in Bitcoin Markets? Don’t Forget About Crypto Taxes

“We would like to emphasize that it is not profit which would be taxed but rather the amount a Slovenian tax resident receives on their bank account on turning the virtual currency into cash or when buying a thing.” FURS said according to the media.

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Crypto Adoption In Slovenia

In recent times, Slovenia has projected itself as a hotspot for blockchain and cryptocurrency-related activities. With an estimated population of 2 million, the country contains more physical locations accepting cryptocurrency payments than the entire United States.

Related Reading | Slovenia’s Bitcoin City to Become World’s First Fully Crypto Friendly Lifestyle Center

According to GoCrypto, in 2020, more than 1,000 locations now allow cryptocurrency payments, including cafes, restaurants, dentists, hair salons, and hotels. At the beginning of 2019, it was also the only country in the world where you could survive solely on cryptocurrencies.

Featured image from The Slovenia Times, Chart from TradingView.com

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COVER Isn’t Covered: Devs Abandoned the DeFi Insurance Protocol, Token Plunged 16%

Following the announcement by core contributor “DeFi Ted,” COVER price plummeted 16% as trading volumes soared. Cover Protocol, a DeFi insurance cryptocurrency minted on Ethereum, will no longer receive support and development after engineers in the core team left suddenly.

The insurance coin’s core contributor, “DeFi Ted” announced the project would be shutting down early Sunday morning. COVER had a market cap of around $21 million at the time he made the announcement. Within hours, the price fell over 16%, from $269 to the low $220s as of writing these lines.

24-hour trading volumes surged from below $4 million to nearly $20 million as COVER holders scrambled to exit. DeFi Ted advised coin holders to “withdraw any funds from both protocols asap, as we can no longer maintain the UI.”

At the time of publication, COVER is traded against ETH, USDT, and BUSD on Binance, Gate-io, OKEx, and CoinEx.

The Irony: COVER Is Not Covered

The DeFi insurance project’s leader also wrote:

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“The decision to do this did not come easy and is a final decision the remaining team made after reviewing the path forward, after the core developers suddenly left the projects.

After discussing with the remaining team and finalizing plans moving forward it made sense that the remaining treasury funds be evenly dispersed to token holders.”

DeFi Ted added that he “was extremely disappointed to learn that the development team was leaving so suddenly, especially given the time we had spent together building out the protocols and following the vision they had.”

Ironically, the vision they had was DeFi insurance coins that would cover investors from losses in projects that end in calamity, as Cover Protocol just did.

The Cover Protocol allowed users to stake COVER coin to put it up as collateral, and receive smart contract tokens that would execute claims to insure the holder against losses from hacks, exploits, and rug pulls in Ethereum DeFi projects gone awry.

Cover Coin Has Shown Signs of Buckling

The Cover token suffered a big blow in March from a highly publicized split with Andre Cronje’s Yearn Finance (YFI).

Launched in July last year, the YFI platform is designed for developers to experiment with creating autonomous yield maximizing apps that automatically disburse user’s funds to the highest yield generating projects in the DeFi ecosystem.

After partnering with Cover Protocol last November, the two projects parted ways in March without Yearn Finance or Cover disclosing why. Though many speculated it might have been prompted by the Dec 2020 “infinite mining” hack that crashed the crypto’s price by 80%.

The white-hat hacker returned the funds, 4,350 ETH, at block 11542777. They included a note with the returned crypto that read, “Next time, take care of your own s**t.”

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Top 5 cryptocurrencies to watch this week: BTC, LTC, FIL, FTT, MIOTA

Bitcoin (BTC) is struggling to sustain above $50,500 but that has not stopped the altcoins from following in Ether’s (ETH) footsteps after the top-ranked altcoin hit $4,000 on Sept. 3. This has pushed Ether’s market dominance above 20% while Bitcoin’s dominance has shrunk to 41.1%.

However, Bitcoin’s hesitation in the past few days has not altered the outlook of Bloomberg senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone who has retained a $100,000 target on Bitcoin and $5,000 on Ether.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

Apart from the top two cryptocurrencies, the nonfungible token (NFT) sector had been attracting investor’s attention since July. Cointelegraph contributor Jordan Finneseth recently suggested that the recent drop in transaction volumes and a few other reasons could be signaling a rotation of capital from NFTs to the decentralized finance sector.

Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that may outperform in the short term.