Coinbase Global Inc, the biggest exchange in the United States, has confirmed that its Wallet browser extension is now available for the Ledger Hardware Wallets, a move that was initiated to bring an added layer of security to its users.
As the announcement published in a blog post by Adam Zadikoff, Senior Product Manager at Coinbase Global, the integration will provide “an additional layer of security and greater peace of mind” to all of its customers.
“Today, we are adding support for Ledger hardware wallets in the Coinbase Wallet browser extension, introducing an additional security option for our users,” he introduced the detail by adding that “Hardware wallets are physical devices that store the private keys to your crypto wallet offline. Because every transaction on the blockchain requires both a user’s public and private keys, a hardware wallet ensures that only the user who holds the physical device can complete a transaction.”
Since the launch of the Coinbase Wallet, both through the mobile app and its browser extension, the trading platform has played a pivotal role in helping its users to connect to the growing hoard of DApps and earn interest from a variety of Web3.0 protocols. The wallet is allegedly easy to use. According to Adam:
“Whether you are a first-time hardware wallet user or already have a Ledger it is easy to use Coinbase Wallet to connect to the ever-growing world of NFTs, dapps, and DeFi. All you need to do is download the Coinbase Wallet browser extension, connect your Ledger to your computer, and follow the on-screen instructions.”
While there are numerous hardware wallets in the market today, Ledger is one of the most prominent with over 4 million users. Through the launch, both Coinbase and Ledger have debuted a limited edition of the Nano X Coinbase Edition which users can use to gain more personalized self-storage services.
According to Adam, a host of related integrations of hardware wallets will be initiated in the coming future.
Coinbase Global Inc, the biggest exchange in the United States, has confirmed that its Wallet browser extension is now available for the Ledger Hardware Wallets, a move that was initiated to bring an added layer of security to its users.
As the announcement published in a blog post by Adam Zadikoff, Senior Product Manager at Coinbase Global, the integration will provide “an additional layer of security and greater peace of mind” to all of its customers.
“Today, we are adding support for Ledger hardware wallets in the Coinbase Wallet browser extension, introducing an additional security option for our users,” he introduced the detail by adding that “Hardware wallets are physical devices that store the private keys to your crypto wallet offline. Because every transaction on the blockchain requires both a user’s public and private keys, a hardware wallet ensures that only the user who holds the physical device can complete a transaction.”
Since the launch of the Coinbase Wallet, both through the mobile app and its browser extension, the trading platform has played a pivotal role in helping its users to connect to the growing hoard of DApps and earn interest from a variety of Web3.0 protocols. The wallet is allegedly easy to use. According to Adam:
“Whether you are a first-time hardware wallet user or already have a Ledger it is easy to use Coinbase Wallet to connect to the ever-growing world of NFTs, dapps, and DeFi. All you need to do is download the Coinbase Wallet browser extension, connect your Ledger to your computer, and follow the on-screen instructions.”
While there are numerous hardware wallets in the market today, Ledger is one of the most prominent with over 4 million users. Through the launch, both Coinbase and Ledger have debuted a limited edition of the Nano X Coinbase Edition which users can use to gain more personalized self-storage services.
According to Adam, a host of related integrations of hardware wallets will be initiated in the coming future.
As crypto prices recover after a slump last week, Pascal Gauthier, CEO of crypto wallet firm Ledger, addressed questions relating to the state of the crypto market.
In an interview taken by CNBC at the Crypto Finance Conference in St Moritz, Switzerland, Gauthier said the situation panning out with Bitcoin (BTC) comes as no surprise. The retail trend is prominent and it’s “always the same.” He explained:
“The number of addresses with the minimum number of BTC is actually growing compared to the number of whales. There is a profound retail trend everywhere in the world; they trust Bitcoin more and more. It’s the people that will push the price up.”
Recent data from on-chain market intelligence provider Glassnode supports the claim. The number of BTC addresses with a non-zero balance is at all-time highs, topping out just short of 40 million.
Source: Twitter
An insightful metric, the non-zero balance number offers a sitrep of Bitcoin adoption. More addresses infer more users are entering the Bitcoin network, a telltale sign that retail is on the march.
Related:Bitcoin wallet addresses created in November inched toward 1 million
On altcoins, Gauthier supplied a note of consternation about projects that have recently outperformed Bitcoin. He suggested that this year could be a year of consolidation for some cryptocurrencies:
“Last year they (cryptocurrencies) were projects coming into the light; this year they have to deliver in terms of applications running on top of these protocols.”
Gauthier said that Solana (SOL) has a good value proposition for nonfungible toekns, and is in a good place to compete with Ether (ETH). While some of the top 10 protocols enjoyed wild price speculation and price increases in 2021, the market anticipates “good things from these protocols.”
He concluded with a steadfast rule for blockchains: “The token of a blockchain is the security of that blockchain. The more expensive the token, the more secure the blockchain.”
Ledger hardware wallet currently supports over 50 different protocols. France’s first crypto unicorn, Leger will launch a crypto debit card over the next three months. It will undoubtedly tap into its crypto experience in order to compete with the likes of Mastercard, who are also introducing crypto-linked cards.
DeBank, a cryptocurrency wallet focused on decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions, has closed new funding led by major venture capital firm Sequoia China.
The firm announced Tuesday on Twitter that it raised $25 million, bringing DeBank’s total valuation to $200 million.
Apart from Sequoia China, the funding round featured major crypto investment firms like Dragonfly, Hash Global and Youbi.
The raise also included strategic funding from Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com exchange, stablecoin provider Circle and hardware wallet maker Ledger.
DeBank is a cryptocurrency wallet designed to track DeFi data, including decentralized applications or exchanges (DEX) and DeFi interest rates. It also lets users navigate and manage various DeFi assets and projects. The platform includes analytics for decentralized lending protocols, stablecoins, margin trading platforms and others.
At the time of writing, DeBank allows users to track 798 protocols across 17 chains like Ethereum, the Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Fantom, Avalanche and others, according to its website.
DeBank was co-founded in 2018 by Chinese research and development expert Tang Hongbo. According to his LinkedIn profile, the exec is based in Shanghai’s Jing’an district of China.
The firm did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
Related:Interlay raises $6.5M to accelerate Bitcoin DeFi interoperability
The concept of decentralization and DeFi has apparently been growing increasingly popular in China amid new restrictions in the country. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, many Chinese crypto users have apparently been moving their crypto holdings to DEXes after China enforced a new major ban on crypto in September.
Crypto exchange Coinbase has announced plans to support hardware wallets, starting with Ledger.
The integration will be rolled out in phases, beginning Q1of 2022.
According to CFO Alesia Haas, Coinbase stores roughly 12% of all crypto assets on the market.
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Coinbase plans to integrate Ledger hardware wallets support beginning Q1 of 2022.
Coinbase to Offer Users More Self-Custody Options
The largest U.S.-based crypto exchange, Coinbase, has partnered with hardware wallets maker Ledger to offer users more self-custody options for their crypto holdings.
According to a Thursday press release, users of the Coinbase browser extension wallet will be able to move and store their crypto assets in cold storage using Ledger hardware wallets starting Q1 of 2022. The integration will allow Coinbase customers to self-custody their assets and maintain complete control over them.
Ledger is one of the largest suppliers of hardware wallets on the market. Hardware wallets are considered one of the safest ways for storing crypto assets. They allow users to keep the private keys needed to spend crypto assets in “cold storage”—an air-gapped environment that is in no way connected to external devices or the internet.
Commenting on the partnership with Ledger in the press release, Coinbase VP of product Max Branzburg said:
“Coinbase is committed to enabling users around the world to safely use their crypto across the Web3 ecosystem. That’s why we’re partnering with Ledger to build support for hardware wallets into Coinbase Wallet. We’ll start rolling out support for hardware wallets in the Coinbase Wallet Extension early next year, and we’re excited to share more announcements on how we’re making Coinbase Wallet the safest and most secure way to participate in Web3 over the coming months.”
Over the last year, Coinbase has started expanding its product line to capture the growing niche of users that want to do more with their crypto assets than merely holding or spending them.
During Wednesday’s congressional hearing on crypto assets, CFO Alesia Hass said that the company stores roughly 12% of all crypto assets on the market and that crypto was moving in a new direction. She said:
“Nearly 50% of our transacting customers are doing something other than buying and selling crypto, which indicates to us that crypto is moving beyond its initial investment phase into the long-expected utility phase.”
In November, Coinbase released a standalone browser extension wallet to adapt to this changing environment. The company is now taking it a step further by adding hardware wallets integration through partnership with Ledger.
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Cryptocurrency wallet and infrastructure provider Ledger has debuted a new debit card that enables users to buy goods and services with their digital assets, potentially opening the door to wider adoption of crypto payment services.
The Crypto Life card, also known as “CL,” was introduced at Ledger’s biannual Op3n conference on Thursday. The debit card is linked to Ledger Live, a desktop and mobile application that enables Ledger users to buy, swap and stake cryptocurrencies. The CL card supports several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and stablecoins USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT).
Cardholders have the option of instantly converting their crypto into fiat for the purpose of spending as well as obtaining a line of credit using their digital assets as collateral. The latter option gives cardholders the ability to use their debit card without having to sell their crypto. Users can also deposit their paychecks and select which percentage of their income they want to convert into BTC and ETH.
The CL card is set for launch in the first quarter of 2022 for users in the United Kingdom, France and Germany followed by a second-quarter rollout in the United States.
Ledger’s foray into the debit card market follows a strategic pivot into the decentralized finance, or DeFi, market. The company, which is known for its Ledger Nano S and Nano X hardware wallets, concluded a $380 million private financing round in June of this year, bringing its total valuation to $1.5 billion.
Related:Building a path to sustainable finance and blockchain adoption starts with payments
Online electronics retailer @Newegg continues diving into crypto payments, officially accepting @Shibtoken for payments. https://t.co/VCxRoYW3yy
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) December 1, 2021
Payments are a highly touted but underutilized use case of the crypto economy. However, that appears to be slowly changing now that major players such as Mastercard have entered the crypto payments landscape. Meanwhile, crypto payments provider BitPay recently entered into a partnership with browser and wallet extension MetaMask to provide a payment gateway to tens of millions of new users.
Major exchange Coinbase has announced it will begin to supporting crypto hardware wallets, starting with Ledger. The two companies made the announcement at the Ledger Open conference, which is taking place in Paris on Dec 9 and 10.
Ledger is a major supplier of cold hardware wallets, which store users’ private keys more securely than hot online wallets.
Users of the Coinbase Wallet browser extension will be able to connect their Ledger hardware wallets, maintaining self-custody and full controlover their assets.
The partnership will be rolled out in phases, starting in the first quarter of 2022. Further down the track, the Coinbase mobile app will also support Ledger hardware wallets.
Max Branzburg, VP of Product at Coinbase said: “we’re excited to share more announcements on how we’re making Coinbase Wallet the safest and most secure way to participate in Web3 over the coming months.”
Coinbase stores 12% of all crypto
Meanwhile, Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas made some big statements in her testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services on Dec 8. She claimed that Coinbase stores about 12% of all crypto across more than 150 asset types and said crypto was moving beyond simple coin swaps.
“Nearly 50% of our transacting customers are doing something other than buying and selling crypto, which indicates to us that crypto is moving beyond its initial investment phase into the long expected utility phase,” she said.
Related:Why hardware wallets might not offer as much protection as you think, explained
Coinbase claims to have over 73 million customers globally, including 10,000 institutions and 185,000 application developers.
Don’t read this Kaspersky report if you’re prone to paranoia. The cybersecurity experts and antivirus manufacturers released its annual “Cyberthreats to financial organizations” paper and two items are about cryptocurrencies. Prepare to be spooked. The report begins with an evaluation of last year’s predictions and they were only wrong about one, and not by much. Plus, this year’s cyberthreats sound very much like a possibility. Luckily, you found this article and can prepare yourself accordingly.
Related Reading | Hackers Nab $16 Million In BTC Through Bitcoin Wallet Exploit
Both Cybercriminals And State-Sponsored Actors Will Target Cryptocurrencies
First, Kaspersky paints the picture and gives us the least scary threat:
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“The cryptocurrency business continues to grow, and people continue to invest their money in this market because it’s a digital asset and all transactions occur online. It also offers anonymity to users. These are attractive aspects that cybercrime groups will be unable to resist.”
And then, Kaspersky makes our skin crawl:
“And not only cybercrime groups but also state-sponsored groups who have already started targeting this industry.”
As the honeypot grows, criminals will be increasingly attracted to cryptocurrencies. That much we can deal with. However, the state-sponsored groups are also a logical progression. How could they not target cryptocurrencies? And they’re going to use much more sophisticated methods to get at you. For example:
Friendly reminder that @fold_app recently partnered with @NianticLabs, backed by the @CIA #DeleteFoldApp https://t.co/IdyXO5eAKb
— Louisa Alexa (@LouisaAlexa) November 24, 2021
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The people behind Pokémon GO recently partnered with Bitcoin rewards card Fold App to make a Bitcoin-themed Pokémon GO clone that pays in BTC. We have no idea if what this Twitter user says holds any water, but the whole enterprise does sound suspicious. And in light of this prediction by Kaspersky, even more so.
However, just to be clear, NewsBTC knows nothing about Niantic Labs and the Fold App. Do your own research.
BTC price chart for 11/26/2021 on Oanda | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Manufacturing Fake Devices With Backdoors
Once again, Kaspersky makes us rethink our security methods:
“While some people consider it risky to invest in cryptocurrencies, those who do realize that their wallet is the weakest link. While most infostealers can easily steal a locally stored wallet, a cloud-based one is also susceptible to attacks with the risk of losing funds. Then there are hardware-based cryptocurrencies wallets. But the question is, are there sufficiently reliable and transparent security assessments to prove that they are safe?”
However, their prediction is much more concerning:
“In the scramble for cryptocurrency investment opportunities, we believe that cybercriminals will take advantage of fabricating and selling rogue devices with backdoors, followed by social engineering campaigns and other methods to steal victims’ financial assets.”
There are already horror stories about dubious software wallets that end up in lost funds. And yeah, fake hardware wallets seem to be a logical next frontier. Just this year, following the Ledger hack, reports ofweird-looking Ledger walletstook over the Internet. However, if a more sophisticated criminal made a better-looking device, it could wreak havoc through the cryptocurrency community.
And if Kaspersky says it will happen…
Related Reading | DeFi Hack: Vee Finance Losses $35 Million To Hackers Following Mainnet Launch
Kaspersky Identifies Even More Cyberthreats
The “Cyberthreats to financial organizations” contains a few more items that aren’t fully related to cryptocurrencies, but may be of interest to all of you. They predict “an exponential growth in infostealers,” and a rise in ransomware from “small regionally derived groups.” Plus, data breaches in Open Banking, Mobile Banking Trojans, and identify risk in remote workers using company equipment for entertainment purposes. Read the whole thing and be prepared for everything.
Featured Image: vickygharat on Pixabay | Charts by TradingView
European central banks ramp up their efforts to utilize distributed ledger technology (DLT), the foundation of blockchain, in central bank money settlements.
Banca d’Italia and Deutsche Bundesbank, central banks of Italy and Germany, respectively, joined forces to work on settlements in central bank money of DLT-based asset exchanges.
The official announcement stressed that the primary goal of the joint workshop was not to use DLT as a replacement for conventional systems. Instead, the initiative aims to complement the current central bank money settlement practices with a programmable trigger mechanism that connects the DLT-based asset, like a tokenized security, and cash to be settled via conventional payment systems.
The proposed system would minimize the counterparty risk for both sides by preserving the delivery-versus-payment mode of settlement, the announcement reads. The programmable trigger would complement the digital euro and serve as a technical bridge between existing payment systems used by Eurosystem central banks and the DLT-based settlement of tokenized assets.
DLT has the potential to usher in new products and services, generate additional revenue streams, reduce the cost of operations and make organizational structures more efficient, said Italian central bank governor Ignazio Visco. He underscored that an infrastructure-level DLT adoption in traditional markets would take time “because of the necessary in-depth investigations and cost and risk assessment.”
Related:European Central Bank announces digital euro advisory group members
“If market participants want to reap the benefits of new technologies like DLT for the settlement of tokenized assets, central banks should support that by enabling the settlement of the responding cash leg in secure central bank money,” said Deutsche Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann. He added:
“The tested trigger solution could well serve the market’s need and keep central bank money in the systems run by central banks. In comparison to creating wholesale central bank digital currency, a trigger solution could be operational in a much shorter time frame.”
Deutsche Börse, Deutsche Bundesbank and Germany’s Finance Agency conducted a pilot test with the participation of Citibank, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Commerzbank, DZ Bank and Société Générale, bridging traditional finance with distributed ledger technology in March 2021. The German Finance Agency issued a 10-year federal bond via the DLT trigger system and tested securities trading on primary and secondary markets as part of the pilot.
