Hackers have hacked the database of the Australian telecommunications company Optus. They are threatening to sell the stolen data if they do not receive a ransom of $1 million in the cryptocurrency Monero within a week.

The attackers claim they managed to get hold of the data of about 11.2 million Optus customers, including their names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, addresses of residence and ID numbers.

To confirm the authenticity of their claims, the hackers published about 200 sample records. It turned out that users’ payment details and passwords for their accounts were not compromised during the attack. The Australian Federal Police

Australia (AFP) said it was aware of the Optus data leak. The company’s customer information may already be traded on several forums, including the darknet. Therefore, AFP uses special resources to monitor the darknet and will take tough action against violators of the law. AFP warned that buying stolen credentials is considered a serious offense, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

According to the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Agency (FinCEN), cryptocurrency extortion payments totaled $590 million in the first half of 2021.

Cryptocurrencies with a high level of anonymity, such as Monero (XRM), have become favorite coins for criminals using ransomware.

Recall that last year the hacker group REvil demanded $100 million in XRM from Apple, threatening to publish blueprints of Apple devices.

In 2020, attackers twice hacked into the Australian beverage maker Lion’s system, demanding $800,000 in Monero cryptocurrency.

https://altcoin.ng/hackers-demand-1-million-from-australian-telecommunications-company-optus/

Most people have never stopped to think about what money is. Money is not the same thing as wealth. It is simply a system of accounting that facilitates the exchange of wealth.

Everyone wants a lot of money, but what people really care about is what they can buy with it, not the money itself. Imagine having a big bag of real dollars but being stuck on a desert island for the rest of your life with nowhere to spend them. How happy will you be with these useless millions?

A lot of people worry that bitcoins are “just data.” But in the real world, money is just information. More specifically, money is a reliable way to show that someone gave something of value but has not yet received something of equal value in return (at least, not yet in a form that can be used directly). So that other people don’t forget, he keeps crisp bills in his wallet as a “symbol” of how much money he had to give up.

In other words, the way money works are kind of like a big ledger. It has “entries” that show how much real value we can get from each other. With official currencies like the dollar or the naira, this book is kept by the government. It also gives the government a lot of power over money, which history shows it will always abuse. For example, it will start to cheat by making “additions” to this ledger, which means it will print a lot of new money and cause inflation. Or, like in Cyprus and Lebanon, they will devalue it, freeze bank accounts, or “write off” half of your money. In general, every country is always doing something crazy in this area.

In the case of Bitcoin, this ledger is decentralized, which means that everyone in the network has a copy of it, and the rules for adding entries are known ahead of time and are very strict. This means that no one or no group can make new coins out of the blue (which would cause inflation), freeze (or take) your coins, or tell you you can’t pay whoever you want.

There has been “decentralized money” in the past, like a system based on gold. No one, for example, can just “print” a bunch of gold coins out of thin air. The gold has to be mined from the ground first, which takes a lot of hard work. And the system was “spread out” as long as everyone kept their own gold and didn’t trust middlemen. But gold’s biggest problem is that it is “hard” to use for day-to-day transactions. Try to pay online with gold! Because of how it is made, gold is a very inefficient way to make a transaction.

Bitcoin comes into play here. It is the first currency in the world to be both digital and not controlled by a central authority. Bitcoin is guaranteed to be rarer than gold, easier to use for transactions than “modern” online banking, and more private than cash when it comes to money. Because of this, Bitcoin is “better money” in every way and could replace most other types of money in use around the world.

https://altcoin.ng/why-do-most-people-dont-understand-bitcoin/

DaemoLee:



To me, all this bla bla blahs are just brainwashing and gibberish, and its important u people should stop dropping it here.
Go check/study BeTC history on yearly price movements and u would understand the whole situation very well.
We are in a bear market currently as everyone should know and no miracle or hope indicator whatsoever would make its price surge high this year! We are currently around 61% drop and price as to fall at least 74-80% from ATH of a bull run to signal correction completion. Maybe next year to the 36k-42k region and down again before price goes berserk/Bull in 2024/2025 and the circle continues.

I am strictly following charts and history and Whoever has other valid points here can engage me in a debate.

Charts are graphical interpretation of what is going on in the market.

Bitcoin in connected to the stock market because money flow from there.

Whatever happens to the economy will affect bitcoin

It is just common sense.

US recession forecasts to determine Bitcoin price

Next week, Bitcoin will be dependent on the U.S. recession forecasts.

Next week, Bitcoin’s price will be determined by United states recession forecasts. For now, investors have been able to keep the cryptocurrency market capitalization above $900 billion.

The gloomiest predictions that Bitcoin would fall below 10,000 have not materialized, at least not yet. Perhaps digital assets are now bottoming out and can come out of the sidewall with a significant increase or vice versa that will renew their annual lows

What factors will determine Bitcoin price in the coming week

Tight monetary policies by central banks could lead nations into a recession – a sequential drop in GDP over several quarters. Cryptocurrency investors will face such an economic phenomenon for the first time, but the cryptocurrency market will not be a “safe haven” and will also react negatively to the crisis.

The coming week will give a picture of the likelihood of a US recession in the form of a set of statistics. On September 27, the US fed will publish data on consumer confidence and the purchase of durable goods.

On September 29, there will be weekly data on unemployment and U.S. personal income. According to preliminary expectations, the data will be disappointing.

Friday will bring data on Chinese business activity indexes. The stock markets will move into the red zone if the effects of the drought, power shortages, and Covid-19 lockdowns will slow the Chinese economy. In addition, political tensions are also rising in China.

In October, the question of whether CCP head Xi Jinping will continue to stay in office is to be decided. Many influential party functionaries in the Chinese Communist Party do not want him to rule for more than 10 years. The ongoing geopolitical tensions in Europe and the presidential elections in Italy, where extreme right-wing parties may come to power, may also put pressure on the markets.

What cryptocurrency market events will affect Bitcoin price in the coming week

Among the news that directly affects the cryptocurrency market is the fact that the Token 2049 summit in Singapore, will start on September 28. Thus, the cryptocurrency market will be more influenced by economic forecasts about the state of affairs in the US and political events on the European continent. Whether Bitcoin will be able to hold on to today’s positions or its price could fall to $17,000 and below will be clear by the end of the week.

https://altcoin.ng/us-recession-forecasts-to-determine-bitcoin-price/

The Harmony blockchain project team has unveiled a new plan to compensate victims of the $100 million Horizon crosschain bridge hack.

The original plan was to hold a hard fork and issue the necessary amount of ONE native token within three years. The decision included two options for additional issuance:

2.4 billion ONE – offsetting 50% of the damage;
4.97 billion ONE – for 100%.

However, users almost unanimously disagreed with the plan because of the possible inflationary effect. Harmony said it has listened to validators and the community, rejecting the idea of additional issuance.

“We propose not to issue more ONE tokens or change our tokenomics with a hardfork protocol. Instead, we propose that treasury funds be used for both reimbursement [damages] and development,” the statement reads.

The project team added that it would provide a detailed description of the plan in the near future.

After the Horizon attack, the Harmony team offered a $1 million reward for the return of stolen funds. The amount caused confusion among users, and a crypto trader under the pseudonym Degen Spartan called it “insulting.” As a result, the offer was increased to $10 million.

Recall that Elliptic specialists believe that Lazarus, a North Korean-linked hacker group, could be behind the Horizon attack. The same group was allegedly involved in the attack on the Ronin blockchain cross-chain bridge.

https://altcoin.ng/harmony-unveils-new-100m-hack-compensation-plan/

nasbidemi:
Is it good to invest now or still study??

study and also invest

you learn crypto by practical applications and making mistakes

Argentine state airline Flybondi announced that it will introduce blockchain into its operations and issue tickets in the form of NFTs.

Flybondi executives assured that once users receive a ticket in the form of NFTs, they will be able to resell, exchange or gift them to other travelers no later than three days before the start of the flight. This will be possible thanks to a blockchain-based solution developed by Travelx.

Tickets can be paid for with USDC and other stablecoins through the Binance Pay payment service. In the future, the list of stablecoins will increase to expand the payment options for Flybondi customers.

The airline hopes its experiments with NFT will prove successful and other companies will follow suit.

“This innovation in the industry will provide more flexibility for travelers. They will be able to change travel plans and use better fares without the risks associated with buying tickets in advance. The introduction of blockchain and NFT into airline business operations will help develop the secondary market. This move will unite the travel sector and Web3, create new sources of revenue and significantly reduce airline costs,” said Travelx executives.

In May, Dubai-based airline Emirates reported interest in collectible tokens and even began accepting bitcoin as payment.

A few years ago, another company, Etihad Airways, began using blockchain for more efficient data management and transparent baggage tracking without involving third-party operators.

According to a May study by MarketsandMarkets, the NFT market will grow 35% to $13.6 billion by 2027, driven by the growing demand for digital art, as well as the active involvement of gaming communities in the industry.

https://altcoin.ng/argentine-airline-to-sell-tickets-as-nfts/

XRP price up by 30%. Did Ripple beat the SEC?

XRP challenged the market trend this week and has been successfully bucking it for several days.

Today, the token’s daily growth reached 30%, overcoming the critical resistance of $0.50.

Meanwhile, XRP rose 65% week-over-week, due to the cryptocurrency community’s anticipation of a positive outcome from Ripple’s lawsuit with the SEC.

This optimism made XRP the sixth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. In addition, the accumulation of XRP by whales is reaching new highs, as written by Santiment, a provider of on-chain data:

The XRP/BTC price ratio reached a yearly high of 0.000025 amid continued optimism about a potential settlement of the Ripple case with the SEC. Shark and whale addresses holding between 1 and 10 million XRP resemble the hoarding model c late 2020.

Back in December 2020, the U.S. SEC sued Ripple, arguing that the sale of XRP through the 2013 ICO was subject to securities law. The company has defended its position for nearly two years, claiming no violations of securities laws.

During a recent appearance on Fox News, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse was quoted by the judge as saying:

The SEC has not followed the law in pursuit of results. The SEC went astray by saying too much. The top manager added that Ripple has no XRP investment contracts that qualify as securities.

https://altcoin.ng/xrp-price-up-by-30-did-ripple-beat-the-sec/

Positions of almost 89,000 traders were liquidated after bitcoin price momentarily rose from $19,000 to $19,700 and then dropped below $18,100.

Crypto traders lost $336 million in 24 hours as a result of forced closing of positions, according to Coinglass. A total of 88.8 thousand traders’ deals were liquidated in 24 hours. The largest closed position was $3.13 million in the pair BTC/USDT.

Ethereum trades accounted for the largest number of losses – $151 million. Positions worth $105 million were liquidated in bitcoin pairs. In Ripple (XRP) trading pairs, which comes third in terms of the number of liquidations during the day, losses amounted to $9.7 million.

58.9 percent of the positions that were forced to close in the last 24 hours were long. That means that traders were counting on the market to continue rising, but when the stock market declined sharply, they liquidated those positions so they wouldn’t lose money.

At 7 p.m. Nigerian time on September 21, the Fed announced that it had raised its key rate by 75 bps to 3-3.25% p.a. Bitcoin reacted by instantly increasing from $19,000 to $19,700 and then fell to $18,100. As of 12:14 p.m. on September 22, the asset is trading at $19,053 and has fallen by 0.44% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. At the same time, the price of Ethereum fell 2.9% to $1.29k.

https://altcoin.ng/crypto-traders-lost-336-million-amid-news-of-fed-rate-hike/

Yellowblack:


Abeg summarize na pump we dey expect or dump??

A dump

the market won't recover until mid-2023

the fed is fighting aggressively against inflation, so we should expect more interest rate hikes till the end of the year.

Fed press release

Recent indicators point to modest growth in spending and production. Job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher food and energy prices, and broader price pressures.

Russia's war against Ukraine is causing tremendous human and economic hardship. The war and related events are creating additional upward pressure on inflation and are weighing on global economic activity. The Committee is highly attentive to inflation risks.

The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. In support of these goals, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 3 to 3-1/4 percent and anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate. In addition, the Committee will continue reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities, as described in the Plans for Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet that were issued in May. The Committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2 percent objective.

In assessing the appropriate stance of monetary policy, the Committee will continue to monitor the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook. The Committee would be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy as appropriate if risks emerge that could impede the attainment of the Committee's goals. The Committee's assessments will take into account a wide range of information, including readings on public health, labor market conditions, inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and financial and international developments.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20220921a.htm

Fed raised its key rate. Bitcoin fell below the $19,000 level

On Wednesday, September 21, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) raised its key interest rate by 75 basis points at once, to 3-3.25%. The cryptocurrency market reacted by falling.

“The central bank is committed to maximizing employment and inflation at 2% over the long term,” the Fed said in a statement.

The agency will also continue to reduce its holdings of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities, as well as its debt. The Fed once again noted the global economic difficulties.

Against the backdrop of the news, the price of bitcoin fell below the $19,000 mark. At the moment, bitcoin prices are down to $18,666.

Most cryptocurrencies from the top 10 by capitalization were in the red zone. XRP (-3.1%), Cardano (-0.8%) and Ethereum (-0.7%) lost the most during the last 24 hours.

According to CoinMarketCap, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is about $920 billion.

In March, the Fed raised its key rate to 0.25-0.5% for the first time since 2018. The local cryptocurrency rally continued until April when bitcoin and Ethereum reached annual highs.

In May, the Federal Reserve raised the rate again – by 50 bps. Bitcoin surpassed the $40,000 mark on the back of the news but failed at the $36,000 level on the same day, which was the beginning of a prolonged correction.

In June, the Fed raised its key rate by 75 bps for the first time since 1994. The rate reached the 1.5-1.75% level and bitcoin reacted with a brief rise to $22,000 and then collapsed below $18,000.

The July rate hike to 2.25-2.5% led to a rise in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin then surpassed the $22,000 mark and Ethereum surpassed $1,500.

At the end of August, bitcoin reacted to the speech of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell by falling below the $21,000 level.


https://altcoin.ng/fed-raised-its-key-rate-bitcoin-fell-below-the-19000-level/

A court in Rio de Janeiro has asked the founder of GAS Consultoria, Acacio dos Santos, to make a deposit of 19 billion Brazilian reais ($ 3.7 billion). The funds will be used to pay compensation to victims of cryptocurrency fraud, writes O Globo.

The decision was made on September 19. Santos had 72 hours to comply.

In August 2021, the founder of GAS Consultoria was arrested during the Kryptos operation, related to an alleged pyramid scheme. According to the investigation, Santos acted as an organizer of the scheme – its victims were offered returns of up to 15% per annum.

The police seized cryptocurrency worth 150 million reais ($28.7 million), $3.6 million in cash, 21 premium cars, and various pieces of jewelry.

According to the publication, more than 122,000 investors were affected by the fraud. Authorities have also charged Santos with felonies, including murder.

Earlier, the Brazilian Federal Police destroyed another crypto fraud scheme called Bitcoin Banco Group, about 7,000 people invested in the scheme. Its leader Claudio Oliveira, known as the “King of Bitcoins,” was arrested.

In January 2022, Brazilian authorities detained the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency pyramid scheme Mirror Trading International, Johann Steinberg, who was wanted by Interpol and the FBI in 2019.

https://altcoin.ng/crypto-fraudster-ordered-to-pay-3-7-billion/

Cryptocurrency Arbitrage is a trading strategy that involves making two or more trades in different directions at the same time or almost at the same time.

The goal of a crypto arbitrage operation is to make money by taking advantage of price differences between assets on different markets and trading platforms.

Crypto Arbitrage is a strategy that has little to no risk. It is not necessary to use price changes and guess the rate of cryptocurrencies to put it into action.

Because there isn’t much risk in arbitrage, the rate of return on transactions is also low. To make working capital, the strategy needs a big cash investment.

read more:https://altcoin.ng/what-is-cryptocurrency-arbitrage/

The U.S. Congress will consider a new bill on the regulation of cryptocurrencies, which could introduce a ban on the creation and issue of algorithmic stablecoins for two years, Bloomberg reported. According to the document, the ban will apply to cryptocurrencies, which are linked to the prices of fiat currencies by another digital asset of the same issuer.

An example of such cryptocurrency is the stablecoin of the failed Terra project, UST. The collapse of this coin, backed by the Luna token, began on May 8: UST lost its peg to the U.S. dollar after a one-time sale of tokens worth about $300 million. The collapse of this stablecoin led to billions of dollars in losses.

The bill would also allow banks and non-banks to issue their own stablecoins and prohibit companies from bundling customer funds with company assets to protect consumers in the event of bankruptcy. The bill is currently in the drafting stage. A vote on the bill could come as early as next week, the publication reports, citing unnamed sources.


The U.S. Congress continues to work hard to regulate the cryptocurrency sector and tighten oversight in this area. Earlier, the House of Representatives approved a bill that provides a number of measures aimed at curbing the use of cryptocurrencies to circumvent anti-Russian sanctions.

https://altcoin.ng/the-us-plans-to-ban-algorithmic-stablecoins-for-2-years/

The official Twitter account of Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX was hacked and used by attackers to publish fake XRP promotions with phishing links.

In response to the hack, CoinDCX’s official customer service warned users to ignore promotional calls on the compromised exchange account and not to click on any links or messages about free XPR giveaways.

The support service reports that it is working to restore access to the exchange account and promises to notify users when it is fixed. The exchange’s official Twitter account had 230,000 followers.

So far, there has been no data on the loss of funds among CoinDCX customers.

Hackers are increasingly targeting official accounts of public companies because they not only inspire trust but also provide easy access to a broad audience.

In September, hackers gained unauthorized access to the Twitter account of a subsidiary of one of the Big Four accounting firms, PwC Venezuela. The account was filled with phishing links and advertisements about fake XRP token giveaways.

https://altcoin.ng/fraudsters-hack-coindcx-exchange-twitter-page-to-promote-fake-xpr-promotion/

Market maker Wintermute lost $160 million in assets in a hacking attack.

Platform CEO Yevgeny Gaevoy emphasized that the attack was aimed at DeFi operations. According to his information, the OTC- and CEX-modules work in the same mode.

Gaevoy added that Wintermute remains solvent – its reserves are double the amount stolen.

“Today, and probably for the next few days, our services will work with glitches, after which everything will be back to normal,” he said.

In all, according to the CEO, 90 different assets were stolen.

Earlier Wintermute obtained the right to issue USDD stablecoin by TRON DAO Reserve.

As a reminder, the other day attackers stole about $3.3 million from Ethereum users who generated addresses through the Profanity tool.

https://altcoin.ng/hackers-stole-160-million-in-assets-from-wintermute/

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that a new fee plan aimed at retaining and incentivizing traders with high trading volumes will go into effect today.

According to the exchange’s announcement, the updated fee structure takes into account changes in global cryptocurrency trading volumes and asset prices. It will reduce the monthly trading volume needed to meet the average and top tiers of the fee plan.

“While levels below $100,000-$1 million remain unchanged, the new fees offer better incentives for traders with higher volumes,” the exchange said in an announcement.

The new fee plan will apply to Coinbase Exchange, Coinbase Pro and Advanced Trade platforms. The change in the fee structure is a forced measure that aims to encourage and retain the most profitable portion of traders on the platform.

Despite offering a number of cryptocurrency products for retail and institutional investors, Coinbase’s transaction and trading fees are higher than some of its competitors.

The other day, Coinbase’s Japanese subsidiary, increased the supply of crypto-assets available for trading and listing. Five cryptocurrency assets were added to the offer: Chainlink (LINK), Enjin Coin (ENJ), OMG (OMG), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Basic Attention Token (BAT).

https://altcoin.ng/coinbase-exchange-updates-fee-structure/

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused crypto investor and YouTube blogger Ian Balina of involvement in the unregistered ICO called Sparkster.

The project positioned itself as a “no code” development platform. It completed a crowdsale in July 2018 and raised $30 million from participants.

According to court documents, Balina promoted SPRK tokens that were securities in 2018. In doing so, the blogger failed to disclose the compensation he received for the promotion and also resold the project’s coins through his own investment pool without registering them with the SEC.

The charges concern the promotion of Sparkster on YouTube and Telegram.

The regulator intends to permanently bar Balina from participating in or promoting the securities, as well as to seize from him all income generated from advertising the project. Additionally, a monetary penalty may be levied against the defendant.

In June 2019, Balina pleaded guilty to promoting Sparkster.

In 2018, the blogger became a victim of fraudsters. During a live broadcast on his YouTube channel, unknown people withdrew more than $2 million from his accounts in various cryptocurrencies. Balina kept private and public keys in Evernote.

https://altcoin.ng/sec-accuses-blogger-of-creating-an-unregistered-ico/

Hackers have stolen about $3.3 million worth of cryptos from Ethereum users who used the Profanity tool to generate their addresses. The 1inch Network team had warned in the past that the service was weak.

Users can make Ethereum addresses that can be read by humans and that include words, names, or phrases. Even though the tool hasn’t worked for a few years, the wallets it made still do.

The 1inch Network team told their community on September 15 that brute force could be used to get the keys to these addresses. A 32-bit vector was used by the service to fill in 256-bit private encryptors.

The developers then said that the flaw could let assets be stolen.

https://altcoin.ng/hackers-stole-3-3m-from-ethereum-address-generator-profanity/

During the last crypto bull market, a new crypto group on Reddit called Satoshistreetbets pumped up the prices of Safemoon, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu with the help of its community members.

As of present, Satoshistreetbets has about 750,000 members in total across different social networks including Telegram, Twitter, and Discord.

Now, the founder of the Reddit group has created its own native token called Satoshiswap with support from the Satoshistreetbets community.

Satoshiswap is the official token of Satoshistreetbets, as the official website of the project wrote. SatoshiSwap is a decentralized margin trading platform that enables users to easily trade their favorite BSC tokens with up to 50x leverage and earn multiple DeFi revenue streams. Trade, lend, borrow, earn and more, in a growing suite of DeFi products.

The system has been designed from the ground up to reward participants to earn interest, yield farming, staking, trading fees, liquidation fees, vault fees and more.

On the 17th of September 2022, Satoshiswap launched one of the features of its margin trading protocol called the HODL bar, according to the team behind the project, investors of Satoshiswap can Hodl their Satoshiswap token in the HODL bar and earn rewards in BUSD, that means this can be a great passive income option for holders of the Satoshiswap tokens.

As of yesterday, about $1.5M has been staked on the platform

https://altcoin.ng/investors-stake-over-1-5m-in-satoshiswap/

Bitcoin price drops to $18,400 ahead of Fed meeting

The new week began with increased volatility in the crypto market. Bitcoin fell to $18,420 on the morning of September 19.

After a brief lull, turbulence is returning to stock markets ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting. This coming Wednesday, September 21, the U.S. regulator will release its decision on the interest rate.

Analysts agree that the Fed will increase it again due to the alarming rate of inflation. The dollar became more attractive to traders earlier this month, and IT stocks have seen capital outflows.

Cryptocurrencies are also retreating. Ether (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB) fell to $1302 and $259.8, respectively.

Other top altcoins are also trading negative. Over the past 24 hours, Cardano (ADA) has suffered the biggest losses. XRP and Polkadot (DOT), down more than 10% to $0.435, $0.347 and $6.19. Crypto market capitalization fell to $904.353 billion.

According to Coinglass, more than $418 million worth of positions were liquidated in the futures market as a result of the correction. Ethereum accounted for most of it – $168.6 million.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization was $943.6 billion, with bitcoin’s dominance index at 37.6% and ETH at 16.6%.

BitBull Capital CEO Joe DiPasquale stressed that bitcoin and ether failed to hold their positions and suffered catastrophic losses for several months. The key event for the markets will be the Fed meeting. If the rate is hiked by 75 basis points, risky assets will fall heavily. According to the futures market, there is an 80% chance of a 75 basis point hike of the key rate at once.

Bloomberg analysts predict that the interest rate will exceed 4% in 2023. As a result, the dollar will reach record highs, and stocks of IT companies, including cryptocurrencies, will trade at lows.

The rise of the inflation rate, contrary to the forecast, reinforced the perception of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium. At the time, the official warned of his intention not to rush into a rate cut for the sake of keeping inflation expectations under control.

Bloomberg strategist Mike McGlone ruled out the possibility of a key rate cut by the Fed in the near future. The analytical Twitter account Games of Trades noted that it was a critical time for the S&P 500 before the start of trading on Wall Street.

To recap, former Cramer & Co. hedge fund manager and host of CNBC’s Mad Money show Jim Cramer said that a tightening of monetary policy by the Fed would lead to a “washout” of speculative assets like cryptocurrencies.

The other day, Nassim Taleb, philosopher and author of the cult work “Black Swan,” called bitcoin a “tumor” caused by the Fed’s flexible monetary policy.

https://altcoin.ng/bitcoin-price-drops-to-18400-ahead-of-fed-meeting/

For experienced investors, a bear market is nothing out of the ordinary. It has happened in the past, and it will happen again.

Most new investors are in the middle of their first crypto-winter, during which most digital assets have depreciated more than 70% from their November 2021 highs. While a bear market is difficult for everyone, it can be especially challenging for those who are new to the space and have little experience with market volatility.

Nevertheless, there are still opportunities for making money during a bear market – crypto traders just need to know where to look.

In this article, we take a look at the simple things you can do to make money in a bear market.

Continue reading: https://altcoin.ng/how-to-make-money-in-a-bear-market/

The Helium Foundation has warned Binance about a mistake that caused users to mistakenly receive about $20 million in HNTs.

An accounting error discovered by Binance last night led to a misallocation of funds. The error, in which the Helium MOBILE token was mistaken for HNT, allowed users to send MOBILE balances to HNT wallets and then sell them on the market.

The failure actually gave users dollars for pennies and allowed about 4,829,043 MOBILE tokens to use Binance’s accounting system, a mistake not a chain issue and isolated from the exchange, The Helium Foundation said.

“We advise token holders to suspend HNT and MOBILE deposits on Binance until a comprehensive update of the situation is provided,” the foundation said in a statement.

Reacting to what may have been a sell-off of users who took advantage of the exploit, HNT is trading down, currently around $4.05.

https://altcoin.ng/binance-error-resulted-in-a-20-million-loss-to-hnt/

Ripple (XRP) rose 10% in the last 24 hours despite the lack of growth in the crypto market capitalization. The increase in price was because, there is a likelihood of the U.S. Chamber of Digital Commerce, participating in the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple.

The US chamber of digital commerce participated in the SEC’s lawsuit against Telegram Open Network (TON), providing an expert opinion in defense of the telegram token.

At that time, the Chamber of Digital Commerce failed to convey its message that the token could be represented as a digital asset and an investment contract.

In the case of Ripple, the organization has a better chance of participating directly in the process. Its representatives will be able to prove that the direct circulation of XRP on exchanges, in users’ wallets and wallet operators, should be considered separately from Ripple’s transactions with investment companies.

Telegram never went public, allowing the SEC to insist on banning the TON project altogether. In Ripple’s case, the company has made no effort to distribute XRP since its launch. The court could accept Ripple’s transactional irregularities, but not ban the cryptocurrency, putting it out of the bracket of a securities law violation charge.

continue reading: https://altcoin.ng/why-are-investors-pumping-ripple-and-stellar/

The Ethereum merger is here, raising the question of what happens to all the mining rigs that are about to become useless.

Ethereum moved from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. If successful, this will be a huge win for the climate, as the merger is expected to reduce the energy consumption associated with mining by about 99%.

However, it’s not all that simple. An open question about the merger is what will become of the equipment used to mine Ethereum, which will essentially become an orphan asset. These suddenly useless installations could be thrown into the trash, exacerbating our growing e-waste problem, or repurposed in other ways and continue to fuel the climate crisis.

The huge carbon footprint of crypto-mining is due to the GPUs used to perform the calculations that secure the blockchain while running simultaneously. Ethereum’s move to proof-of-stake would require only a single computer chosen at random to perform the task, making the need for thousands of mining farms working in tandem suddenly obsolete.

What happens to mining equipment at the end of its useful life is also a problem for the climate. Bitcoin mining produces about 37,000 tons of e-waste a year, roughly the same as the Netherlands. This concern caught the attention of the White House, which cited the study in a report on cryptocurrencies and the climate released last week.

E-waste can damage the climate and is of even greater concern given the threat it poses to public health adjacent to landfills. If disposed of improperly, the waste can cause air and water pollution, as well as exposure to toxic elements such as lead and mercury.

Electronic waste can be recycled, but it usually doesn’t work that way. Overall, according to a UN report, only about 20 percent of waste is actually recycled.

When it comes to the Ethereum merger, determining how much e-waste will be added to the growing global pile is unclear, but still worrisome.

“Determining how much electronic waste this will produce is a more difficult question,” said Alex de Vries, founder of Digiconomist.

Unlike Bitcoins, Ethereum mining rigs can usually be repurposed for other purposes, according to Sam Hustis, an employee of RMI’s climate intelligence program. (Bitcoin mining rigs have become so specialized that they basically can’t do anything other than mine BTC.)

continue reading:https://altcoin.ng/what-will-ethereum-merge-mean-for-miners/

Bitcoin lost $20,000 level and Ethereum fell 12% after the merge

The Ethereum Merge update, a major altcoin update activated today is undoubtedly an important event for the cryptocurrency market. However, not all great news causes prices to rise.

Some may have looked positively at what was happening in the Ethereum network, but not traders and miners. The former began to sell, while the latter became discouraged: they lost the ability to mine ETH tokens, including with video cards.

According to Cryptovizor, a cryptocurrency screener that calculates the market price of BTC/USD based on the results of trading on the seven major exchanges, bitcoin fell by 4%, with the lowest price value corresponding to $19,438.

Ethereum did not look any better. According to the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, the altcoin’s exchange price fell from $1,655 to $1,458 after the announcement that the upgrade was completed.

The fall happened despite the fact that the long-awaited update of The Merge was quite successful. Charles Edwards, the creator of the LookIntoBitcoin analytics resource, compared the event to bitcoin halving. Halving is a surefire boost to bitcoin in the long run, but in fact is usually accompanied by a drop in price.

What is unfortunate is for Ethereum miners, who are now forced to look for another asset. The calculation of mining profitability with the help of Awesome Miner calculator leads to interesting results. With electricity at $0.09 per kW⋅h, the owner of a GeForce RTX 3060 12 Gb video card can earn just $2 per month ($24 per year) from mining Ethereum Classic (ETC) – and this despite the fact that such a video card cost about $1,000 at the beginning of the year.

Michaël van de Poppe, a trader at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, assessed the situation after the activation of The Merge:

The markets will be depressed until the next Fed meeting.

On September 21, the U.S. Federal Reserve will decide on another key interest rate hike. The markets will react positively if the increase is in line with the forecasts available at the time, as they are already priced in.

https://altcoin.ng/bitcoin-lost-20000-level-and-ethereum-fell-12-after-the-merge/

98.6% of Twitter shareholders supported the takeover of the social network by Elon Musk for $44 billion, the company said in a statement with reference to the preliminary results of the vote.

“Twitter wishes to complete the merger with Musk’s affiliated firms no later than September 15, 2022, after all prerequisites have been met,” the statement said.

The vote came days after the billionaire sent a third letter to Twitter asking it to terminate the deal.

Among other things, it reported $7.75 million in penalties that Twitter allegedly paid to its former security chief, Peter Zatko. Musk’s attorneys noted that the payment violated a provision of the acquisition agreement.

Under the agreement, Twitter agreed not to pay employees any compensation beyond “the normal course of business in accordance with past practices.”

On Sept. 13, Zatko spoke to the U.S. Senate about the alleged presence of foreign intelligence agents on Twitter’s payroll. According to him, this is a serious security and privacy vulnerability.

As a reminder, in April 2022 Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.2 per share. The management of the social network agreed to the terms.

However, in May, the billionaire suspended the process after reports about overestimating the social network’s audience. In turn, Twitter shareholders sued over the “chaotic process” of taking over the company, accusing the head of Tesla of manipulating the market.

In July, Musk announced the termination of the agreement to acquire the social network. The company filed a lawsuit against him, demanding that he fulfill his obligations and complete the purchase.

On July 29, the businessman filed a counterclaim. At the same time, he said that he was ready to make a deal on the original terms if Twitter will disclose the method of sampling 100 accounts and how to confirm their authenticity.

In early August, Twitter’s lawyers subpoenaed Binance’s unit over its funding for the takeover of the social network by Elon Musk. Financial consultants, investors, and potential creditors of the businessman were also subpoenaed.

The case is expected to go to court on October 17.

https://altcoin.ng/twitter-approve-sales-of-the-company-to-elon-musk-for-44-billion/

Renowned Chinese miner Chandler Guo, who initiated the retention of support for the current version of Ethereum, tweeted about attracting 5 major mining pools to his side.

Today, owners of ASIC miners with the Ethash hashing algorithm and video card farms will lose the ability to mine ETH due to the blockchain’s transition to the PoS algorithm.

The “old” version of Ethereum, already dubbed ETHPOW or ETHW, could survive with broad support from enthusiastic miners.

Pools Nanopool, F2Pool, BTC.com, Poolin and antpool, are ready to help Chandler Guo by supporting the fork and opening up the possibility to mine the new coin to service users. This greatly increases the chances of ETHW appearing and functioning. Earlier, cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance promised to list the fork, if the hash rate is sufficient.

Ethereum Classic is still an alternative for PoW miners to ETH, and, judging by the growing hash rate, some of the farm owners have already switched to ETCs. On the other hand, analysts predict the value of ETHW at $100, more than twice as high as Ethereum Classic.

In addition to supporting large exchanges and pools, Chandler Gou needs to attract smart contract developers. There is no positive news on this direction, moreover, almost all major projects have announced the transition to PoS-blockchain.

https://altcoin.ng/ethw-fork-received-support-from-large-mining-pools/

Ethereum merge update done

Ethereum has switched to a new algorithm of operation that does not involve mining with specialized equipment

The Ethereum network has seen an update to The Merge, which involves moving the altcoin from the Proof-of-Work protocol to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). This means that the blockchain will now be secured not by miners, but by validators – users who have deposited and blocked their share of coins (staking).

The main purpose of the update is the need to avoid problems associated with the growth of the number of users. The hardfork aims to increase the speed, efficiency, and scalability of the cryptocurrency network so that it can process more transactions and provide a higher level of security.

The Ethereum network may split after the update. Earlier, major cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance, Poloniex and others announced that they would accrue new tokens to users with ETH and WETH, should they appear at a 1:1 ratio.

https://altcoin.ng/ethereum-merge-update-done/

Crypto market rose by 1.5% in reaction to Ethereum Merge update

The total value of the crypto market rose by 1.5% yesterday, with Bitcoin and almost all major altcoins in the green zone this morning. Investors are counting on a positive market reaction after The Merge’s update, which will take place an hour before the opening of European stock exchanges, which traditionally raises the volatility of trading. The merge update will take place by 7:45 am Nigerian time.

Stock market investor sentiment affects the dynamics of crypto, stock indexes are correlated with crypto by 70%, which is considered a rather high threshold.

There is a chance that the stock market may grow at the end of the day if the data on US retail sales and weekly unemployment do not fail. However, speculators are counting on Ethereum and Ethereum Classic to go up even in case of a fundamental negative.

Ethereum classic returned to its highs of the week yesterday. The Ethereum Classic blockchain will retain the Proof of Work consensus of block confirmation, becoming the only place for miners who have lost the ability to mine ETH.

The transition of miners to Ethereum Classic has already led to a multifold increase in hash rate, directly related to the security of the network. Some PoW miners plan to retain support for the current version of Ethereum.

In this case, a new coin will appear on the market, the exchanges gave it the name ETHPOW. Every current ETH owner will be able to get it after The Merge update. The market value of the new fork will depend on the degree of support from miners and the ecosystem development plans presented by the organizers.

They should attract the attention of developers of popular smart contracts and companies issuing stablecoins. In today’s reality, the ecosystem will not develop without the presence of stablecoins.

https://altcoin.ng/crypto-market-rose-by-1-5-in-reaction-to-ethereum-merge-update/

Despite the repressive policies of Asian and African countries towards the cryptosphere, emerging markets are confidently leading in the rate of adoption of crypto.

A Chainalysis study states that interest in the innovative instrument is growing in such countries as Vietnam, the Philippines, Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Morocco, Nepal, Kenya and Indonesia.

Analysts studied millions of transactions, bitcoin exchange traffic and other network metrics. Based on their findings, they concluded that developing countries have the fastest rate of entry into the blockchain industry.

The U.S. and the U.K. are leaders in the ranking of developed countries in terms of capital investment in digital assets.

https://altcoin.ng/developing-countries-lead-in-the-adoption-of-crypto/