Upbit, one of South Korea’s top cryptocurrency exchanges, is planning to expand its operations in the international markets, especially in Southeast Asian countries. While speaking at CoinDesk‘s Consensus, CEO of Upbit operator Dunamu, Sirgoo Lee revealed the digital currency’s future expansion plans. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! “We’re looking to expand overseas,” Lee said. “We did open shop in Southeast Asia, and we are expanding our exchanges in that location.” Indeed, Upbit launched services in Thailand earlier this year after obtaining four cryptocurrency-related operational licenses from the country’s regulators. It perfectly timed the market as the leading Thai crypto exchange with around 97 percent of the local market was facing regulatory backlash amid technical troubles. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> Upbit first entered the region in 2018 with offerings in Singapore and later expanded to Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, in early 2019. Though the CEO revealed the expansion plans, the specifics are clear. Alternative Services The exchange might have plans to enter the non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance space as Lee said the company is exploring ‘various possibilities’ without going into the details. Upbit is one of the big four South Korean crypto exchanges, but it has its fair share of controversies. The exchange was hacked in November 2019, resulting in the theft of Ether, which was worth around $50 million at the time. However, Upbit revamped its security features after the breach. Furthermore, the exchange was raided by Korean authorities over allegations of selling digital currencies that it does not even hold. However, those charges did not stand against the exchange. Earlier this year, Hanwha Group’s brokerage arm, Hanwha Investment and Securities purchased a minority stake in Upbit for an investment of around $52.24 million.

South Korean banks Woori Financial Group, KB Financial Group and Hana bank said they have decided not to deal with domestic cryptocurrency exchanges. The surveyed financial institutions cited risks such as what a market possesses and the current regulatory environment ruling the country nowadays as the main reasons behind their stance. The decision was revealed during a survey conducted by Yonhap News in the wake of the recently enacted Special Payment Act and Enforcement decree. Under such a revised set of rules, South Korean crypto exchanges are required to arrange banking contracts or be at risk of closing operations and even facing legal prosecution, with a deadline of September 24, 2021 set, to comply with the mandate. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! However, banks such as KB are unwilling to arrange business deals with any crypto exchanges in the country. “Cryptocurrencies may someday be incorporated into the system, but for now, as there is a risk of being involved in crimes such as money laundering, it is very burdensome to transact. (…) I’m not considering it,” a senior KB Financial Group official said. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> On the same line, a high-ranking official of Woori Financial Group pointed out that other financial holdings might have similar thoughts. “But, the burden of financial accidents such as money laundering and hacking is too great while the related profits such as fees are not large,” he added. South Korean Exchanges under Banks’ Scrutiny Some South Korean commercial bank representatives met last week to discuss how they should carry risk checks before accepting dealings with crypto exchanges. According to Yonhap, the guidelines include checking if senior officials or platforms have: “a history of embezzlement and/or fraud; a history of bankruptcy rehabilitation and/or business suspensions; been the subject of external hacks; poor credit rating; experienced prolonged net losses.” In fact, there are reports on how the factor of the external hacks could hurt exchanges’ feasibility to deal with banks because most of the South Korean major crypto exchanges have faced massive hacks in the last few years.

Austria’s top financial regulator issued a warning to investors about an unauthorized cryptocurrency exchange pursuing banking transactions in the country. The Financial Market Authority (FMA) said that Elcurrency Global Limited (ELcurrency), which operates under the website www.elcurrency.com, does not have a license to run operations in Austria. In the note published on FMA’s website, the warning adds that the company concludes transactions with the ‘Hello Technology Ltd’ name. The records show that both brand names are registered at an address located in the Marshall Islands – the same one used by several offshore brokers globally. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! “This provider is not authorized to carry out banking transactions in Austria that require a license. The provider is, therefore, neither permitted to trade on a commercial basis on its own account or on behalf of others,” the FMA commented in the investor’s warning. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> Per ELcurrency’s website, the exchange allegedly offers a trading portfolio based on Bitcoin and education packages for users who want to open an account with them. In addition, the firm claims to provide ‘arbitrage units’ and managed accounts, claiming to have over 2,000 customers as of press time. Moreover, the watchdog added that they published such a warning in the ‘Amtsblatt zur Wiener Zeitung’, the Official Gazette of the Wiener Zeitung, one of the oldest newspapers in the world. FMA New Rules on Anti-money Laundering As Finance Magnates reported in September 2020, the FMA blacklisted some crypto brokers in the wake of the regulations that started to take place in Austria. Per the rulings, crypto firms in the country should apply for a license to abide by the new Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures, aligned with the ESMA’s regulations, despite the fact that derivatives referencing cryptocurrencies does not fall under that regulation. In 2016, the Austrian financial regulator issued one of its first warnings asking investors to exercise caution when investing or trading with “virtual currencies and virtual currency-based business.” Among the reasons to publish the alert included the fact that crypto investment opportunities were used to run multi-level marketing schemes.

Video game retailer, GameStop (NYSE: GME) has been treading water into the non-fungible token (NFT) industry, as it is creating a team to launch an NFT platform based on Ethereum. The company launched an NFT-themed website under the domain nft.gamestop.com featuring a phrase: “Power to the players. Power to the creators. Power to the collectors.” The website does not provide additional subpages that explain in-depth the NFT project by GameStop. However, the retailer highlights a brief statement asking engineers, designers, gamers, marketers and community leaders to join their project. Also, it features an ETH cryptocurrency wallet, but the US-listed firm did not specify its purpose. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! Overall, GameStop, whose fame skyrocketed early this year as Reddit traders massively short the stock, had been providing some hints on its interest in the blockchain industry, specifically in the NFTs. In April, the video game retailer was looking for a security analyst with experience in the matter. As of press time, the company has not issued an official statement about its NFT project or further details on the subject, but considering that it will be based on Ethereum, collectibles could adopt the ERC-721 standard. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> NFT Overall Sales Have Decreased Although NFT’s popularity has been rising over the last few months, its pace has slowed down together with the overall crypto bull-run. According to data from NonFungible tokens, the number of daily sales between April 27 and May 26 fell from 34,000 to 20,236 tokens. Furthermore, daily sales’ value dropped to $15.1 million on May 26 from a high hit on May 9 at $176 million. On the other hand, GameStop’s saga with the short-squeeze witnessed in January keeps making the headlines. In February, Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s CEO, denied speculation that he was pressured by hedge funds to halt trading in the video game retailer and other stocks. Today’s GameStop performance in the stock markets has been positive, trading at $242.32 and currently up 15,70 percent, after opening the day at the price of $228.47.

PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) plans to allow its users to withdraw cryptocurrencies stored within its platform to third-party wallets. Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s blockchain lead, commented that such a feature has been in the works, as at present, the platform does not allow customers to move its cryptos from the firm. During the CoinDesk’s Consensus 2021 Conference, da Ponte did not provide an exact deadline for the global payments giant deploying the new functionality. “We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay. They want to bring their crypto to us, so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice,” PayPal’s blockchain lead stated. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! The company has opened its doors to digital assets since last November, first in the United States. In March 2021, PayPal enabled US-based consumers to pay merchants in cryptocurrencies through a feature called ‘Checkout With Crypto,’ which will be available globally at some point this year. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> Commenting on rumors about PayPal launching a stablecoin, da Ponte commented that, at this point, “is way too early.” Also, he addressed the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), saying that when the time comes, companies like the global payments firm could be the preferred ones to distribute CBDCs. PayPal Latest Moves in the Crypto Sphere Founded in 1998, the California-headquartered giant has been active within the crypto business this year. Finance Magnates reported that PayPal plans to acquire Israeli crypto security company, Curv. The company expects to complete the deal this year. In April, Dan Schulman, PayPal’s President and CEO, praised that the crypto’s demand has surpassed the firm’s expectations. “Demand on the crypto side has been multiple-fold to what we initially expected. There’s a lot of excitement. We’ve been looking at digital forms of currency and DLT for six years or so. But, I thought it was early, and I thought the cryptocurrency assets at the time were much more assets than they were currency,” Schulman told TIME Magazine at that time

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), one of the largest chip manufacturers, reported that it ended the first quarter of 2021 with a revenue of $5.66 billion, which is 84 percent higher year-over-year and a 13 percent rise quarter-over-quarter. The earnings of the company remained at $3.66 per share, beating the street estimation of $3.28 per share. In absolute terms, the net non-GAAP income came in at $2.31 billion that is 107 percent higher than the figure posted for the same quarter a year before. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! Impact of Crypto Volatility Remains Unclear The chip manufacturer’s demand skyrocketed with the rise in cryptocurrency mining, but the company could not evaluate the exact rise in its recent revenue due to the crypto market volatility. In Wednesday’s announcement, the company highlighted that the record quarterly revenue was the result of its gaming, data center and professional visualization platforms. “We had a fantastic quarter, with strong demand for our products driving record revenue,” NVIDIA Founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, said in a statement. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> NVIDIA’s graphics cards are widely used in mining some of the major cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. In addition, the company differentiated its product lines to introduce crypto-specific chipsets. In Q1 of 2021, the California-headquartered company generated $155 million from the sale of those crypto-specific chips and is expecting to bring $400 million in the second quarter. However, the lack of volatility-specific data upsets investors. Additionally, NVIDIA is in the process of acquiring British chip technology firm, Arm, a deal that is expected to be closed by March 2022 for $40 billion. However, it is facing scrutiny from the regulators in the US and the UK. Meanwhile, the expectations of the company are bullish for the ongoing quarter. It is expecting to generate $6.3 billion in revenue. The most probable boost in its business is coming from data centers that are threatening the existence of some major players. “Our Data Center business continues to expand, as the world’s industries take up NVIDIA AI to process computer vision, conversational AI, natural language understanding and recommender systems,” Huang said.

Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, experienced a volatile month as the price of BTC dropped from approximately $60,000 on 10 May to as low as $31,000 on 24 May. There were several reasons behind the latest market correction. Cryptocurrency analysts believe that new investors in the market panicked from the latest announcement from China about a ban on crypto payments and a potential crackdown on the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. China’s stance on Bitcoin and other digital currencies is nothing new. So, the potential impact of the latest crypto ban from China is limited and the recent correction in the cryptocurrency market has actually provided an opportunity to long-term holders of digital currencies to accumulate more. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! Crypto Ban from China Finance Magnates asked Maria Stankevich, Chief Business Development Officer at EXMO UK, about her views on the recent crypto ban from China and the role of new traders in the latest crypto market correction. The “Chinese government still allows people to store and use cryptocurrencies at their own discretion. It all looks like a completely logical addition to the past restrictions on trading – so I don’t really understand the buzz this news [has] created. Of course, it is sad, but nothing much changed. Unfortunately, the buzz around China triggered the transfer of cryptocurrencies from wallets to exchanges. During the day, almost 31k Bitcoin got to the exchanges, which is almost comparable to the daily amount of BTC transferred by investors on Black Thursday in March 2020. One of the reasons for the popularity of mining in China is the surplus of cheap electricity. I think that a complete ban will not happen, but the government will distribute some sort of mining license. I know that many mining companies have stopped operations there and are moving their services to North America, Canada and Europe,” she said. When asked about the role of new Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors in the recent correction, Stankevich replied: -Amateur “Traders who are trying to accelerate the price of bitcoin get nervous when the price stops rising at a high rate. The market was quiet since March 15, and the majority of traders in this case simply started selling and losing their head. And, then we have the domino effect – that is exactly what we’ve been observing for 2 weeks. The existing negative news background provoked sales and a series of liquidations, which in turn accelerated the fall. I am confident that the 30,000 level will be a strong obstacle to further decline, as it was the support level in January and February. In addition, I am confident that large funds will start buying now to prevent further falls. As for getting mature over time – I think that as soon as we have proper regulation and some ban on market manipulation the market will definitely grow into something more solid and stable.” Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> No Country Can Stop Bitcoin Additionally, Jason Deane, Bitcoin Market Analyst at Quantum Economics, expressed his views about the latest development. “In the long term, our view is that this is a very good thing. Not only has China consistently provided uncertainty and been somewhat unpredictable when it comes to cryptocurrency in general and Bitcoin in particular, but it has also helped perpetuate the ‘bitcoin mining is centralized’ and ‘bitcoin mining uses dirty power’ narrative for some time – even though the headline story is much more nuanced than that. This move effectively disproves the former argument and removes the latter, clearing the way for wider adoption, development and investment. No country can stop Bitcoin at this stage, it can simply choose to remove itself from the network on behalf of its people,” he commented. Cryptocurrency Correction When asked about the correction in the cryptocurrency market, Jason said: “It does appear that most sellers were, broadly, the most recent buyers with most coins being quite young and the vast majority being linked with retail activity. This is completely normal in a bull market correction where new buyers are easily spooked by large movements and quickly add to selling pressure. However, it must be remembered that those investors who were new in the 2017 peak went through the same thing, and those that held would now be considered mature holders themselves. Over time, as both the market and investors themselves mature, the balance of that equation shifts, creating (in theory at least) a more stable asset and store of value in the long term.” Opportunities for Bitcoin Miners Marc P. Bernegger, Founding Board Member of Crypto Finance AG, highlighted different opportunities for Chinese crypto miners after the latest restrictions. “I personally see a lot of long-term advantages if crypto miners are moving out of China into more crypto-friendly jurisdictions. This could also challenge the argument of the energy-waste of Bitcoin and turn more existing miners into renewable energy-based mining facilities. In general, several bad crypto-related news from China are mostly exaggerated and every few months there are similar announcements. There are already some operations from Chinese crypto miners here in Switzerland and it’s not a big secret that the recent announcements from the government will further push Chinese miners to Switzerland and other more crypto-friendly countries,” he said. “Being invested in Bitcoin since 2012 myself makes me feel quite confident that after the actual price correction we will see new all-time highs going forward,” Bernegger added. Joaquim Matinero Tor, Banking, Finance & Blockchain Associate at Roca Junyent told Finance Magnates that the recent move from China looks like a strategic announcement to move forward with Digital Yuan. “China has banned Bitcoin 13 times since 2012 so there’s no news there. China wants to move forward with Digital Yuan, its CBDC, so they want a BTC not so strong as it has been during the last few months,” he said.

The South Korean central bank has sounded an alarm against the leveraged cryptocurrency trading, which is becoming popular among retail traders and might threaten the country’s financial system, The Korea Herald reported. “An excessive level of leveraged cryptocurrency trading puts households at risk of financial damages considering the instability of [cryptocurrency],” Bank of Korea Gov. Lee Ju-yeol said on Thursday. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! “We expect (the increasing amount of crypto trading) to have a negative impact on the financial system in any respect.” These statements also came with the rising household debts in the country, but it is not clear if that resulted from crypto trading. Though the exact measures to be taken by the monetary regulator against leveraged trading are not clear, Lee has vowed that the Korean central bank will closely monitor the transactions related to leveraged crypto trading. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> In addition, he signaled that the regulator might curtail new loans issued to crypto traders as the default risks might have a terrible impact on the banking system. South Korea is not the first country to look at leverage trading as a threat. Earlier this year, the United Kingdom’s financial market regulator banned the retail sale of digital currency derivatives, citing a lack of knowledge about the risky investment products among traders. South Korea on Crypto The South Korean government is in the process of bringing heavy regulations to the local cryptocurrency industry. All local exchanges need to be registered to register as virtual asset service providers in the country by the end of September. However, the toughest will be the access to banking services as exchanges need to maintain all clients’ accounts under real names. Most recently, three South Korean banks said that they do not want to work with crypto exchanges. While four big crypto exchanges in the country are flourishing, several small ones are shutting services due to the lack of banking support and upcoming harsh regulations.

The Singaporean police have reported that cryptocurrency-related crimes have skyrocketed since 2018, and the uptrend does not seem to be slowing down. According to The Straits Times, around 393 reports were made last year amid the coronavirus crisis of cases involving crypto frauds, cheating, among others, which is more than three times the figures of 2019. Additionally, the authorities pointed out that just 125 complaints were filed with the police, representing another surge from the 15 reported in 2018. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2020, criminals stole $29 million during these crypto-related crime cases. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! “These scammers and perpetrators play on a potential victim’s greed or need for cash or inability to resist making a quick buck, despite it seems too good to be true, and impatience to gain the goodies,” Anthony Lim, Director of the non-profit Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies, said. Lim added that the lack of regulation on cryptocurrencies favors criminals to commit such crimes in the country. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> “Many of those who fall, victims, are not vigilant and don’t do due diligence prior… We are talking about thousands of dollars of one’s hard-earned money here; vigilance and due diligence is the least they could do before plunging,” he stated. Singaporean Regulator’s Warnings on Cryptocurrencies The Singaporean official’s rhetoric on cryptos goes in line with the cautions issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s top financial regulator. Recently, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies of Singapore, reminded the Parliament that the financial watchdog had repeatedly warned about how crypto investments or trading are risky. During the COVID-19 economic crisis last year, the MAS eased its regulatory pressure temporarily on crypto firms and allowed almost 415 applicants to operate their payment or cryptocurrency-related operations without holding a license. Firms favored at that time included Alibaba.com, Alipay, Bitgo, Paxos, Paypal, Binance, Coinbase and Ripple.

eToro, a leading multi-asset investment platform, has announced that four new cryptocurrencies are now available in its offerings for digital asset traders. According to a press release, the total number of cryptoassets in the company is 23, and 20 for US-based clients. Aave (AAVE), Compound (COMP), Yearn.Finance (YFI) and Decentraland (MANA) are the latest additions of eToro. Both YFI and MANA, which are among the biggest decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrencies available in terms of market cap, have market capitalizations of $2.1 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively. On the other hand, AAVE holds a market cap of over $5.3 billion, and COMP’s market cap stands at $4 billion as of press time. Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen! “eToro’s plan this year is to expand our range of investments, so users have as wide a range of choices as possible available to them and the opportunity to diversify their portfolios across a wide range of use cases. With the addition of these four tokens, we are continuing on that journey, and we expect to add more tokens later this year,” Doron Rosenblum, VP of Business Solutions at eToro, said in the announcement. Suggested articles Earn Passive Income with Nhash Cloud Mining ServicesGo to article >> Adding an NFT-Friendly Coin MANA’s addition to eToro comes in hand with the non-fungible token (NFT) boom across the industry, as the token is based on an Ethereum-powered protocol that is widely used for trading NFTs. Also, the crypto asset had been on other use cases, such as a coin for buying digital real estate. “As always, we urge investors to do their research. Just as each stock has a business case, each crypto has a whitepaper that details its use case. Be cautious and remember the basic tenets of investing; diversify and only invest in markets and instruments with which you are familiar,” Rosenblum warned. Founded in 2006, the Israeli trading company, also known for being a social investment, announced the official launch of BitcoinWorldWide recently, a stocks portfolio based on companies that create value in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Such portfolio is expected to have some exposure to Bitcoin, said eToro.

The Guardia di Finanza located Milan and took two transmissions IPTV (IPTV) is illegal and is located in Switzerland Sicily It is run by 22 Italians and Swiss, all of whom are under investigation. The accusation is a conspiracy exacerbated by cross-nationalities: the activity is the sale and distribution of encrypted audio / video streams to nearly 900 retailers (distributorWhich in turn made them available to clients. For about 900 distributor Those identified will result in a fine ranging from 2,582 euros to 25,822 euros and more 2000 end-users from customers located throughout the national territory, there will be a fine of 1032 euros. The Financial Affairs Department, in cooperation with the Cantonal Police and with the coordination of the General Prosecutor’s Office in Rome, conducted searches In Switzerland, Lombardy, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily It confiscated the payment tools used to collect the proceeds of illegal IPTV subscriptions, estimated at around one million euros. Illegal dispatch centers, located in Switzerland and Messina Customers, upon paying a monthly fee of between 10 and 15 euros, were allowed to view the contents illegally.PiratesFrom the major pay TV platforms (including sky) Including on-demand programs, live sporting events, films and entertainment shows, all protected by copyright with an estimated damage to operators in this sector, of not less than 130 million euros.

The European Parliament wants the EU commission to take action to protect online-streamed sporting events from online piracy. Illegal streaming is a growing phenomenon that threatens the business model of online-streamed events and exposes end-users to malware and data theft. In an own initiative report presented by ECR rapporteur Angel Dzhambazki, MEPs are calling for concrete measures that are specific to live sports event broadcasts. Speaking after the adoption, Mr Dzhambazki said: “The main problem for the sports events organisers is the online piracy related to the events, which are live-streamed and whose economic value consists of the live broadcasting. Usually, the problem with current enforcement measures is that enforcement takes place too late: measures, such as notification, removal mechanisms and injunctions take a relatively long time, and the actual removal or blocking of access to content comes too late. “It is important to stress that the liability for the illegal broadcasting of sports events rests with the providers of streams and platforms and not with fans and consumers, who often unintentionally come across illegal online content and should be further informed on the legal options available.” To date, EU law does not provide for a specific right for sports events organisers.

The fight against piracy is hotter than ever. Last week we learned that operators will be able to close the clones of blocked pirate websites more quickly than at present, since there would be a list that will be updated every week to close the websites. Now, it is the EU itself that wants to end pirate IPTV streaming , closing links in a matter of minutes . In the EU there are already many laws against piracy, such as the Directive on copyright in the digital single market or the Law on Digital Services. These laws are intended to provide a legal framework that allows responding more quickly to copyright infringements. However, current laws and tools do not fight fast enough against the illegal broadcast of live sports. Less than 30 minutes to block a live link For this reason, between today and tomorrow a draft report will be processed " on the challenges for organizers of sporting events in the digital environment ", which goes a step further to try to end pirate streamings , which are rampant throughout the world. the network despite the fact that there are more and more closures. Therefore, the proposal wants online services to remove content that infringes copyright within minutes after these events start. This duration should not exceed 30 minutes from the start of the event . This 30-minute figure is, for some, too lax, and they want systems to be implemented that allow blocking links in real time , similar to a similar system that is already beginning to be used in the United Kingdom, provided there is judicial approval. . With this, it seeks to make viewing content through pirated links so complicated that users end up opting for legal options. Withdrawal requests would be sent almost automatically to hosting providers, with a withdrawal procedure ensuring that there are no doubts as to the ownership of the right and the fact that the transmission was not authorized. The Pirate Party has already requested several amendments Members of the Pirate Party in the European Parliament have warned of the danger posed by laws like this, which they claim appear to be drawn up by copyright protection lobbies, and that they violate the basic rights of Internet users. In addition, they warn that a time of less than 30 minutes would be more demanding than that required when removing terrorist content. To guarantee closings in a matter of hours, it is necessary to have an automated system, or a group of specialized people 24 hours a day. In either case, more content than necessary will be blocked without being reviewed by a platform or a judge, such as anyone who can broadcast on Twitch or YouTube that the system detects may be infringing copyright. For this reason, the Pirate Party has already proposed amendments to the law, and we will see what is decided soon.

The Indonesian government has blocked access inside its borders to Raid Forums, a well-known cybercrime hub, in an attempt to limit the spread of a sensitive data leak. The ban, which the government wants internet service providers to implement, comes after a threat actor claimed in a Raid Forums post on May 12 to be in possession and selling the personal data of 279 million Indonesians. The threat actor, an individual known as Kotz, leaked a sample of one million citizens’ details to prove their claims. The leaked data included citizen names, national ID numbers, tax registration information, mobile phone numbers, and for some citizens also came with headshots and salary-related information. Albeit the data was deemed to contain some outdated information, along with the details of deceased persons (hence the total number of 279 million being larger than Indonesia’s current census of 273 million citizens), local Indonesian reporters found the data to be authentic. The Indonesian government confirmed the leak’s authenticity last week in a press release from the Communications and Information Ministry (Kominfo). The agency confirmed that a random check of the one million sample found authentic data and started an investigation together with the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN) and the Social Security Administrator for Health (BPJS). Officials appear to believe the data might have originated from the BPJS, but this has yet to be confirmed. In the meantime, the government ordered ISPs to block access to the Raid Forums site, but also to bayfiles.com, mega.nz, and anonfiles.com URLs where the sample data was hosted and offered for download. Nonetheless, the decision to ban access to the site and the download links was widely ridiculed last week, as the government’s DNS-based blocklist can be easily circumvented with something as simple as a proxy or VPN application. Meanwhile, the forum post advertising the Indonesian citizen database was deleted last week, shortly after the government’s ban. It is unclear if the topic was deleted by Kotz or the forum’s administrators. But while Jakarta officials appear to have confirmed the leak, rumors and clues of a massive Indonesian government hack have been circulating since earl 2020. At the time, another threat actor leaked the details of 2.3 million Indonesian voters and similarly claimed to be in possession of a database containing the personal records of more than 200 million Indonesians. The General Election Commission (KPU) confirmed the authenticity of the 2.3 million sample, which it traced back to 2013, but did not confirm the larger breach.

French authorities have dismantled their third dark web marketplace over the last four years after they seized control of “Le Monde Parallèle” (The Parallel World) last week. Active since early 2020, the site was taken down in an operation coordinated by the French National Directorate of Intelligence and Customs Investigations. “The two site administrators were arrested and LMP’s activities were disrupted,” officials said in a press release last week. LMP, as it was most commonly known, operated as both a discussion forum and marketplace for French-speaking criminal groups. According to French investigators, threat actors used the site to sell carding data, narcotics, forged documents, and weapons. In addition, the site also operated as a support forum and training ground for new criminal groups, allowing individuals to find partners for various criminal endeavors across France and Europe. The site rose to prominence last year after French authorities seized two other dark web marketplaces aimed at French-speaking users—Black Hand in 2018 and the French Deep Web Market in 2019. The two takedowns opened the door for LMP’s growth, and the site had thousands of users before being shut down. Currently, the site’s domain is showing a classic police seizure banner. Just like in all previous dark web marketplace takedowns, French authorities are expected to comb through the seized data and bring additional charges against the site’s users.

Russia has implemented a novel censorship method in an ongoing effort to silence Twitter. Instead of outright blocking the social media site, the country is using previously unseen techniques to slow traffic to a crawl and make the site all but unusable for people inside the country. Research published Tuesday says that the throttling slows traffic traveling between Twitter and Russia-based end users to a paltry 128kbps. Whereas past Internet censorship techniques used by Russia and other nation-states have relied on outright blocking, slowing traffic passing to and from a widely used Internet service is a relatively new technique that provides benefits for the censoring party. Enter your email to get the Ars Technica newsletter Join Ars Technica and Get Our Best Tech Stories DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX. SIGN ME UP Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy Easy to implement, hard to circumvent “Contrary to blocking, where access to the content is blocked, throttling aims to degrade the quality of service, making it nearly impossible for users to distinguish imposed/intentional throttling from nuanced reasons such as high server load or a network congestion,” researchers with Censored Planet, a censorship measurement platform that collects data in more than 200 countries, wrote in a report. “With the prevalence of ‘dual-use’ technologies such as Deep Packet Inspection devices (DPIs), throttling is straightforward for authorities to implement yet hard for users to attribute or circumvent.” The throttling began on March 10, as documented in tweets here and here from Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Internet measurement firm Kentik. In an attempt to slow traffic destined to or originating from Twitter, Madory found, Russian regulators targeted t.co, the domain used to host all content shared on the site. In the process, all domains that had the string *t.co* in it (for example, Microsoft.com or reddit.com) were throttled, too. That move led to widespread Internet problems because it rendered affected domains as effectively unusable. The throttling also consumed the memory and CPU resources of affected servers because it required them to maintain connections for much longer than normal. Roskomnadzor—Russia's executive body that regulates mass communications in the country—has said last month that it was throttling Twitter for failing to remove content involving child pornography, drugs, and suicide. It went on to say that the slowdown affected the delivery of audio, video, and graphics, but not Twitter itself. Critics of government censorship, however, say Russia is misrepresenting its reasons for curbing Twitter availability. Twitter declined to comment for this post. Are Tor and VPNs affected? Maybe Tuesday’s report says that the throttling is carried out by a large fleet of “middleboxes” that Russian ISPs install as close to the customer as possible. This hardware, Censored Planet researcher Leonid Evdokimov told me, is typically a server with a 10Gbps network interface card and custom software. A central Russian authority feeds the boxes instructions for what domains to throttle. FURTHER READING A Russian ISP confirms Roskomnadzor’s Twitter-blocking blooper The middleboxes inspect both requests sent by Russian end users as well as responses that Twitter returns. That means that the new technique may have capabilities not found in older Internet censorship regimens, such as filtering of connections using VPNs, Tor, and censorship-circumvention apps. Ars previously wrote about the servers here. The middleboxes use deep packet inspection to extract information, including the SNI. Short for “server name identification,” the SNI is the domain name of the HTTPS website that is sent in plaintext during a normal Internet transaction. Russian censors use the plaintext for more granular blocking and throttling of websites. Blocking by IP address, by contrast, can have unintended consequences because it often blocks content the censor wants to keep in place. One countermeasure for circumventing the throttling is the use of ECH, or Encrypted ClientHello. An update for the Transport Layer Security protocol, ECH prevents blocking or throttling by domains so that censors have to resort to IP-level blocking. Anti-censorship activists say this leads to what they call “collateral freedom” because the risk of blocking essential services often leaves the censor unwilling to accept the collateral damage resulting from blunt blocking by IP address. In all, Tuesday’s report lists seven countermeasures: TLS ClientHello segmentation/fragmentation (implemented in GoodbyeDPI and zapret) TLS ClientHello inflation with padding extension to make it bigger than 1 packet (1500+ bytes) Prepending real packets with a fake, scrambled packet of at least 101 bytes Prepending client hello records with other TLS records, such as change cipher spec Keeping the connection in idle and waiting for the throttler to drop the state Adding a trailing dot to the SNI Any encrypted tunnel/proxy/VPN It’s possible that some of the countermeasures could be enabled by anti-censorship software such as GoodbyeDPI, Psiphon, or Lantern. The limitation, however, is that the countermeasures exploit bugs in Russia's current throttling implementation. That means the ongoing tug of war between censors and anti-censorship advocates may turn out to be protracted.

Millions of film fans hoping to settle down for a night of free entertainment are set to be sorely disappointed. That's because one of the world's most popular movie streaming sites has just been shut down for good. 123movies.la has been in operation since 2017 and in just four years has become a huge success with around 30 million people heading to the site each and every month. RELATED ARTICLES Making this one change will boost your broadband speeds (for free) Samsung issues urgent warning to Galaxy owners - check for this update That's hardly a surprise considering that the platform was offering numerous blockbuster movies without anyone needing to sign up for a premium and expensive subscription plan. It even featured an easy way to filter films by genre, actor and box office collection. With such a huge user base, this free way to stream Hollywood films hasn't gone unnoticed with The Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) finally managing to track the owners and down and close the website. ACE is backed by some of the world's biggest film studios and media companies which include, Amazon, Fox, Netflix, MGM, HBO, Sky, Paramount and Disney. ACE says that further to cease-and-desist communication and a settlement with the operator, the popular streaming website has shut down and the domain has been transferred to ACE. READ MORE: Meet the new Dyson vacuum rival …designed by a team of ex-Dyson engineers Google TV: Brand new streaming platform introduced in preview Volume 0% READ MORE Virgin Media has an issue but 'improvements' are on their way That means those trying to access the catalogue of content will now see an ACE logo followed by a countdown clock that redirects them to its own portal. “It is a testament to the relentless work of our global ACE team that we were able to shut down 123movies.la, one of the largest piracy operations in the world,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association. “This action encapsulates ACE’s mission and is a strong example of how we fight to protect the creative marketplace in every corner of the globe.” ACE has put this block on 123movies.la as it continues to fight back against online piracy. TRENDING These apps destroy your smartphone battery life, so you should probably delete them Millions get cheap BT broadband next week but there is something even cheaper Currys just slashed prices on iPhone 12, 4K TVs, Dyson vacuums and more "The theft of online content is the single greatest threat to the global audiovisual community, harming both local and foreign films and businesses, threatening jobs, undermining investment, reducing tax contributions to governments, and stifling creativity," the firm said in a post on its site. "ACE will continue its efforts around the world to protect the rights of its members." This latest block comes as a number of UK Internet Service Providers were recently forced to ban a number of websites in the UK. ISPs such as Virgin Media and Sky are now stopping customers from accessing platforms including www9.0123movies.com, w5.123movie.cc., 123moviesfun.is and wvw1.123movies.net. Sky and Virgin Media are acting on a new ruling from the High Court which has asked Internet Service Providers to block users from visiting some sites. The request came from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) who are trying to stop premium content from being viewed for free. The MPA represents five of the biggest Hollywood studios, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Universal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, as well as Netflix.

Bitcoin climbed back above $40,000 on Wednesday for the first time this week, as recent volatility in the cryptocurrency market showed few signs of dampening down. Bitcoin jumped as much as 6.5% to $40,904. Smaller coins, which tend to rise and fall with the largest cryptocurrency, also gained, with ether climbing over 7.5% to over $2,906. Still, bitcoin is down 30% this month, and has lost over 37% from its record high of almost $65,000 hit in April. It has gained over 40% this year, however. Among the drivers of bitcoin's recent slump have been fears of a crackdown in China on the emerging sector, as well as concerns over the environmental impact of bitcoin production, an energy-intensive process known as mining. Bitcoin plumbed $30,066 last week, its lowest since January, in highly volatile trading. China's northern region of Inner Mongolia escalated a campaign against cryptocurrency mining on Tuesday, publishing draft rules to root out the business, days after Beijing vowed to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading.

Allianz's chief economic adviser Mohamed A El-Erian expects the volatility in cryptocurrencies to continue despite the recent crash that wiped off more than $1 trillion in global crypto market capitalisation from peak to trough. "I think the volatility will continue," El-Erian said in an interview to CNBC. "The roller coaster, the up and down. We’ve traded in the 30,000 to 44,000 price range in a week, that’s enormous." On being asked whether he sees regulation in cryptocurrencies as a boon or a bane, the economist said it would be a negative for the decentralised digital assets as the governments were worried about illicit payments. He added that governments had realised that they should be "in this game", citing China which recently banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions. "I think China is trying to make room for centralised digital currency, so you have to crowd out the private sector decentralised one and that is what they are trying to do," said El-Erian "So, I don't think the regulatory approach is going to be a facilitator of higher prices." RELATED STORIES Stay away from Bitcoin, says JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon - here is why Top cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, dogecoin, ethereum and more DubaiCoin cryptocurrency 'never approved', website promoting it is 'elaborate phishing campaign': Du... This is not the first time El-Erian has voiced concerns over regulatory intervention in cryptos. In February, he said the official sector was the biggest threat to bitcoin and the difference of opinion between the private and the official sector could lead to an "accident" in the digital token. Bitcoin climbed back above $40,000 on May 26 for the first time this week. The premier cryptocurrency jumped as much as 6.5 percent to $40,904. Smaller coins, which tend to rise and fall with the largest cryptocurrency, also gained, with ether climbing over 7.5 percent to over $2,906. Read: Top cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum Still, bitcoin is down 30 percent this month and has lost over 37 percent from its record high of around $65,000 hit in April. However, on a year-to-date basis, it is still up 40 percent.

Bitcoin on May 26 breached $40,000 mark in the crytpotrading, after slipping to $36,836.70 in past 24 hours, according to cryptocurrency platform coindesk.com. The most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, comprising about 43 percent of the global crypto market capitalisation, was trading at $40,162.32, with a 8.47 percent rise and its market capitalisation stood at $752.05 billion until the report was filed. Top cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum Among the other cryptocoins, which saw was Ether -- built on open source Ethereum blockchain -- reached to a maximum value of $2,914.89 during the trading time. However, its lowest value was recorded at $2,434.86 in past 24 hours. Currently, the cryptocoin is being priced at $2,855.18 with a 16.24 percent rise and its market capitalisation stood at $331.27 billion. Emerged as joke in 2013, the Dogecoin was once trading its highest at $0.367165 and its lowest value was recorded at $0.333310. At the time of filing the report, the coin -- created by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus to satirize the growth of altcoins by making the doge internet meme into a cryptocurrency -- was being traded at $0.355322 with a rise by 5.10 percent and its its market capitalisation reached to $45.92 billion.

Gaining prominence rapidly, cryptocurrency is becoming one of the most popular digital assets and trading spaces. It is impossible to shy away from crypto-mania, which is already a trillion-dollar industry globally. While there is abundant information out there, having all of it from a reputed source and in a manner that is easy to find and track, is critical. As India’s leading business and finance platform, Moneycontrol, has understood that cryptocurrency needs to be tracked, analysed for better use and trading. With this driving objective, Moneycontrol joins hands with WazirX, the country’s largest Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange. WazirX is also backed by Binance, the world’s biggest bitcoin exchange and altcoin crypto exchange in the world by volume, and this association will help users keep track of the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies by listing it on their platform/website. With the launch scheduled in the next few months, the partnership will see them coming together in a product integration that will list all tokens on Moneycontrol website and app through an API powered by WazirX. It will allow users to track the movements of the cryptocurrency by visiting Moneycontrol and accessing each token from multiple touchpoints. With cryptocurrency’s popularity surging Moneycontrol will also curate a section called 'Cryptocontrol' which will be a one-stop destination for all the latest news and developments on cryptocurrencies and its related technology. Sharing his thoughts, Mitul Sangani, COO, General News (Digital) at Network18 Media & Investments Limited, said, “Taking into account all the speculations and confusion revolving around cryptocurrencies, we see investors struggle to understand its working and investment process. We have bridged this gap by curating a section called 'Cryptocontrol' that will burst all the myths and perplexity around it as well as share the most relevant news about the same. By partnering with WazirX, one of the most reputed names in the crypto space, we look towards spreading awareness and providing clarity to our audience by helping them to track cryptocurrencies effortlessly and make informed decisions.” Nischal Shetty, Founder, WazirX, said, “At WazirX, our mission is to make crypto accessible to everyone in India. With crypto slowly going mainstream in India, our association with Moneycontrol for Cryptocontrol aims to bring value to our crypto enthusiasts and potential investors. The key objective of this is to enable more users to access credible insights, bust the misconception that exists around cryptos and help Indians make informed decisions before investing in Crypto. We’re always looking to partner with credible institutional and industry thought-leaders like Moneycontrol to meaningfully engage with our expanding crypto community. We hope to achieve the goal through Cryptocontrol.”

PayPal Holdings Inc said it plans to allow users to withdraw cryptocurrency to third party wallets. The San Jose, California-based company, which opened its platform to digital currencies last October, at present does not let users move cryptocurrency holdings off its platform. The news was earlier reported by Coindesk, citing comments from Jose Fernandez da Ponte, who leads PayPal's blockchain, crypto and digital currencies business unit.

Gensler also signalled tight regulatory norms in private equity adding that he has directed his staff to review the current regulatory disclosures and asked for recommendations for enhanced reporting and disclosure and other possible reforms. [Image: Shutterstock] The newly appointed Securities and Exchange chief Gary Gensler has pointed towards tougher regulations for the two most popular asset classes - Cryptocurrency and Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC). Appearing for the first time in front of the House Appropriations Committee subcommittee oversight hearing on May 26 with lawmakers Gensler said that SPACs and cryptocurrencies had significant policy and investor protection issues. The SEC chairman referred to SPACs as shell companies pointing out that 300 "blank-check IPOs" have been completed in 2021 so far as compared to only 13 in 2016. "Beyond the real demands on SEC resources, the surge of SPACs raises a number of policy questions," said Gensler. "First and foremost, are SPAC investors being appropriately protected? Are retail investors getting the appropriate and accurate information they need at each stage -- the first blank-check IPO stage and the second target IPO stage? Second, how do SPACs fit into our mission to maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets? It could be the case that SPACs are less efficient than traditional IPOs." Speaking on the 'highly volatile and speculative asset class', Gensler noted the significant growth in the valuation of such assets in the last five years. He added that the commission has been consistent in its communication to market participants that those who use initial coin offerings to raise capital or to engage in securities transactions must comply with the federal securities laws. RELATED STORIES Top cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, dogecoin, ethereum and more DubaiCoin cryptocurrency 'never approved', website promoting it is 'elaborate phishing campaign': Du... Hong Kong media relies on blockchain to secure 2019 pro-democracy protest archives "Tokens currently on the market that are securities may be offered, sold, and traded in non-compliance with the federal securities laws," he noted adding that none of the cryptocurrency exchanges has registered with the SEC, posing a substantial risk to investors as compared to traditional securities markets, and to correspondingly greater opportunities for fraud and manipulation. He further added that the SEC has prioritised "token-related cases" involving fraud or other significant harm to investors. Gensler also signalled tight regulatory norms in private equity adding that he has directed his staff to review the current regulatory disclosures and asked for recommendations for enhanced reporting and disclosure and other possible reforms.

The DubaiCoin cryptocurrency was "never approved" as the official digital currency, the Dubai government clarified on May 28. The website promoting Dubaicoin is an "elaborative phishing scam", an official statement said. The clarification from the Dubai government comes in the backdrop of DubaiCoin soaring by 1,000 percent in its value, owing to a fake press release - published on the PR Newswire on May 24 - which described it as "the de-facto digital currency" of the city. "Dubai Coin cryptocurrency was never approved by any official authority. The website promoting the coin is an elaborate phishing campaign that is designed to steal personal information from its visitors," the Dubai Media Office - the official media arm of the government - tweeted. The fake press release, which has now been unpublished by the PR Newswire, was issued in the name of Arabian Chain Technology - which is considered to be a legit blockchain firm based in Dubai. The company promotes its own virtual currency named DubaiCoin (DBIX). The fake press release went on to maliciously claim that the Dubai government is making Dubaicoin "its own digital currency", and added that the virtual currency could be bought online via "dub-pay.com" for $0.17 per coin. RELATED STORIES Top cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, dogecoin, ethereum and more Hong Kong media relies on blockchain to secure 2019 pro-democracy protest archives On May 26, Arabian Chain Technology attempted to disassociate itself from the controversy by confirming that it had not released the press release. "We haven't made such an announcement, please be cautious. Also this website : http://dub-pay.com/en/ is fake and scam. Please be careful," it had tweeted. The above website, which has now turned inaccessible, asked the visitors who were interested in buying DubaiCoin through their platform to submit a form that asked for their name, phone numbers, address and email. After filling the form, the website stated that an agent would call and change their money to Dubaicoin, shows the archived version of the portal.

A French court sent Alexander Vinnik, 41, a Russian national, sent him to jail. The prosecutors, however, failed to prove that the BTC-e founder was directly involved in the creation and distribution of Locky, a ransomware that was active in 2016 and 2017, reports ZDNet. The US authorities had said earlier that Vinnik operated BTC-e as a front company for a money-laundering operation, knowingly receiving funds from hacks and other forms of cybercrime. "Mr Vinnik, the court acquitted you of the offenses relating to the cyber-attacks linked to Locky, as well as the offenses of extortion and association to criminal activities, but finds you guilty of organized money laundering," the French judge said. He was arrested in July 2017 while vacationing in a summer resort in northern Greece. As soon as Vinnik`s arrest became public, Russian authorities also filed an extradition request of their own, claiming that Vinnik was also a suspect in an investigation in Russia in relation to a 2013 fraud charge.